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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 02 March 2026

Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped put assisted suicide on the map in the U.S., but is assisted suicide, or the active death-dealing of euthanasia, in the name of compassion, a defensible moral action?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #251 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Switzerland has made it easy to kill yourself. An assisted suicide pod passed an independent legal review showing it complies with Swiss law. At the push of a button, the pod fills with nitrogen gas, rapidly lowering oxygen levels and killing the user. Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide since 1942.

“Euthanasia refers to active steps taken to end someone’s life to stop their suffering and the ‘final deed’ is undertaken by someone other than the individual, for example a doctor…Assisted suicide is about helping someone to take their own life at their request – in other words the final deed is undertaken by the person themselves. Assisted dying can be used to mean both euthanasia, generally voluntary, and assisted suicide; however, some campaign groups use it to refer only to assisted suicide of terminally ill people.”

Assisted suicide is most prevalent in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The Netherlands became the first country in the world to formally legalize both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia through explicit legislation passed in 2001.

“The Canadian approach to euthanasia and assisted suicide, euphemistically known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), has expanded in recent years and has sparked significant debate about its ethical and societal implications. Euthanasia was first intended only for those nearing the end of their lives. Now, Canada has one of the most permissive euthanasia policies in the world, revealing a rapidly increasing culture of not just accepting death, but actively promoting it.”

“Since the establishment of Canada's Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) law in 2016, more than 60,000 people have used euthanasia to die. Euthanasia accounted for 15,343 deaths in 2023 or 4.7% or about 1 in 20 of all deaths in the country.”

“In Canada, assisted suicide is permitted but nearly non-existent. Instead, MAiD deaths are almost exclusively due to euthanasia, where a doctor actively ends a patient’s life…Some Canadian doctors have become experts in killing, with one doctor “administering fatal substances” to over 400 patients.”

In the U.S., “just over seven in 10 Americans, 71%, believe doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it.”

At the same time, doctor-assisted suicide -- a term used to describe patients ending their own lives with the aid of a physician -- garners slightly less but still majority support…Religiosity has the most significant impact on one’s perceptions of morality regarding this question. Sixty-seven percent of those who seldom or never attend religious services say doctor-assisted suicide is morally acceptable, compared with 29% of those who attend services weekly; 66% of the most religious Americans believe doctor-assisted suicide is morally wrong.

In the United States, assisted suicide was first legally approved in the state of Oregon,1994, when voters passed the Death with Dignity Act. After legal challenges, it officially took effect in 1997. Euthanasia is illegal in all 50 states, while assisted suicide is legal in several states. Patients must be adults with a terminal prognosis, be mentally competent, make multiple requests over time, be informed of alternatives such as hospice and palliative care. Thus far, at the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide.

Advocates argue that mentally competent adults should have the right to decide the timing and manner of their death, emphasizing bodily autonomy, control over end-of-life decisions, and avoiding prolonged suffering. Supporters argue that some suffering—physical or existential—cannot be adequately relieved, even with advanced palliative care. Supporters often argue there is no morally relevant difference between withdrawing life support (widely accepted) and prescribing medication the patient may take to hasten death.

From a Christian moral perspective, assisted suicide, assisted dying, and euthanasia are deeply problematic because they conflict with core beliefs about the sanctity of life, human dignity, suffering, and God’s sovereignty. Christianity teaches that human life is a sacred gift from God, not a possession to be disposed of at will. The Bible tells us life was created by God in his image (Genesis 1:27).

Because human beings are made in the image of God, their worth does not depend on health, productivity, or independence. Intentionally ending innocent human life, even to relieve suffering, is therefore typically considered a violation of God’s moral law. One of the clearest moral foundations for this view is the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13).

Traditionally, Christians have understood this prohibition to include the deliberate taking of innocent life, including one’s own. While compassion for suffering is central to Christian ethics, compassion must be expressed in ways that respect moral boundaries. Directly intending death as a solution to pain crosses that boundary by redefining killing as care.

