Editor’s Pick: 7 Books on End-of-Life Issues

End-of-life issues bring turbulence to even the strongest believers. Whether we’re dealing with a sudden loss, a long-term decline, or an unexpected diagnosis, it can be hard to sift through the technical and doctrinal issues amid overflowing emotions.

We need help to understand that accepting palliative care is different from euthanasia. We need to be reminded Christ is with us in our sufferings because he suffered on our behalf. These seven books are pastoral, technically sound resources that offer comfort, confidence, and clarity in due season.

1. Making a Good Return: Biblical Wisdom on Honoring Aging Parents by Kathleen B. Nielson (P&R, 2024)

To equip children with aging parents. How do we fulfill God’s commandment to honor our parents (Ex 20:12)? When we’re young, it’s simple: obey and be respectful. But what happens when we’re adults and they’re declining both physically and mentally? How do we honor our parents as they suffer the effects of aging and we have to help them make hard decisions?

Kathleen Nielson wrestles with these questions in Making a Good Return. She shows how we can be humble and respectful, even as we encourage our parents to navigate options that may limit their freedom and independence. There’s both practical wisdom and biblical exhortation within this book, which makes it helpful resource for Christians with aging parents.

2. We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Transforms Us by Whitney K. Pipkin (Moody, 2024)

For those with a loved one with a terminal diagnosis.

Journalist Whitney Pipkin reflects on her mother’s extended illness and how anticipating that loss helped her understand her own mortality [read TGC’s review]. She writes, “The hidden beauty of knowing a loved one is dying is this: tucked into the folds of their fading are flashes of the new life that’s beginning.” Finding the beauty in resurrection hope can be hard, especially as the tide of sadness comes and goes.

This is a moving book that can encourage those facing their own slow decline or that of a loved one. Pipkin isn’t triumphalistic, but she’s encouraging as she suggests, “Perhaps the greatest comfort Christians have in the face of death, then, is that their God went first.” That’s a great comfort indeed.

3. Between Life and Death: A Gospel-Centered Guide to End-of-Life Medical Care by Kathryn Butler (Crossway, 2019)

To prepare individuals and their family for medical decisions in the face of death.

Former trauma and critical-care surgeon Kathryn Butler gives a biblically rich, well-informed perspective on end-of-life medical decisions. She provides a theology of suffering and the sanctity of life. However, she also makes an ethically appropriate distinction between killing and letting die. Bringing these ideas to bear on the technological questions can be overwhelming when we’re in the hospital room with a family member on life support. This is a book that can help pastors provide moral counsel in hard moments after a tragedy or during a slow decline. It’d be best read by families before the moment of crisis happens so they frame advance medical directives and make informed decisions when the time comes.

4. How Should We Then Die? A Christian Response to Physician-Assisted Death by Ewan Goligher (Lexham, 2024)

For those seeking to understand the ethics of euthanasia.

Physician-assisted suicide is in the news on a regular basis. How should Christians think about it? As both a professor and a physician, Ewan Goligher shows why we should refrain from choosing euthanasia for ourselves or our loved ones. He argues that Christians should actively resist the legalization or expansion of physician-assisted death wherever they live because it devalues people and reinforces an unbiblical understanding of human autonomy. This book is less pastoral than ethical, but for Christians pondering end-of-life questions, it can bring moral clarity [read an excerpt].

5. Memorable Loss: A Story of Friendship in the Face of Dementia by Karen Martin (Christian Focus, 2023)

To encourage those helping a loved one through dementia.

Karen Martin, a retired English teacher, offers a compassionate and personal account of caring for a friend who suffered from dementia. Memorable Loss [read TGC’s review] offers a first-hand account of the slow decline, the hard decisions, and the emotional drain that accompanies a loved one’s severe cognitive decline. Martin provides medically accurate explanations at various stages of her friend’s life. She shows how friends and family members can help support a loved one and treat him with dignity as he travels down the tunnel of dementia. It’s a sad but beautiful book.

6. You Are Still a Mother: Hope for Women Grieving a Stillbirth or Miscarriage by Jackie Gibson (New Growth Press, 2023)

For women wrestling with the loss of a pregnancy.

Losing a pregnancy is a personal and tragic event. It can be hard for pastors, friends, and family to know what to say to offer hope and comfort. Women who lose a child will often end up with hard doctrinal questions and even sometimes a sense of guilt.

Jackie Gibson writes of the sadness surrounding the loss of her daughter, Leila, though stillbirth. You Are Still a Mother [read TGC’s review] offers biblical meditation on God’s goodness, the value of humanity, and our hope in the resurrection. This is a valuable resource for churches to have on hand to offer comfort for families grieving pregnancy loss.

7. A Time to Mourn: Grieving the Loss of those Whose Eternities Were Uncertain by Will Dobbie (Christian Focus, 2024)

To assist those dealing with the loss of an unbelieving friend or family member.

Funerals are emotionally hard. They’re especially hard when the deceased is someone who hadn’t professed faith in Christ. Feelings of failure that we didn’t effectively share the gospel well or often enough are common. Sometimes, mourners can begin to question the doctrine of hell or even God’s goodness.

In A Time to Mourn, pastor Will Dobbie offers a concise theological reflection on God’s goodness in the face of such uncertainty. It’s not the sort of book I’d distribute at a funeral, but it’s a helpful pastoral resource for the weeks following the death of someone who didn’t clearly profess Christ.

Which books are must-reads? Which should be avoided? Let us do the hard work for you. Sign up for an essential monthly roundup of book reviews by trusted voices at tgc.org/newsletters!

Andrew Spencer (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as associate editor for books at The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility and Doctrine in Shades of Green: Theological Perspective for Environmental Ethics, editor of The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers, and a contributor to Baptist Political Theology. Spencer is an elder at CrossPointe Church. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children and live in southeast Michigan.