Senkbeil is a pastor’s pastor, a master of the art of pastoral care.
The Reverend Harold L. Senkbeil first published Dying To Live in 1994 to outstanding reviews. The book was widely read by laymen and clergy alike, and its influence extended beyond the Lutheran circles of influence in which it was written. Dying To Live was both required reading at Lutheran Synodical colleges and prescribed reading at many other schools. The content, style, and overall quality of the writing made this book a classic work accessible to anyone.
On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of its initial release, Senkbeil has submitted a second edition of Dying To Live: The Foundation, Focus, and Shape of the Christian Life that is much more than just a re-release. It is often the case that subsequent editions of first-release books have a minimal amount of new or different material to justify the cost of updating one’s library. In the second edition of Dying To Live, however, Senkbeil has not only given fresh polish to the content of the first edition but also augments his classic with wisdom to address up-to-the-minute conflicts within the life of the church today. This re-tooled gem has re-emerged at a time when Christianity is in need of such a statement.
Senkbeil informs us in this book that, “I am a preacher, remember, and not a writer.” Anyone who engages with the text will quickly learn that he is, in fact, both. His writing style is at once eloquent and yet easily comprehensible to lay-level readers. The language of Dying To Live moves easily and smoothly from line to line, paragraph to paragraph. Senkbeil is a pastor’s pastor, a master of the art of pastoral care. He has taught aspiring and ordained clergy for decades that the pastor is truly a “physician of the soul,” and that idea informs his manner and the content of his writing. Readers will find that he communicates without jargon, and illuminates the truth and treasure of the Christian faith without repetitive sloganeering. The reader will hear in these pages the voice of a gentle shepherd guiding you through the reality of our lives in this world.
Senkbeil pulls no punches as he immediately names our undeniable malady on the first page of the book: the world and everything in it is dying, including us. With a clarity that may be, at times, hard to look at, he describes the tragic state of life in this increasingly godless age. From the onset, Senkbeil describes in careful detail the idolatry of our hearts, and our movement away from truth and towards hedonism. He illustrates for us what he calls “The Loneliness Epidemic” that has resulted from our lives in a virtual, superficial, and “plastic” age, and the “famine” of love in our culture.
Senkbeil’s section called “The Sexual Disaster” talks about the great gift of sexuality between husband and wife, and the fact that our understanding and practice of it has gone “horribly wrong.” Of this he writes:
“The whirlwind of animalistic sexual behavior we’re witnessing all around us is actually the death throes of a society that has lost its moorings, empty and adrift on a sea of loneliness. People keep looking for reality but find only plastic (p. 31).”
He concludes this section by asking us: who among us has the courage to take an honest look at ourselves and the world around us? He answers the question himself with the simplest of answers. “God will call it. He calls it by one name. And it’s a painfully simple name: death.”
Reverend Senkbeil manages a rare feat in modern Christian literature: showing us beautiful Christian piety that isn’t pietistic.
After meticulously identifying the problems of our dying world, Senkbeil revives the reader with the antidote to death and nihilism, “Our Living Lord.” In a thorough and simple way, he describes to the reader who Jesus is, and what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus means to us on a daily basis. Jesus Christ is exalted as the meaning in a sea of meaningless, the hope in a culture saturated with hopelessness, and the answer to the particular longings of the human heart that is dying to live.
The strength of this work comes from what remains of the book, in which Reverend Senkbeil manages a rare feat in modern Christian literature: showing us beautiful Christian piety that isn’t pietistic. The emphasis of the biblical piety he demonstrates for the reader is not the continual turn inside ourselves in the evaluation of our “progress” that we often hear about in modern life. Instead, it is a life lived in humility, looking outside of ourselves and towards the gifts Christ has given to us to forgive our sins and to strengthen and renew our faith. We see in Senkbeil’s treatment of the present reality of Holy Baptism, his careful explanation of confessing our sins and the way in which God forgives us, and the miracle feeding that we receive in the Lord’s Supper, a lucid explanation of the way God gives us not only his mercy but also his assurance. These sections, along with the evaluation of the liturgical shape of both our corporate church worship and private devotional life are indispensable for those looking to cultivate proper understanding of worship and daily piety.
Senkbeil closes the book by adding some new material (and some sanity) that addresses the perpetual “Third Use of the Law” debates that have been a source of contention in Lutheranism in our day. As per his usual approach, he does not side with warring factions but gives a careful, biblical take on daily piety that is both desiring holiness and yet understanding that salvation comes from the work of Jesus Christ alone.
Dying To Live promises to endure for ages to come as a lay-friendly explanation of the Christian faith, and how it is lived out from birth to death. It is the answer to the question “How then shall we live?” and a gift to all who seek to live a godly life of meaning and hope in a desolate world. It seems like we could use some more of that these days - and all days - doesn't it?
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