christianitytoday.com: Resurrecting the Public Death - Tammy Faye reminded us how to die
Hoodude
Speaking Out
Resurrecting the Public Death
Tammy Faye reminded us how to die.
Rob Moll | posted 7/27/2007 08:53AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/130-52.0.html
I paid little attention to Tammy Faye Bakker during her PTL days. But
I gave her close scrutiny the day before she died, when she appeared
on Larry King Live. Her eyes, which formerly sparkled with an
indomitable spirit, had faded. Tammy Faye's mascara, her trademark
even when it ran with tears down her cheeks, foreshadowed her decay.
Tammy Faye's skin hung off her cheekbones.
I saw defiance and a Christlike countercultural challenge behind her
eyelashes. She lived publicly, and she died publicly. Tammy Faye was
unafraid to show us the ravages of cancer and remind us of the decay
that was brought into the world through sin. Tammy Faye reminded us
that dignity comes from the character we display in the circumstances
God allows for us, whether withered by cancer or in the peak of health.
After her televised farewell, how she died became as much a part of
her story as her PTL days. I was proud to call her a sister in Christ.
Only a century ago, public deaths like Tammy Faye's were common. "In
the early 20th century, it was not always easy to defend the bedroom
of the dying from awkward expressions of sympathy, indiscreet
curiosity, and all the other persistent manifestations of the idea of
the public death," writes Philippe Aries in The Hour of Death, a
survey of Western attitudes toward death over the last thousand years.
But by the second half of the 20th century, Aries writes, our culture
had become horrified by death. Instead of residing in the home, where
the most basic fact of human life could be openly acknowledged, death
was transferred to the hospital, where only professionals and close
family members needed to witness the indignity of terminal disease.
Lutheran novelist Walter Wangerin, who faces the cancerous rebellion
of his own cells, complains that obituary writers declare "that
so-and-so died 'after a long battle with cancer.' … Are folks with
cancer good fighters if they win? Bad fighters, failing knights, if
they lose?"
"Why not use the imagery that acknowledges how one experiences dying?"
Wangerin writes. "How one behaves in the face of death [and] what one
has to offer those who stand by in love and relationship?"
The language of battle, which suggests potential victory, masks the
true nature of death, which comes to us all. The language of death as
a battle fails us another way, as well. It turns dying into a solitary
event, a kind of cage match between a person and a disease. Nearly 400
years ago, one of the English language's greatest poets taught us how
untrue that notion is.
A 'Dying Face'
"No man is an island," wrote John Donne, "every man is a piece of the
continent. … Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in
mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee."
Donne wrote these words from his bed as he lay racked by spotted
fever. Church bells announced death after death as the epidemic tore
through London. Yet Donne survived. He lived and preached and wrote,
even as plague came and went and he grew steadily feebler.
Donne remained true to those words years later when his own death
neared. As a final work, he edited and prepared for publication a huge
collection of his sermons. Donne then traveled to London to preach
before king and court. Donne, who had frequently been ill, terrified
his audience. "When to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in
the pulpit," wrote his friend and biographer Isaak Walton, "many of
them thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by a
living voice but mortality by a decayed body and a dying face."
As dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral, Donne was a public figure, his
death a public event. In his sermon to the king, later called Death's
Duel, Donne said, "Though from the womb to the grave, and in the grave
itself, we pass from death to death, yet, as Daniel speaks, the Lord
our God is able to deliver us, and he will deliver us." Walton wrote
of the sermon, "Many that then saw his tears and heard his faint and
hollow voice [professed] they thought the text prophetically chosen
and that Dr. Donne had preached his own funeral sermon."
Tammy Faye adapted that tradition of the public death for the
edification of us all. Like Donne, she preached mortality by "a dying
face." And she offered the hope of every Christian: "I believe when I
leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I am going straight to
heaven." "Are you still a little scared?" King asked. "For myself,"
Tammy Faye said, "I know where I'm headed."
Rob Moll is a CT associate editor. He is writing a book on the art of
dying.
[The following items include links as presented upon the webpage]
Related Elsewhere:
Related articles and links
Highlights from Tammy Faye's last interview with Larry King are
available online.
Christianity Today staff spoke with other evangelical leaders about
Tammy Faye's role in evangelicalism.
David Neff blogged about "singing Tammy Faye's song."
Weblog links to many of the eulogies written about her.
TammyFaye.com and the website of The Eyes of Tammy Faye (CT's review)
have more information on her life.
Other Christianity Today articles on death and dying are in our
special section.
--
A Las Vegas "8" is a Cincinnati "11"
~~ Artie Lange
Vandelack
> Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2007
>
> Speaking Out
>
> Resurrecting the Public Death
>
> Tammy Faye reminded us how to die.
>
We should all go on "The Larry King Show" during our last 48 hours on
this earth?
Hoodude
> We should all go on "The Larry King Show" during our last 48 hours on
> this earth?
For some folks, that may be a fate far worse than death. So, if one
can handle that, dying would be a cake-walk.
Christopher
"Hoodude" <hoo...@newnorth.net> wrote in message
news:46AB7A2B...@newnorth.net...
> Vandelack said the following on 7/28/2007 8:21 AM:
>
>> We should all go on "The Larry King Show" during our last 48 hours on
>> this earth?
>
> For some folks, that may be a fate far worse than death. So, if one can
> handle that, dying would be a cake-walk.
>
Christopher
> Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2007
>
> Speaking Out
>
> Resurrecting the Public Death
>
> Tammy Faye reminded us how to die.
>
> Rob Moll | posted 7/27/2007 08:53AM
> http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/130-52.0.html
>
> edification of us all. Like Donne, she preached mortality by "a dying
> face." And she offered the hope of every Christian: "I believe when I
> leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I am going straight to heaven."
> "Are you still a little scared?" King asked. "For myself," Tammy Faye
> said, "I know where I'm headed."
>
> Rob Moll is a CT associate editor. He is writing a book on the art of
> dying.
>
I don't think even Fellini would have tried to say Tammy Faye and John Donne
were soul mates.
Xopher
Charlene
> "Hoodude" <hood...@newnorth.net> wrote in message
I can't stop laughing at this. It's so true!
wd43
Charlene
> Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2007
>
> Speaking Out
>
> Resurrecting the Public Death
>
> Tammy Faye reminded us how to die.
We need to be reminded?
wd43
The Kentucky Wizard
consultations with my Joint Chiefs of Staff, being briefed by members of my
Cabinet and many telephone conversations with various World Leaders, I have
come to the following conclusions:
> Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2007
>
> Speaking Out
>
> Resurrecting the Public Death
>
> Tammy Faye reminded us how to die.
>
HUH?
I don't need to be reminded, I know how to die. I only have to do it once,
and I'm not in any hurry to try it out either.
--
Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and
beat you with experience.
© The Wiz ®
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