Atheist funerals
British Reverend Giles Fraser, on secular funerals, article in The Guardian:
| â | And it was here, in this, the religious part of the service, that Cilla was not a celebrity standing before an audience, but a human being standing naked before God. There is a basic democracy in this aspect of religion that is often absent from the secular funeral...
In contrast to the religious funeral, the secular memorial service faces one massive problem. What if the deceased didnât merit the effusive praise of the recently appointed biographer? What if they had done little of note? Or indeed, even more problematically, what if they had been a total sh*t throughout their lives and no one has a good word to say about them? The secular memorial service is generally based on the optimistic idea that the deceased was worthy of some sort of public commendation â which is why the whole idea of a secular memorial service for a paedophile or a mass murderer feels totally impossible. Would people really stand up to laud their achievements? Would people tell funny little stories about them? Of course not. I use this extreme example to make a point. The secular memorial service began as something for important statesmen and was then adopted by the increasingly Godless bourgeoisie as a way of celebrating their personal achievements. But itâs often poorly designed for those of us who are not a part of the great and the good. And one unexpected consequence of the rise of the secular memorial service is that funerals are more full of half truths and evasions. Yes, the atheistic mindset is happy that the lie of God has been eliminated. Everything is more honest now, they say. Death is death. No more dressing it up. But things turn out to be far more complicated â for in the secular funeral this so-called lie about God is commonly replaced by another sort of lie, a lie about humanity. Or, at least, a lie about how good this particular person was.[1] |
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Penelope Nixon, The Guardian, letter to the editor concerning a Guardian article by the Reverend Giles Fraser:
| â | Life tends to be short in east London, so I have attended scores of funerals in my 68 years. Secular funerals are often dominated by those with the loudest voices and the crassest anecdotes. They confuse the function of the funeral with the function of the post-funeral wake.
The one humanist funeral I have attended was well-ordered and polite but had to be followed by religious services for family who found the secular event lacked comfort. I am grateful to the Rev Giles Fraser for being so honest in saying what needed to be said.[2] |
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See also
- â At a Christian funeral all are equal before God â even Cilla Black, The Guardian
- â Secular funerals can lack the requisite dignity and fail to provide comfort, Penelope Nixon, The Guardian, letter to the editor concerning a Guardian article by the Reverend Giles Fraser