Explainer

Creed

Easter

5 April 2023

4 min read

Life before death

Embracing death, parading it down streets, and even downplaying their egos, Julie Canlis contemplates why Christians do death.

Julie Canlis

Julie connects Christian spirituality with ordinary life in Wenatchee, Washington State, where she teaches and writes.

A Good Friday procession of people and priests hold a cross horizontal above their heads.

Good Friday procession in Bielsko-Biała, Poland.

Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Easter is not about the Easter Bunny. Easter is about the paradox that we all try to skirt: only in death is there life.

But Easter is not just about metaphorical death and rebirth, at least not for Christians. Christians don’t believe that Jesus died for our self-esteem. Nor that he raised an Idea of himself. As Thomas Lynch, undertaker and poet in Midwest America reminds us,

“Do you think they would have changed the calendar for that? Done the Crusades? Burned witches? Easter was a body and blood thing, no symbols, no euphemisms, no half measures.”

Christians believe that Jesus’ body died. Ceased breathing. Flatlined for three days. And then (in myth-like fashion of the dying and rising god) this human being who lived at certain GPS coordinates, and had DNA from his mother, was given his life back. Not resuscitated. But resurrected. Yes, reader, Christians believe this.

Our culture is body-obsessed when we are living, and body-denying when we die.

Who are we without our bodies? When people die, Christians insist that their body isn’t just a “shell” of the real person. No, their body still is the person. That’s why cremation didn’t catch on in the Christian west until recently, and even so, your local priest might turn up their nose if you want to distribute the ashes into jars to be divided between the grandkids. Often, as soon as a person dies, our impulse is to insist, “she’s not there.” This is because our culture is body-obsessed when we are living, and body-denying when we die. As Prof John Behr, a University of Aberdeen specialist in thinking about death, observes, we want to live like hedonists and to die like Platonists. Easter presents a counter-narrative here. Our bodies have meaning. Jesus’ body has meaning.

In re-living the events of Holy Week, all eyes are on Jesus’ body. And Jesus’ body is doing some very physical actions – like healing bodies, raising bodies, touching unclean bodies, washing feet. And then it is his turn to have his body ravaged by arrest, torture, sleeplessness, betrayal, and execution. All eyes are not on the idea but on the body of Jesus. So much so, that they put guards at the tomb so that there could be no more monkey business about this man’s body.

It might seem peculiar to us that Christianity, infamous for its historically mixed relationship to the body, is centered on one man’s body. Ancient Christians spoke poetically that the tomb that held Jesus’ body became a womb. In his death, in the absolute silence of death, Jesus chose to share dead-ness with us. That this was the essence of his “work.” That his work could only be accomplished by surrendering, doing nothing – and that in doing nothing, he undoes the great “nothing” that threatens each one of us. Almost everything we fear, big and small, is somehow connected to a fear of death in one form or another. It is not death, per se, but the “fear of death” that enslaves us (says an early Christian preacher in Rome. And so, Easter stands at that pivot point between fear of death and life. Christians celebrate Easter as the day the world tilted. Where death no longer has the final say, but is something we can now use to our advantage. In fact, life begins to break in precisely through death. This is only because, as James Alison once said in an Easter sermon, “He entered into death and made it untoxic.”

The question is not “is there life after death” but is there life before death?

And so, strangely, Christians embrace death. We parade it on crosses through the streets. We paint it on our tombs, over our meeting houses, wear it on our chests. Because in embracing death (and the even more enslaving fear-of-death), we defeat it. Because of this belief, ancient Christians flung themselves at lions. They endured the agony of torture. They sanctified suffering. They also practiced small unnoticed “little deaths” of that great overlord, the ego. Not because suffering or death is good, or to be sought. But because death and suffering have been transformed into portals. Even in baptism, with oblivious babies being christened in frilly white dresses, we are dipping them defiantly into the waters of death and waging war on death. This is the mystery of Easter. This is why every Sunday is called a “little Easter” because even as we shuffle into that old stone church, something outlandish is being proclaimed. Death is not a friend, but neither is it to be feared. The worst has already happened. Now we can get on with living. The question is not “is there life after death” but is there life before death?

And here is the final kicker: Christian orthodoxy proclaims that Jesus still has his body. (Not every Christian would insist on this, but it has been central to the tradition for two millennia). Easter isn’t just a mythical story of the paradigmatic victory of life over death. Paul talked about it as a complete reversal: that instead of death swallowing life, Jesus’ embodied life swallows up all death. Christians believe that he is alive and well, in some kind of body (“transfigured” in Christian slang), pouring out blessing on all embodiment. This isn’t a body that is somewhere floating above us in the clouds, but is an embodied person raised as their whole life narrative into eternity – as one recognizable life. Resurrection is not the hope of our joining Jesus in the clouds, but of this same raising of our whole lives into Life itself. This is called “putting on immortality” like a coat – where everything from our past (even scars, like Jesus still had) is integrated into one recognizable life.