“Suffering is usually behind a request for euthanasia. The most commonly cited reasons for a euthanasia request are the loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities (over 95%) or to perform activities of daily living (over 83%). Just under 60% cite inadequate pain control (or fear of it).”

But Christian moral theology holds that suffering, though painful and often mysterious, can have spiritual meaning.  “We know that suffering builds us up in ways we cannot now see. As we read in James 1:12: “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”

Rather than eliminating the sufferer, Christians are called to respond with presence, love, and care. “Suffering allows us to care for each other, and to be cared for. It’s a reminder that we are not in control of our own lives, but reliant first on God, and then on those around us.” The growth of hospice movements reflects this conviction: that people deserve comfort, dignity, and companionship at the end of life, not abandonment through lethal means.

The Apostle Paul said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together…but we ourselves…groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for…the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:18, 22-23).

The Catholic Church articulated this position clearly in Evangelium Vitae by Pope John Paul II. The encyclical states that euthanasia is a “grave violation of the law of God” because it involves the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. At the same time, it distinguishes between killing and allowing natural death to occur, affirming that burdensome or disproportionate medical treatments may be refused when they offer little hope of benefit.

“As our culture has embraced death for the suffering, ‘dying with dignity’ has come to mean ending life before one becomes too disabled or dependent on others. Nearly 65% of people euthanized in Canada cited ‘loss of dignity’ as a source of suffering behind their request to die. But, as Christians, we know that dignity is not found in one’s ability, health, or disposition. We know that every person has dignity, simply by the fact that human beings are made in the image of God…So-called “death with dignity” tells a person “they are no longer worth helping, that they are nothing but the sum of their aches and pains, their fears and their despair”…Canada’s initial euthanasia law is based on the arbitrary idea that some human beings have dignity, and some do not; some lives are worth living and some are not.”

Christian moral arguments against assisted suicide and euthanasia rest on the sanctity of life, obedience to God’s commandments, the redemptive understanding of suffering, and a commitment to compassionate care that never intentionally ends innocent human life.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 23 February 2026

Sometime when we’re children, we discover the reality of death—perhaps a grandma no longer with us—and later in life we come to understand that mortality is something in everyone’s future, so what should we think about this existential fact?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #250 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

My wife and I are now in our 70s. When we first reached this milestone, I remember saying to her, “Well, we are now in the decade when every so often, we’ll hear about a friend or acquaintance passing, or they will hear about us.” I wasn’t trying to be morbid or funny, just honest.

This past week I heard of a high school classmate who passed. I knew her from study hall and years later a couple of interactions on Facebook, but I haven’t seen her since we graduated in 1970. She was a friend but not a close one, so I am not sure why her transition to heaven struck me, but it did. Maybe because she was my age. It seemed so sudden and, well, too early. But her homegoing caused me to do some thinking about my own mortality.

Scripture is remarkably honest about life. It does not romanticize the human condition. It does not promise an easy road. Instead, it speaks plainly: we are born into a world marked by sorrow, struggle, and mortality. We are, the Scripture says, born in sin (Ps. 51:5). This isn’t a reference to wrongdoing on the part of our parents but to the nature of the world we live in. Then, at some point, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

But the Bible also proclaims something astonishing — for those who belong to Christ, death itself is transformed from defeat into victory.

After humanity’s rebellion, what’s called the “Fall,” or fall from grace or fall into sin, God speaks consequences into the fabric of creation—pain in childbirth, toil in labor, frustration in work, and eventual death become part of human experience (Genesis 3:16-19). The ground resists us. Our bodies decay. Relationships strain. “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

This is not accidental. The apostle Paul explains in Romans 5:12 that through one man sin entered the world—that’s Adam—and death through sin — and so death spread to all.

Job captures the human condition with poetic bluntness: In Job 5:7, “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” And again, in Job 14:1, “Man who is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble.” Moses echoes this sober assessment in Psalm 90:10 — our years are marked by toil and sorrow.

