I posted this on Voices after some comments that the term is depressing.

Some in my church recoil at the phrase, but I find it helpful to name the thief that it is. One of the ways I regularly try to slip out of the grip of the gospel and into some other cheap world imitation is to imagine that things aren’t in as bad a shape as they appear, and that with a bit of new information, a bit more money, a bit more strength, a bit more self discipline, everything will be OK.  I really want to think that I’m something other than a dead man walking. I really want to believe that my good intentions really count for something. I really want to imagine that I’m a “good person” not fully appreciated rather than an outright rebel who simply needs to lay down his arms (CS Lewis). I buy into the selling short idea that “oh well, it was their time to go” when actually when we get to that point it is because the thief has taken almost everything anyway and what’s left isn’t worth fighting over. We never day that at the grave of a young person when the difference between the young person and an old person is the theft perpetrated by the age of decay.