This is the Christian hope of Easter, as we live in the interim, no longer fearing but using death for dear life.

Essay

Aliens

Belief

Creed

Film & TV

14 July 2025

10 min read

Who do you think Doctor Who is?

Why the Doctor is (and isn’t) like Jesus

Barnabas Aspray

Barnabas Aspray is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at St Mary’s Seminary and University.

Doctor Who and River Song ponder metaphysics.

After two series with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, the future of Doctor Who is uncertain. It may be time for the world’s longest-running sci-fi show, with 892 episodes to date, to come to an end. Or it may not.

Doctor Who is one of the few sci-fi shows with an appeal that reaches beyond typical sci-fi fans. It ranges across every conceivable genre – romance, horror, period drama, epic – to name but a few. The Doctor’s time-travels may take you to Elizabethan England or the year 400,000 C.E. on a planet made of diamond – you won’t know until you start watching. The secret to the show’s longevity is the Doctor’s ability to ‘regenerate’ whenever he (or she) dies, reappearing with a new body and personality. Gatwa was the fifteenth actor to play the Doctor since William Hartnell’s inaugural performance on 23rd November 1963. (However, I secretly suspect that C.S. Lewis was the ‘zeroth’ Doctor, since he died the day before the first episode was aired. Coincidence?)

Science fiction has the unique capacity to do thought-experiments without limits. What if you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he rises to power? What if we could transfer our brains into machines that would enable us to live forever? What if one small act of violence was the only way to save the human race from destruction?

This article draws attention to just one of the numerous metaphysical and ethical lessons that can be drawn from the show’s stories. I do not discuss the compatibility of its moral ideology with Christian morality, or the place it gives to religion in a world with a scientific explanation for everything. My focus is on a single feature: how the Doctor’s immeasurable power places him in a position like that of Jesus according to the Christian tradition. I shall point to three ways the Doctor reminds us of Jesus, and one way in which the Doctor does not look like Jesus, going down a path that Jesus was tempted to take, but refused.

A bloke who puts everything right

In ‘Twice Upon a Time’, Bill Potts asks the first Doctor why he first left his home planet, Gallifrey, to embark on his many adventures. After a few false starts, the Doctor responds like this:

Doctor: “There is good and there is evil. I left Gallifrey to answer a question of my own. By any analysis evil should always win. Good is not a practical survival strategy. It requires loyalty, self-sacrifice, and love. And so why does good prevail? What keeps the balance between good and evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic, some mysterious force?”

Bill Potts: “Perhaps there’s just a bloke.”

Doctor: “A bloke?”

Bill Potts: “Yeah. Perhaps there's just some bloke wandering around, putting everything right when it goes wrong.”

Why does evil never get the upper hand? That is the Doctor’s fundamental question. Is there some logic, some mysterious force, or is there just a ‘bloke’ who keeps putting things right? All three, from a Christian point of view.

The ultimate triumph of good over evil, according to the Christian story, is thanks to a ‘bloke’ named Jesus who conquered death and rose again so that we might rise again with him at the end of all time. But for Christians, Jesus is not only a ‘bloke’. The Gospel of John equates Jesus with the Logos, a Greek word (where the English word ‘logic’ comes from) to name the rational principle that orders and upholds the universe. The Apostle Paul, in the letter to the Corinthians, also describes Jesus as one ‘by whom all things were created’ and ‘in whom all things hold together’. A ‘mysterious force’ indeed!

To answer the Doctor’s question, then: there is only one thing that stops evil from getting the upper hand. It can be called a logic, and it can be called a mysterious force. But the logic and the force are not impersonal. They are other names for a bloke named Jesus who wanders around putting everything right.

A better way of living your life

After an encounter with the Doctor, nobody is ever the same again. It is not primarily the thrill of adventure or the sight of things more wonderful than can be imagined that changes the Doctor’s companions. It is the example of someone who has devoted their life to save, to heal, to confront evil, and to sacrifice for others.

These features are brought into sharp focus in a moment when Rose Tyler, one of the Doctor’s companions, believes she’s lost the Doctor forever. Her mother tries to comfort her, and this leads her to reflect on what had been so amazing about her time with him:

“It was a better life. And I don’t mean all the travelling and… seeing aliens and spaceships and things… that don’t matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. That you don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away.”

Like his other companions, Rose saw something in the Doctor which challenged her to live up to a higher moral standard, a standard of courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice.