The Bible is not naïve. It recognizes hospital rooms, broken relationships, gravesides, and unanswered questions. Christianity does not begin with denial of suffering. It begins with truth about it.

But that is not the end of the story. If trouble is universal, is it meaningless? Scripture answers: no. Affliction, while painful, is not purposeless in the hands of God.

The psalmist David makes a startling confession in Psalm 119:71: “It was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”

James intensifies this paradox in James 1:2-4: “Count it all joy… when you meet trials… for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

The Apostle Paul provides the spiritual progression in Romans 5:3-5: Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope.

Notice that suffering should not produce despair in the believer — it produces hope. Not because pain feels good, but because God is shaping something eternal through it. Not because we are tough, but because of God’s providence, promises, and presence in our lives.

And importantly, trouble does not mean abandonment. Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.”

And Paul calls God in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort.”

The Christian life does not bypass suffering — it reinterprets it. Trials become tools in the hands of a sovereign Father. Yet even refined saints still face death. So, what then?

Death entered through sin. It is called an enemy in Scripture. And yet, for the believer, death is no longer ultimate defeat.

The prophet speaks tenderly in Isaiah 57:1-2: “The righteous is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace.”

In the New Testament, the tone becomes even more explicit. In Philippians 1:21-23, Paul writes, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain… to depart and be with Christ… is far better.”

Far better. 

Death, for the Christian, is not annihilation. It is not “soul sleep.” It is departure.  It is relocation into the presence of Christ. The deceased believer is not “gone” in the sense of disappeared forever but in the words of Scripture the deceased believer is merely “absent,” now more alive than ever in heaven.

Paul reinforces this confidence in 2 Corinthians 5:8: to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. This will be true for us one day if we are believers. It is true of loved ones who’ve passed if they were believers. Our hope, our peace that passes understanding in the face of their loss is based upon the fact that God holds them in his hand.

The final book of the Bible adds a beatitude to death itself. In Revelation 14:13, Scripture states, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord… that they may rest from their labors.”

Notice the language: blessed… rest… peace… gain. Christian hope does not celebrate death as natural. It celebrates Christ as victorious. Christian hope is not a vain wish in what might be, but a confident expectation of what will be based upon a historical fact, the finished work of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus makes a staggering claim in John 11:25-26: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Death is real — but it is not final. Indeed, death is only physical: “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7).

Paul announces the culmination in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57: “Death is swallowed up in victory… Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Swallowed up. Overcome. Conquered.

The final chapters of Scripture lift our eyes even higher. Revelation 21:4 promises a day when God will wipe away every tear — and death shall be no more.

The Bible moves from a garden where death enters… to a city where death is abolished.

Understandably, we celebrate the birth of babies and mourn at funerals, but thinking about these events biblically there is irony in this. Babies are born into a world fractured by sin and trouble. Yet through Christ, death becomes gain.

For those in Christ: from dust… to trouble… to redemption… to resurrection…to eternity in heaven. And that is the hope of the believer.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best.

If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 29 July 2024

It’s never easy or pleasant to lose a friend to death, so how should a Christian respond to this event that is, according to Scripture, part of life?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #161 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

From time to time, I find myself talking to a younger person or persons who indicate they have not experienced something like awaking to aches and pains that occur seemingly for no reason, or a highly stressful or traumatic challenge in their education, career, or life, or the death of a loved one or close friend.

When I hear this, I usually respond by saying, “Well, you just haven’t lived long enough.” What I mean, of course, is that these things happen in every human being’s life, sooner or later, because we live in what we learn in Scripture is a fallen world.

Life happens, and one of the things that happens is that eventually we hear of the death of a loved one or close friend, maybe even a lifelong friend.

This recently happened to my wife, Sarah, and me, and within a week we traveled to West Virginia to support his wife and attend our friend’s funeral.

Our friend was Robert, or Bob, Opperman, with his wife Carol. We first met just three years after Sarah’s and my marriage when we accepted a teaching position in a Christian school in Cross Lanes, WV.

