Senile Dementia and A Resurrection Theology

Abstract

“Slow physical deterioration and loosened social relationships have profound spiritual significance, for they can separate a person from God. It is remarkable that the laments which so vividly portray this human despair should dominate the Psalter—Israel's book of praise. Their presence must be taken to reflect complex struggles to understand a God who could only be the just, loving, sovereign Lord, yet who stood witness to such violation of God's purposes for human beings.”

Psalm 88: Living with Alzheimer's

“…Glen Weaver (1986) is right when he asserts that such psalms can encourage us to think and feel our way into the potential ruin of our own condition, but perhaps he has not fully grasped their power to offer comfort to those who already feel the ruin of their own condition-even in psalm 88, the saddest in the canon and the only one that does not end on a note of praise. The profound importance of psalm 88 as an outpouring of deep and apparently unresolved lament has cathartic potential for those who suffer the living bereavement of Alzheimer's disease and points towards potentially transformative practices for churches.…”