The Meanings of Death

Description

In The Meanings of Death, John Bowker offers a major contribution to debates about the value of death and its place in both Western and Eastern religions. Examining the themes of friendship and sacrifice in the world's major religions, Bowker argues that there are points of vital contact with secular understandings of death, and that religious and secular attitudes can support and reinforce one another. An affirmative recovery of the value of death is important in our response to bereavement, and in the treatment of the terminally ill. By indicating how value can be maintained at the limit of life, without a search for illusory compensation in an afterlife beyond it, Bowker enriches our experience and understanding of the 'final question' in a way which is always sensitive and often moving.

'John Bowker's magnificent new book struggles with the greatest question there is ... it is scholarship tinged with fire; it is theology and testimony.' Church Times 'Bowker's reasoned voice is essential to the present debate over death, whether or not one agrees with him that the religions that have nurtured life and eased the way toward death for centuries can now be reconciled with the sciences, and that religion and science can reinforce each other in a human attitude to death.' Chicago Tribune 'This is a very thought-provoking book which covers a vast range of data. It will become a set text for students on the Lampeter MA on Death and Immortality, for it is a mine of information and insight.' Paul Badham, University of Wales, Lampeter