Sarah and Carol hit it off as young moms trying to figure out how to raise little girls, and not long thereafter, little boys too. We did not know it then, but there were more children yet to come.

Bob and I were social studies and history teachers, and we liked to talk politics and current events. Bob was originally from Oregon, and I quickly discovered that his ancestors crossed the country on the Oregon Trail. As a guy who read a lot of Western history then and now, I found it fascinating that I actually knew someone whose great-grandparents had trekked the Oregon Trail, and since then I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about the trail.

When I first heard Bob had passed at age 77, slipping away in a matter of a week after experiencing a medical episode, I thought about our relationship. The first thing that came to my mind was a line from a movie. In the movie, “Robinhood,” starring Russell Crowe, an older gentleman, a Baron, approached Robin about conveying a message to another older gentleman. The Baron mentioned his elder friend’s name to Robin and said, “We were young men together.”

I don’t know why that line hit me the way it did the first time I heard it, but it did, and as I said, it was the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about Bob’s passing. We were young men together. 

Most of our time together took place in our twenties. Later in life, because of where we lived, we’d see each other maybe once or twice every year or so, but the friendship we forged as young men lasted a lifetime. Just a few months before, Sarah and I had been in the area for her eldest sister’s funeral, and that night we had a 3–4-hour dinner at the Cracker Barrel with Bob and Carol. We picked up right where we left off. We talked, caught up, laughed, and had a great time rooted in a friendship that had been established more than forty years before.

Bob, as I said, was born and raised in Oregon. He loved Oregon and talked about it if not every day, then every other day. We’d say, “Bob, why don’t you and Carol move to Oregon?” And nothing happened. Again later, “Bob, why don’t you and Carol move to Oregon?” Nothing happened. Then we discovered that Carol was a West Virginia girl all the way through to the bone. Bob loved Oregon and Carol loved West Virginia. What are you going to do? Well, Bob loved Oregon, but he loved Carol more, so he chose to live out his life in West Virginia and came to love the history of his adopted state too.

One year, the four of us flew to Portland, rented a truck, and traveled east into the mountains to Bob’s home territory. We met many of his relatives. And from the vantage point of high on a range of hills we looked out and saw 10-12 plumes of smoke from forest fires, and one morning we exited the hotel to find ash covering the ground, amazing experiences for Midwesterners. Eventually, we got to Greenhorn, the location of Bob’s family’s old cabin, a shack really, and a closed down goldmine. That, too, was an amazing experience and one Bob reveled in sharing with his friends.

Bob was a man’s man and as such from time to time he’d say or do something goofy or illogical. We all do this, men. It’s built into our DNA, and the ladies know it. God knew it. In the Garden of Eden God looked at Adam and said, “It’s not good for man to be alone,” so he created women to help keep us out of trouble.

But being a guy, Bob would periodically say or do something goofy or illogical. When he did, his wife Carol would look at him, look at us, roll her eyes, and say, “Well, he’s not very smart, but he’s cute.” Every time I heard that comment, and I heard it a lot, I thought it was fall out of your chair hilarious. He’s not very smart, but he’s cute.

I’ve thought about this, men. The ladies know we’re not very smart, but if at the end of the day our wives still think we’re cute, well, I’ll take it. You can build a good life on that.

Bob was also a guy who cared about people and liked to help people. He helped me at times. Along the way, he developed several handyman skills. One summer after school was out, which turned out to be the last year we lived in West Virginia, we decided to take on the project of re-shingling a house with a good-sized roof. Bob knew more about this than me, but I was young and had muscle, so it worked out. At some point in the project, we sat down on the roof peak to take a break and for reasons I do not remember, I chose that time to tell my friend that I was enrolling at the University of Cincinnati in the fall to pursue a doctorate, which meant I would not be returning to our Christian school.

Bob looked at me and said, “Wow, where do you see yourself in 10 years?” That question stopped me in my tracks. It’s not that I hadn’t thought about the future, making the decision I was making about more education. It’s just that that question made me stop and think about things with a bigger, broader perspective.

