A MORTE ENTRE OS IDOSOS EM COMUNIDADES PRESBITERIANAS DO NORDESTE BRASILEIRO

Abstract

Death is a reality to be faced by every human being. There are many ways that humans find to explain, face and even to understate such reality. Religion is one of these ways, and Christianity is no exception. Having as an object of study the concept of death from the point of view of evangelical churches’ elderly, the question that addressed this research was: what is the expectation of elderly members of a historic Protestant church in the relation of death vs postmortem hope present in the religious speech of their community of faith? Other issues such as: what is the relationship between death and religion? And what is the place and importance of death (death as a social fact)? Is there a preparation for death? These issues appeared in order to discuss what the expectation of the elderly of this church on the reality of death is. This is the main purpose of this dissertation; as well as to demonstrate that hope in life after death is not a sufficient basis to develop a pedagogy of death; but also to analyze the death-religion binomial from the literature and speaks of the elderly. The text is divided into three chapters where, from the thought of Durkheim, it discusses death as a social fact; then, from Kübler-Ross's work, the stages of death among the elderly are shown; and, at last, an analysis about the role that death plays on historical protestantism. After this theoretical framework, the qualitative character analysis, geared towards understanding the elderly behavior before death, allows, through the speech of 14 respondents (elderly), to find understanding and apprehension of the proposed object. From the words of the elderly that was sought the meaning of death and dying for them. It was felt that with all a teaching focused on the issue of the end of human existence on earth, protestantism prepares its member to death, but still needs better prepare to die.