Being with the Doctor puts you in extreme situations where your character is tested and refined. You are forced to face your fears and make crucial decisions about what kind of person you are going to be. Those extreme adventures are rarely the end, however. When his companions return to their lives on earth, they have to decide how to handle normality. Will they wistfully pine after the thrills of the past, seeing normal life as dull and boring, or will they use the wisdom and virtue gained from their adventures to bring peace and justice into the world amidst daily life.

In a similar way, Jesus called his disciples to a higher moral standard, one that prioritises humble, loving service and self-sacrifice. Life with Jesus can be an exhilarating adventure, such as when he calls someone to move and live in a foreign land or to embrace poverty as a lifestyle. But many Christians feel called to follow Jesus in ordinary ways that do not draw attention, and to put his teaching to practice in ordinary everyday life in a way that slowly transforms the world.

The ultimate sacrifice for the least important

The Doctor not only calls his companions to live this way – he leads by example. When Wilfred, the grandfather of one of the Doctor’s companions, gets trapped in a control room about to be flooded by radiation, the Doctor realises that there is only one way to save him. He must replace Wilfred in the control room and be exposed to the radiation instead. Wilfred protests that the Doctor should let him die instead of sacrificing himself to save him, and the Doctor responds with frustration:

Wilfred: “No really, just leave me. I’m an old man, Doctor. I've had my time.”

Doctor: “Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important. But me? I could do so much more. So much more!”

Wilfred is not a national President, a scientist about to make a breakthrough in cancer research, or a famous artist whose paintings will enchant the world. The Doctor complains that Wilfred is not worth saving – not by a logic that looks at the worldly ‘importance’ of an individual. Why, then, should his life be spared, especially in exchange for the life of someone far more powerful and ‘important’?

The Doctor’s frustrated words reveal the moral battle within him. But it does not last long. He knows his duty: to give his life for anyone, no matter how small or unimportant. Every life is worth saving simply because it is a life. He enters the control booth, enabling Wilfred to go free.

This story combines two features central to Christianity. First, it shows the principle that every human life has equal value. God does not measure people by their ‘importance’, their ‘potential’, or their ‘talent’. There is only one measure for a life: the fact that it is created in God’s image and is therefore loved by God. Every life matters, from the greatest down to the very least.

Secondly, this story shows the Doctor giving his life in exchange for another. Christians believe that this is what Jesus did for every human being on the cross. Many wise Christians over the centuries have said that Jesus died for each of us as if there were only one of us. As the Doctor did for Wilfred, so Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

The temptations of unlimited power

Doctor Who often raises the question ‘how should good people wield power?’ The Doctor’s time machine gives him the ability to prevent all catastrophe and evil from ever occurring, yet often he refrains from doing so. At times his companions get angry with him for not using his almost limitless power to save, cure and free everyone throughout history. Once, a companion tries to coerce him into going back in time to prevent the death of her boyfriend. He frequently tries to explain that “some things have to happen this way.” There are fixed points in time that cannot be changed.

That may sound like a cheap explanation – an escape clause for the script writers. But sometimes the show goes deeper, and then we find out what happens when the Doctor gives in to the temptation to fix everything by force. In one episode, compelled by the desperate need of his closest friends, the Doctor for the first time engages in warfare. After a violent and bloody battle, he saves his friends, but it becomes clear that he has done so at the price of his innocence. When River Song arrives at the end, she accuses him of compromising his moral values to save his friends. He responds defensively:

Doctor: You think I wanted this? I didn’t do this. This… this wasn’t me!

River: This was exactly you. All of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you’d become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name? Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word “Doctor” means mighty warrior. How far you’ve come!

This powerful speech reveals two important things. First, using violence against evil is a path that leads to ever-increasing violence. Eventually the once innocent, pacifist Doctor has become a tyrant, imposing his will on the universe. In a similar way, the Gospel of Matthew describes how Jesus, after fasting for forty days in the desert, was visited by the Devil who tempted to use coercive power to establish his kingdom of justice and righteousness:

The devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 

Where the Doctor gave in to temptation, Jesus resisted. He refused to impose his kingdom of peace by violence, because to do this is ultimately to worship a principle and force in direct opposition to God’s will and his ways. Instead of raising an army and conquering the world to save those he loves, Jesus chose the way of the cross. The path of self-sacrifice is painful and slow. But it is the only way to bring about an everlasting kingdom built, not on coercion, but on free and loving submission.

Secondly, River Song’s speech shows that the Doctor’s actions change the very meaning of his name. Will that name come to mean ‘mighty warrior’ instead of ‘healer’ or ‘wise teacher’? Likewise, those who bear the name ‘Christian’ have the power to determine what that name means to the world. The actions of Christians shape the meaning of the name ‘Christ’ to those around them. Christians do not always live in such a way as to make the name of Jesus mean what Jesus would have wanted. What does Jesus want his name to mean?

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