Turns out, over the next forty-odd years of working in higher level administration, I had many occasions wherein a younger staff member would come to see me seeking counsel about pursuing advanced degrees, putting their hat in the ring for another position, or considering leaving one organization to join another. Every time, I’d eventually ask them, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Or sometimes I’d shorten it to 5 years because thinking out ten years seemed too daunting to some people. It’s a great question, and I was able at least twice to remind Bob that he’d asked me this, tell him how I’d been able to pay it forward, and thank him for blessing me with his insight.

Losing a lifelong friend is not easy or pleasant. We grieve. Sometimes you hear people say Christians should not grieve, but this is incorrect. Of course, Christians grieve; we just should grieve differently. Grief is remembrance. We remember the one who has passed. If that person did not matter, we would not bother remembering. We would not grieve. But they do matter, and death is a transition.

God never told us we had to like death. In fact, death is described in Scripture as the enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). So, we don’t have to like death, but we need not be afraid of it (Matt 10:28).

Still, death is a separation, so there is a sense of loss for those left behind among the living.

But I like to remember the biblical theology that when one of God’s saints—people who know the Lord as Savior—passes on, he or she is absent from the body, present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). So, a Christian friend like Bob who has passed is not “gone,” as in no longer in existence or somehow extinguished.

Nor do I believe Bob is sleeping, because I do not think Scripture warrants that.

No, our Christian friends like Bob who have passed are not “gone” but merely “absent,” now more alive than ever in heaven, not simply R.I.P. “Resting in Peace,” but R.I.P. “Rejoicing in peace.”

The beauty of the Christian faith and of the Word of God is that the Lord did not leave us wondering. He told us exactly where our dearly departed loved ones and friends are. If they were believers, they are now in heaven with the Lord.

Bob and I were young men together. He has crossed over Jordan. Someday, when it is my turn, I will see him again.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers. 

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 26 June 2023

Ever hear someone pooh-pooh the existence of God and the afterlife? Ever wonder what really happens after we die?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #93 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

As he got older, beloved Bible teacher, the late Dr. Warren Wiersbe, used to share the joke, “I think more and more about the hereafter. Whenever I go into a room, I think, what am I here after?”

Of course, idea is that as a person gets older, his or her memory typically becomes less sharp, less trustworthy. And the idea, too, is the play on words, thinking about the “hereafter.”

Recently, the global movie star, former body builder, and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 75, responded to a question posed by fellow actor Danny DeVito, 78. Danny asked, “What’s in the future for us?”

In a conversation for Interview Magazine, Schwarzenegger said, “It reminds me of Howard Stern’s question to me. ‘Tell me, governor, what happens to us when we die?’ I said, ‘Nothing. You’re 6 feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a f–king liar.'”

‘We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in, but I know that the body as we see each other now, we will never see each other again like that.'”

“’When people talk about, ‘I will see them again in heaven,’ it sounds so good,

but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t,’”

The former California governor said he had lost about 15 friends from back in his bodybuilding days in the last two decades, and said the tragic news forced him to shift his perspective on an afterlife.

“To me, heaven is where I put a person who I love dearly, who is kind, who is generous, who made a difference in my life and other people’s lives,” he explained.

Schwarzenegger recently participated in a three-part Netflix documentary called “Arnold,” released May 2023.

This sort of autobiographical television program statement follows a trend – as successful individuals approach advanced age, much like former presidents write memoirs, actors, athletes, entertainers, or assorted famous people want to have their “say.” It’s partly about making money and partly about getting their own interpretations on record.

Like “David Crosby – Remember Me” (2019), “Tina” (2021) from Tina Turner before their deaths, and “Moonage Daydream” (2022), David Bowie, or “Donna Summer – Love to Love You” (2023), long after their demise.

Schwarzenegger is particularly pointed. He asserts heaven is a fantasy.

Schwarzenegger’s take is a bit of a departure from what we usually hear from celebrities thinking about their mortality. I remember John Wayne saying he hoped the “good Lord” would tally the good things he’d done as more than the not so good things. That was it. He had no assurance of where he was going other than that wishful thinking.

