The person who had died would have called herself a humanist. She was in many ways a lovely person and always concerned to be fair and just in all her dealings, and a person to whom we owed a great deal as a family.
Originally, the plan was for the funeral to be conducted by a member of the Humanist Society, but as it turned out it was simply a civil ceremony. The waiting room at the crematorium in which we assembled prior to the ceremony in early September had a sentence etched in the glass of the large window which read: ‘There is only one religion although there are many expressions of it.’ In this case it would mean avoiding any reference to God altogether.
Thanking who?
As Christians in attendance we knew that others there might well have felt awkward about us and what we believed, but we wanted it all to go smoothly and for it to be a helpful time for everyone concerned, which we hope in a way it was. But what struck us, amid our tearful grief, was the upbeat tone of ‘thankfulness’ which the official who led the ceremony tried to set.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …