When Kenneth Kistner, 85, died in February, his wife, Carmen, didn’t call any clergy.
At the Detroit memorial service for the Marine veteran and retired educator, Kistner’s family read a eulogy ”” one that Kistner himself approved years earlier, when it was drafted by a secular “celebrant” near their retirement home in Largo, Fla.
A growing number of people want to celebrate a loved one’s life at a funeral or memorial service without clergy ”” sometimes even without God.
And that’s giving rise to the new specialty of pastoral-style secular celebrants who deliver unique personalized eulogies without the rituals of institutional religion.
Seems like a natural add-on to the funeral director’s job.
An Orthodox priest once remarked that modern Americans expect their ministers to be like funeral directors, with religious platitudes on demand but doing what they’re told and not challenging the customer in any way. Consumer religion. Like those fake-Christian weddings in Japan with a man dressed up as a minister, stole and all, but not allowed to say anything actually Christian.
[i] Link to commenter’s personal home page has been deleted by elf. Continued use of the link will lead to moderation. [/i]
So, what’s the big deal? I mean, if you’re a secular humanist at heart, why bother with what you never really believed in during your life?
Of course, as the director says at the end of the article, they WILL have to “sort things out” in the life hereafter. And sadly, it will be too late to change one’s mind about the existence of God by then.
Hope the lattes are good.
Frankly, I am perfectly happy for non-believers to have funerals led by secular officiants. I have had the experience several times of taking funerals where the family have not been believers at all, and I could tell by the look on their faces that they were not happy that I was ‘bringing religion into things’. On such occasions I have told myself that it was primary evangelism, and I have soldiered on. But it felt like pushing a bus up a hill. Why pretend? And, difficult though it is for us sometimes to believe it, a non-religious funeral can be dignified. A sharing of memories, an address by a family friend, some classical music (or the deceased’s favourite music) and a final letting-go without any word of hope. No. Shudder. On second thoughts it sounds pretty bleak to me, and always running the risk of becoming maudlin. For my funeral, read scripture, offer the Mass, ask mercy for my sins and remember that we are in Christ and Christ is risen from the dead.
I agree with the posts above: non-believers should go ahead and invoke their own formulae and rituals (and you can be sure that these secular celebrants will produce a fairly predictable liturgy – Terry Tee nails it in #3). And let them “grieve as those who have no hope” while they proclaim “Uncle Joe is still alive in our memory of his good deeds.”
What cracks me up with some of these folks is their confidence that they’ve “risen above” something (God/religion/superstition/neurosis) with their predictable platitudes.
When one of the main characters on [i] Star Trek the Next Generation [/i] was killed in a surprise plot twist, they had this really lame non-religious funeral where the other main characters listened to a pre-recorded message from the departed, in which she included perfectly personal words to each of the attendees.
I was cracking up at the credulity of these great “futurists.” (Of course Spock was not in that iteration of ST so you couldn’t really fault them for illogical ideas). Think about it:
I record a farewell message today. Unless I die by the end of the day, how long will my “personal” messages remain fresh? Is there a guarantee that none of the planned attendees will preceed me in death (or die with me, if we go on dangerous missions like the crew of the Enterprise)?
Will all the folks who are my friends today still be my only friends if I die later than about an hour from now? Will I not make any new friends I want to address? Might I not have fallings out with some of the current pals and need to change what, if anything, I say to them?
Was the character some kind of neurotic who perhaps recorded a new death video daily to maintain a fresh message and include all the right people?
What I wonder about the emerging “secular celebrants” is: Will they suffer the same junk that clergy suffer (as pointed out in comment #1)? Will they have the freedom to say, “Uncle Joe was a crappy human being who diminished every person unlucky enough to cross his drunken, narcissistic path”? Or will it be the same pressure from the “customers?” “Say what a good life he led. Here are some of his good qualities. Here’s his favorite song – Sinatra’s ‘I Did It My Way.’ Make it uplifting.”
Thanks, I’ll pass.
My wife and I firmly believe that a Christian should be buried from his or her parish church, and we have directed that this will be the case when our times come. We do not believe in funerals being held in funeral parlors and conducted by funeral directors. If non-believers choose otherwise, that’s their business, of course.
I’m all for non-religious folks doing their own non-religious funerals. I hate having to “take” funerals from people only very tangentially related to the church, especially if they are “notorious evil livers” as the exhortation describes some people in the 1662 BCP. I will always give someone a “proper Christian burial” if they or their family requests it, but I am always honest up front that a funeral, like the Eucharist, is a liturgy, meaning it is primarily a worship of God not a worship of the deceased. And if families aren’t comfortable with that, then the funeral parlor is right down the road.
Good. I agree with everything written above and, in my experience, whilst taking funerals for the unchurched can be a mission opportunity it very rarely actually does lead to converstion. More often I myself wonder why I am there- as pithy poems and poorly sung hymns are ended with music such as ‘I did it my way’….really what is the point of using up precious time doing such empty dross for strangers who have little interest in anything else?
Why do priest officiants/celebrants permit any variances from the Burial Office at all? The BCP lays the liturgy out pretty clearly. Poems/popular songs/lay eulogies can be offered at the funeral home or in the chapter room/parish hall after the service.
And, if the priest officiating at my funeral will not have known me personally, my preference for the sermon is not “I didn’t know, um, Pete, but I hear that he was a fine man…”. Rather, I have assembled a pretty decent folder of criticism of/reflections on Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud.” What are the chances that the priest will, provided those resources, use them as the basis for his/her sermon? (Not that I’ll really care … I’ll be resting, focused on my Hope of Glory!)
I once went to the service of a friend at Forest Lawn where they had a “rent a pastor.” I thought “ho-hum” until he said, “She knew Jesus as her Savior and Lord and if you want to see her again, you’d better get to know Jesus, too.” I wanted to say “Preach it, brother.”
At my funeral I want to have an open, empty casket and when people file by they trip a recording that I’ve made prior that says “I’m not here, I’m with my Father in heaven!”