Near the end of his life, an emaciated Mickey Mantle, a sad decimation of the incredible athlete he once had been, sat down for a 30-min video interview in which he said, “Don’t be like me.”

“All you have to do is look at me and see where (my life) was wasted,'…’I want to get across to the kids not to drink or do drugs. Mom and dad should be the role models. That's what I think. 'I was given so much and I blew it.'”

Mantle was an unbelievable baseball talent, but he squandered his health, talent, fame, and fortune on illicit liaisons, drugs, and alcohol abuse, resulting in liver cancer that took his life.

Fellow major leaguer and Christian speaker Bobby Richardson said, “I believe what drew Mickey to me was that I had the relationship with Christ that he was searching for, even if he didn’t realize it. He often attended our baseball chapel services.”

When the time drew near, Bobby and his wife Betsy walked into Mantle’s hospital room, and Mantle said, ‘I can’t wait to tell you this. I have accepted Christ as my Savior.’ Bobby was elated, but wanted to be sure, so he went through the plan of salvation with Mantle again. Betsy later asked him, ‘Mickey, if you were to stand before a holy God today and He asked you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you say?’ Mantle replied, ‘We are talking about God, right?’ Betsy acknowledged they were. He then quoted John 3:16.”

Richardson noted, “Mickey found that peace in his last days…In those last days, he told the doctors he was ready. Mickey was not afraid to die. He was at peace.”

I remember when Frank Sinatra died and a person at his funeral said, “Boy, heaven will be rockin’ tonight,” like it was some Brat Pack reunion. It was not clear on what basis the man thought Frank was singing in heaven.

British physicist and famed atheist Stephen Hawking said, “’There is no heaven...That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’” Hawking passed away in 2018, so it seems snarky to say, “Well, he knows better now,” but it is nevertheless true.

Meanwhile, in 2011, “92 percent of Americans said they believe in a god or universal spirit, and 74 percent said they believe that there is a heaven.” In 2021, 73% believe in heaven and a few less, 62%, believe in hell, and belief in God has dipped to 81%, the lowest since Gallup first asked this question in 1944.

Of course, saying you believe something exists and acting in a manner that makes an impact upon your life are different things. I believe Neptune exists, but as near as I can tell I’ll never go there, and its existence does not change anything about my day to day. This appears to be how a lot of people think about God or the hereafter, might be there but so what? Or as Arnold sadly thinks, just a fantasy.

According to Christian social researcher George Barna, “Most Americans (68%) still consider themselves to be Christians. Among these self-identified Christians, though, only 6% have a biblical worldview. Less than half of the self-identified Christians can be classified as born-again, defined as believing that they will go to Heaven after they die but only because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Within the born-again population (just 33% of the adult population), a shockingly small proportion (13%) hold a biblical worldview.”

Americans are generally educated, tech savvy, in many ways, “with it.” We’re sophisticated. But insofar as many reject God and the truth – and accountability – of the hereafter, we might better be understood as “sophisticatedly ignorant.”

We’re like the ancient intellectuals at Athens to whom the Apostle Paul spoke as recorded in Acts 17. We believe in an unknown God but in terms of everyday application, many are now practical agnostics. Our affirmation of a god does not amount to the same thing as faith in the God. 

Thinking about the afterlife is not a popular pastime. This is understandable in one sense. We are living our lives today. But thinking about the afterlife is also a matter of wisdom and good stewardship, because, as the old saying goes, “the only thing certain in life are death and taxes.” With taxes you might find a loophole, legal or otherwise, but with death, there is no off-ramp to a detour around it. Death is the great equalizer. One day it comes to us all, and as Scripture says, after that the judgment (Heb. 9:27).

So, I’m glad for that story about one of the heroes of my youth, Mickey Mantle, coming to Christ on his deathbed. It is heartening.

