Living Corpses

A week ago it was reported, e.g., by the BBC, that “Kenyan authorities have launched an investigation into how a man declared dead in a hospital woke up alive in its mortuary the next day.”

As the Baptism of Christ was coming up, I briefly wondered whether "living corpse" could be a helpful description for the baptised - dead to sin and the corruption of this world, but very much alive in Christ. Probably not, I decided.

Now Gary Greenberg writes in The New Yorker about "A New Reckoning for Brain Death", reporting on two heartbreaking cases. Peter Leithart offers a summary. 

“The concept of brain death has its uses; organ transplants save many lives. But it has its limits, too, as these cases show, chief among them the fact that it is a concept dreamed up by humans in their quest to overcome suffering, one that can have difficulty standing up to the power of love and the implacable mysteries of death.”