Retaining the congregation
At a funeral today. There was one part where the vicar (for it was a church service) talked about the faith of the deceased, and referred to “those of you who have lesser faith, or indeed no faith.” At the time he said it I was altogether annoyed. How dare he hijack the ceremony and cheapen the memory of the dead woman in order to preach at me and those others of us who don’t believe? There’s a time and a place for proselytising, and at a funeral, in the face of those who knew the departed and have gathered to honour their memory, is not it. But then afterwards I got to thinking. In these increasingly, almost entirely secular times, part of any man of God’s ministry must be to spread the Word that they see clearly to the ranks of those who do not. Still, I felt that the time he’d chosen was inappropriate. But then, on further reflection, I started reconsidering even that. When else are we likely to come into contact with a priest? There’s little point speaking on such subjects in sermons at Mass: that would be, quite literally, preaching to the converted. The majority of the secular population will only come into contact with ministers on ceremonial occasions: weddings, christenings. And funerals. So, on the seesaw between honouring the one member of the congregation and preaching the Word of God to the unbeliever, where should the priest come down? I think I’m still of the opinion that it was the wrong time and the wrong place to do it. But I have a slightly more elevated respect for the man’s decision than I did at the moment he took it.
Wow, all that over one little statement.
What a loser.
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I’m touched by your concern.
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To a believer, and especially to a priest, the matter of whether those around you are also believers should be an extremely serious and even urgent matter- of life and death if you like- if it means the difference between salvation or not. This is why I think you have to be at least slightly tolerant of evangelicals, God squads and so forth: they’re trying to save you. The trouble is that although we have secular marriage (essentially a legal matter anyway), and there are now baby naming ceremonies making an appearance, there are no secular funerals where we can mourn a loved one without acknowledging a (usually) Christian God.
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In reply to Tom, there are plenty of opportunities for secular funerals, particularly if you opt for a cremation, as you have a ready made venue.
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Tom: I concur, hence my rethink. On the flipside, though, as I said, there’s a very, very fine line to walk before you cheapen the ceremony you’re there to provide in order to, essentially, berate those non-believers in the congregation.
Matt: crematoria are pretty, um, grim, though. In much the same way as a lot of people choose church rather than a register office for a wedding because churches are nice, the almost offensively non-demoninational “chapels” in crematoria seem to me to be an appalling place for your final goodbyes to be spoken. The wedding business has got around this by allowing solemnisation of marriages in secular premises, like hotels, which can be both pretty and non-religious, but the funeral business has no such luxury.
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My partner and I really struggled when deciding if our son should be ‘christened’. After a brief discussion on naming ceremonies, and remembering a really bad wiccan wedding I attended, we decided to go ahead and find a church to do a christian ‘christening’.
The churches that did us both turned us down blank. Which is strange because I went to Scouts at one and Jennie was a guide at the other so we had closer ties to these churches than any. Our local church said they would send valued members of the community to discuss faith with us and then didn’t turn up.
In the end we went to a strange mix of a church run independantly by the congregation. The service was run in conjuntion with another couple of christenings and contained a good mix of tradional church service and gospel singing.
At the point where each of our chosen ‘god’ parents where asked to promise to bring up Thomas in the faith I thought we would be struck down. We had chosen an Anarchist, an Atheist and a Communist ;-) I believe these people represent a good mix that would educate our child but I am not too sure others in the contrgation that day would agree ;-)
A our next song will lighten the mood before I start on why funerals are depressing.
I’ve never attended a funeral that made me happy. Wakes on the other hand can be fun and allow you to remember the personality of the departed. My father has picked Jerusalem and Swing Low Sweet Chariot for his funeral because he wants us all to be happy (and presumably patriotic) at the funeral. Unfortunatly the funeral is normally pretty much dominated by a person (the minister) that had little (or no) contact with the departed in life. If only we where stronger perhaps we would have more family and friends involved in the service and the this aspect of death wouldn’t offend us quite as much.
When I go you can tell the gorilla joke to everyone sil ;-) loudly, and pissed so everyone can remember me laughing along.
dramaQueen, you really are.
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I see what you’re saying, sil, but I think funerals in Churches are best avoided. You’re vulnerable and inevitably thinking about the afterlife. However good their intentions, the believers have you there, captive and more suggestable than you might otherwise be.
In order, I’d like my body to:
1) Have spare bits given to people who need them
2) Have anything left over go to medical students
3) Have the rest put in a cardboard coffin and burnt.
If people choose to put a ceremony around the process, fair enough.
As for christenings: what do you see as the advantage, Sparkes?
4 hours later
the christening was a naming cerimony where we introduced the little one to everyone at once and had a piss up.
The christian part of it, ‘christening’, was just cover for our pretty pagan ways ;-)
We wanted the get together and the whole nominated seconds thing (god parents) and the easiest way of doing that was in a church.
Neither of us are christians and none of the ‘god’ parents we picked where either.
13 hours later