And by the same token, I feel for another hero of my youth, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But for him, there is yet hope for he yet breathes. I pray someone reaches him with the Gospel – though my guess is he already knows the truth.

I pray the same for you. Have you thought about the afterlife, not in abstract, out there terms, but in personal, “Hey this is me” terms? The Apostle Paul admonished young Timothy to pray for leaders, saying, “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4). That’s Arnold and that’s you and that’s me.

I heard evangelist Billy Graham speak in person one time at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium when I was a teenager. His text was: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 22 August 2022

Does the sudden passing of a celebrity sometimes get your attention, make you think about the afterlife? Do the comments of people in the entertainment business give you much hope about where they will be or where you will be in the afterlife?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #42 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

A car crash August 5, 2022, in Los Angeles and the horrific fire that resulted caused the death August 11 of actress Anne Heche at age 53. She lapsed into a coma while being rescued by emergency first responders and never regained consciousness, later being declared legally dead due severe anoxic brain injury from smoke inhalation and other thermal injuries.

The tragedy was magnified when preliminary blood tests revealed the presence of drugs in Heche's system. In other words, her erratic high-speed driving, collision with another garage, and finally, a blast off the road some 30 feet into a house, may not have occurred if she had not been under the influence.

My point here is not to pile on Anne Heche for using cocaine and maybe fentanyl, though I know this was not good, justifiable, or safe. She apparently had emotional struggles and, sadly, may have turned to drugs to help ease this pain.

My point here is rather to think about what her 20-year-old son said in response to his mother’s passing.

Homer Laffoon posted this: “My brother Atlas and I lost our Mom. After six days of almost unbelievable emotional swings, I am left with a deep, wordless sadness. Hopefully my mom is free from pain and beginning to explore what I like to imagine as her eternal freedom."

In no way am I making fun or otherwise throwing rocks at this young man’s comment out of his grief. In fact, I find his sentiments particularly sad. 

Not only did he lose his mother, he possesses only a vague sense of where she might be or if there is anything out there at all. He simply says he hopes she is free of pain, and he “imagines” her eternal freedom. But he does not know. He expressed no real confidence. I feel for him and his brother.

It brings to mind a few personal experiences. While I was in graduate school at the University of Cincinnati, a coworker in the campus research lab where we were employed, had gone north to Michigan with his wife for a winter ski outing. Tragically, on the way home they hit an ice patch and he was killed in a head-on collision. His wife survived but was hurt badly. Several of my colleagues and I attended the funeral in a Greek Orthodox Church. This proved to be without question the most uncomfortable experience I had had up to then and perhaps since, and for a few colleagues too who commented later.  The service was nothing but utter anguish, no words of solace or hope, no sense of peace or meeting again someday, nothing from the priest about where my friend might be in the afterlife. Frankly, my colleagues and I could not wait to get out of there. It was dreadful.

A few years later, my family lived next to an older couple. This church-going family suddenly lost their son to drugs and a wild lifestyle. I remember standing on the gentleman’s patio expressing my condolences when he told me about how the chimes on his back porch had rung that morning and he felt this was his son sending a message that he was alright. Out of compassion for his grief, I did not disagree outright with what I thought was a faulty, pagan grasp for emotional peace, but I did talk to him about what the Scripture says about the afterlife. What amazed me was not only the man’s superstitious statement but that it came from a man that was a relatively faithful attendee at a nearby Presbyterian Church.

In later years still, in West Michigan where I live now, I attended the funeral of the son of a notable businessman I knew. The son was 40-something and had committed suicide with a belt in his own garage. His wife found him. The funeral was held in what the leading self-avowed theologically liberal church in the area, Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids. While in its early days this church had been a beacon for biblical truth, certain pastors led it away from the Word and by the time this funeral took place, there was little evidence in the program that anyone acting in an official capacity believed the Bible. 

Most notably, a friend of the deceased offered a short eulogy. The man was deeply broken up and, understandably, barely got through his comments. Primarily, and I think distressingly, he said that his friend had loved hawks and that that day on the way to the funeral the speaker had seen a hawk flying high above. He said he knew that this was his deceased friend telling him he was OK. 

