A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow

What is it about?

Stringfellow points to a paradox concerning the human encounter with death: the person is helpless in the face of death, but there is help available in the condition of human helplessness. The temptation in the face of death is to avoid helplessness, but that results in human grasping for security or power or diversion in a way that does not help. Such grasping amounts to seeking the protection of an idol, which is reverence for death as the ultimate source of human meaning and the ultimate arbiter of human affairs. In this way, the person who grasps to avoid helplessness will predictably be drawn deeper into bondage to the power of death. Instead, the person facing death must first admit and embrace the condition of helplessness. This will involve a letting go of idols, and it can be a moment of conversion. The Christian witness against death was the theme in Stringfellow's life and theology. Stringfellow believed in the victory of life, and he eagerly anticipated its fulfillment. He called on the church to claim the victory of life over death, as he called on Christians to participate in that victory by resisting death in their world. (from "William Stringfellow and the Christian Witness Against Death" in Prophet of Justice, Prophet of Life, Essays on William Stringfellow)

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