Sunday Mornings with the NYT
Kate Bowler on Life and Death
For the third week in a row, I’m sitting at home skipping in-person church and reading an essay by a Christian in the opinion section of the New York Times. To be clear, it’s been many more weeks in a row that I’ve skipped in-person church. That practice that used to be a regular and uncontested part of my life — like a weekly version of the sun coming up each day — has passed into a strange and distant memory. I long for genuine community with people who worship together and see the world in similar ways. But if I’m honest, I’ve struggled most of my adult life in that respect. (Another day I’ll write about that wandering.) The transition to not attending church was easier than I would have predicted.
Don’t get me wrong. I have not abandoned my Christian faith. I’ve simply not been going to church since the pandemic started. That regular Sunday morning activity has been replaced with other things — some of which are conducive to a life of faith, some maybe not so much. On the latter count, my wife and I usually watch the Formula One races on Sunday mornings (yes, she does so willingly and with interest); on the former, we listen to various religious-themed podcasts, we go on long walks, and we read the New York Times.
I mean no sacrilege by suggesting that the NYT has taken the place of the proper Sunday morning reading material — the Bible. I still read it, and study it, and am marveled by it (and if I’m honest, sometimes frustrated by it). But there was a point during the previous administration when we were compelled to support rigorous journalism and started subscribing to the NYT. And now I very much look forward to looking out on the doorstep on Sunday mornings to find the newspaper delivered in its package, brewing a pot of coffee, and glancing through the sections. I’ll typically read parts of articles in most sections, but more thoroughly take in the lead articles in the front page section (does that section have a name?), the Book Review section, and the Sunday Review (the op-ed section on Sundays).
Today I went to the Sunday Review section first, because the last two Sundays I found an interesting article by a Christian that I ended up writing about. What are the odds for a hat trick in that regard? So I pulled it out first, and started flipping through to read the title, pull quote, and byline of each editorial. There’s one on college loans and why they should be eliminated (a few years late for me to benefit from personally). There’s an editorial on why we need more National Parks, and one on why pets are good for your mental health; I can probably get onboard both of those. The second-to-last page has an editorial about the United States becoming a more secular country; it’s drawn from a book I know, The Rise of the Nones, so I figure this is it, this is what I’ll write about. It has pretty big implications for religion and for my professional work; I’m sure it will make me think of something interesting I can write about.
But then just to finish my exercise, I flip over to the last page and I see “Why I’m Not Making a Bucket List” by Kate Bowler. Oh wow. She’s a professor at Duke Divinity School, and I’ve actually met her. And I know this is going to be gut-wrenching. And I know it is what I’m going to write about today.
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I met Bowler (I don’t really know her and don’t want to give the impression I do by just calling her “Kate”) at an event sponsored by BioLogos several years ago. We funded the “Faith Angle Forum” from a big grant we got to encourage different groups to explore science and religion. A guy named Michael Cromartie led this group to give reporters a better understanding of religion (most of them not being very religious themselves), and they did a few sessions on science and religion. I attended one of these in a nice hotel on Miami Beach, and Kate Bowler was one of the speakers that came to speak to the group of reporters.
She had recently published a book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, for which she did extensive research into the Christian communities who believe that God blesses the faithful by giving them lots of money and by healing all their sickness. This is really interesting in and of itself. But then in the middle of meeting with these “name it and claim it” Christians, Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I’m guessing that tends to affect the (supposedly) detached and objective viewpoint we academics believe we bring to our research.
I’ve been following Bowler on Twitter and have seen that the search for more effective treatments continues, which is never a good sign about the efficacy of current treatments. And then seeing the title of this piece made my heart sink. I don’t have any inside information on her health or current life expectancy, but from where I stand, it doesn’t look good. Of course it doesn’t look good for any of us in the bigger picture: we’re all going to die of something. A positive health report now only masks and delays the inevitable. But I’d guess that if given the option, Bowler would prefer to mask and delay the inevitable.
Her article is adapted from a new book (which I’ll be reading) called No Cure For Being Human, and it tells why she’s not going to follow the advice of the mental health workers at the cancer clinic to make a list of the things she might still do before dying. “It’s much easier to count items,” she notes, “than to know what counts.” Or in a longer explanation:
“The problem with aspirational lists, of course, is that they often skip the point entirely. Instead of helping us grapple with our finitude, they approximate infinity. They imply that with unlimited time and resources, we can do anything, be anyone. We can become more adventurous by jumping out of airplanes, more traveled by visiting every continent, or more cultured by reading the most famous books of all time. With the right list, we will never starve with the hunger of want.”
I’ve never made a bucket list for myself. I certainly have aspirations, and there have been times when I feared my life might not be meaningful, might not really count, if I didn’t accomplish a few of the things I thought were important. The older I get, though, the less I’m worried about such things. I know too many academics who are so caught up on gerbil wheel of producing (seemingly) important things, that they miss out on life. I know too many people at organizations with (seemingly) important missions that they think justifies their mistreatment of (actually important) people who get in the way. Yes, there are important things and important missions (like the things I produce and my organization’s mission!). But not nearly as many as people think.
I declined writing an article for an academic journal this week. I prefer this kind of writing instead. I could put in more hours for my job on evenings and weekends that would probably help in advancing our mission and my career. But I’d rather play disc golf, and read fantasy novels, and spend time with my wife and kids and grandson.
Kate Bowler reminds me that it is a privilege to grow older and get to take this perspective on life. Thanks to her for bearing witness to that on a Sunday morning in the New York Times. Now it’s time for the Formula One race.