Again, like the back porch chimes, this sentimental thought is gut-wrenching in its grief and tearful leap of faith to pagan ideas, trying to find some sense of peace in the face of tragic, avoidable death. The pastor who took the podium thereafter never once offered words of hope to the family and did not share a Christian perspective on what was taking place, only an impotent pep talk.

Like for Anne Heche’s son Homer, I feel profoundly for these people. Their heartsore pain is real. I do not make light of them. Indeed, I am moved by the hopelessness of their positions. Their forlorn, groundless commentary offers them little more than the typical response oft-heard in media about people “sending our thoughts and prayers,” a religious-sounding phrase that usually doesn’t mean much other than that people are trying to express respect.

Contrast this with the passing of my father at age 86 in April 2018. In the providence of God, I was able to get home a couple of days before from a trip to the Middle East with SAT-7, so I was with my mother in Ohio when she came out to the living room saying, “I think Dad has passed.” We both then entered their bedroom where I quickly came to the same conclusion as Mom, Dad was no longer with us. I later observed at Dad’s funeral, if each of us could choose how we depart this earth, wouldn’t most of us like the idea of peacefully falling asleep in our own bedroom?

I will be forever grateful to the Lord that I was there, for Mom but also for me. We were grieved, of course, because there was a loss. Dad was no longer with us. But I cannot imagine that experience without the confidence of knowing Dad knew the Lord and therefore we knew exactly where Dad was.

In the Old King James version, the Scripture’s promise about the homegoing of one of his saints, says, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).

I like to remember this biblical theology. While there is hurt because there is a separation, still, we do not grieve as others grieve. We know that our loved one is not “gone,” but simply “absent,” now more alive than ever, now not just “resting in peace” but “rejoicing in peace.” 

So, while Mom and our family miss Dad, we know he is well, and we will see him again one day. This is a fantastic Christian certainty—no ambiguity—just truth and an incredible source of peace and joy.

But when celebrities pass, you sometimes hear vacuous statements like what certain entertainers observed when Frank Sinatra died, that “heaven will be rockin’ tonight,” supposedly as Frank joined with other members of the infamous Rat Pack. It sounds like bravado, and it is. But it masks their fear and uncertainty.

People like to believe that life begins by chance. It’s evolutionary, without God or at least without his involvement, thus in life they acknowledge no responsibility, no accountability. So in this view they can do what’s right in their own eyes. Then sooner than they’d wish, they face their own mortality. Life comes to an end.

These same people who believe life begins by chance do not want to think that life ends by chance. No, that would mean their life had no meaning, that they have no meaning. As human beings, they understandably want to believe they possess significance. So, they create a variety of perspectives on the afterlife, most of which are grounded upon works-based assumptions that they have earned their way to heaven or some expression of “eternal freedom.”

But none of this is what the Word of God says. The Bible says, in the beginning God created, which includes human beings. It says we possess eternal significance because of our divine creation. It says we are blessed by God, given talents and time by God, and are accountable to him for how we use them. It also says that we, all of us, are born in sin, that we are not righteous, and that we cannot earn our salvation, which is offered to us by a loving, forgiving God by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and in the resurrection (Rom. 3:21-28, Gal. 2:16). Sin condemns us and salvation cannot be earned. It is a free gift for all that embrace it (Rom. 6:23, Eph. 2:8-9). This is the Gospel, the Good News (John 3:16, 5:24; Rom. 8:1).

Finally, the Bible makes it clear that we can have an assurance of the afterlife.

“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:11-13).

For those who have trusted in Christ as their Savior, the Word says that someday Jesus will return for the Resurrection of those saints that have passed, then the Rapture of the living saints. “And so we will be with the Lordforever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:13-18).

I do not know where Anne Heche is today, but I know her spirit lives. Her childhood was troubled, but she had a religious mother, so I pray that somewhere in Anne’s life she accepted Christ as her Savior. Have you?

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.