{"id":141110,"date":"2025-11-06T17:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=141110"},"modified":"2025-11-06T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:45:10","slug":"church-times-daniel-sandham-christians-should-reclaim-the-language-of-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=141110","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Daniel Sandham&#8211;Christians should reclaim the language of dying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>People used to die. Now, it seems, they\u00a0<em>pass away<\/em>. Or \u2014 say it quickly and quietly enough no one will even notice \u2014 they just\u00a0<em>pass.<\/em>\u00a0Media outlets report the\u00a0<em>passing\u00a0<\/em>of someone famous. Undertakers now refer to the deceased as having\u00a0<em>passed away\u00a0<\/em>when communicating\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/funerals\">funeral<\/a>\u00a0arrangements. Buckingham Palace, announcing the recent death of the Duchess of Kent, stated that she had \u201cpassed away peacefully\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/12-september\/news\/uk\/church-leaders-pay-tribute-to-the-duchess-of-kent\">News, 12 September<\/a>). Is this the death of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/deathdying\">dying<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Euphemisms for death and dying are nothing new. But there is a subtle and important difference between the idioms that we have used in the past, and the increasingly normalised use of \u201cpass\u201d and \u201cpass away\u201d&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus did not\u00a0<em>pass\u00a0<\/em>on the cross; nor did he\u00a0<em>pass away\u00a0<\/em>for our sins. If we believe that our hope of resurrection lies in the resurrection of Jesus, then we need to use the same language about\u00a0<em>our<\/em>\u00a0death as we do about\u00a0<em>his<\/em>\u00a0death. We need to reclaim the language of dying and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/31-october\/comment\/opinion\/christians-should-reclaim-the-language-of-dying\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Went to visit my grandfather (and my great grandparents, greatuncle &amp; greataunt). You hear the sound of the sea from the graveyard.<br><br>Hard to believe my grandfather is dead these 12 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VzExPZg3gW\">pic.twitter.com\/VzExPZg3gW<\/a><\/p>&mdash; John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jdmccafferty\/status\/1804561059073683504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 22, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People used to die. Now, it seems, they\u00a0pass away. Or \u2014 say it quickly and quietly enough no one will even notice \u2014 they just\u00a0pass.\u00a0Media outlets report the\u00a0passing\u00a0of someone famous. Undertakers now refer to the deceased as having\u00a0passed away\u00a0when communicating\u00a0funeral\u00a0arrangements.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=141110\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,438,178,168,122,184,177,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-death-burial-funerals","category-eschatology","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-language","category-parish-ministry","category-pastoral-theology","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=141110"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141115,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141110\/revisions\/141115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=141110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=141110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=141110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}