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Strength of Reality. Whatever lies beyond, the new eschatology may make it harder for some people to face death. Says the Rev. Kevin Wall, prior of the Dominican House of Studies in Berkeley, Calif.: "Those who hold myth-convictions are better prepared to face death with equanimity. It is more difficult for the rationalist to contemplate death." German Protestant Theologian Dorothee Solle believes that "emphasis on this world means an intensification of the death experience. The new theology says that life is definite, not indefinite, that our chances are limited."
Yet a new focus on the importance of living may well ease the fear of dying. The new eschatology, contends Calvinist Scholar Franklyn Josselyn of Los Angeles' Occidental College, can offer man "a means of looking at death honestly and with courage. It frees man to have faith that is not merely an escape from fear." Indeed, such freedom might begin to restore faith in an afterlife, especially one in which the spiritual dimensions are composed of such Christian qualities as justice, brotherhood and charity. Says the Rev. William J. Wolf of Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Mass.: "There is greater equanimity in facing death's reality if what you are looking forward to in the next life is an extension of and a deepening of the value you find in this life."