Belief Systems and Remembering
If the deceased person has left a will which details their funeral wishes then the decisions that make the ceremony unique have been made, if a person desires it. Although a funeral is often framed within established cultural or religious beliefs, a Will can in most cases ensure that any specific wishes are catered for. If instructions have not been left then planning and organising a funeral can become difficult and fraught with conflict, which is clearly undesirable for all concerned. Even within faiths there can be different traditions and / or cultural norms which determine how a funeral should be carried out. Overall due to the possible difficulties which may arise in accommodating different belief systems many people opt for an interfaith service.
What is an interfaith service?
A traditional religious funeral and an interfaith service share some common elements:
· The deceased person is accorded with the utmost respect and is treated in a sacred manner
· There is always a memorial, commemoration and celebration of the life of the deceased
· The funeral itself is characterised by a strong degree of ritual
An interfaith ceremony allows the deceased person to determine the manner of their funeral that accommodates their desires and matches the way in which they lived their life. It also reduces the potential conflicts and frictions alluded to above. In general terms, an interfaith funeral is likely if:
· The precise religious or spiritual beliefs of the deceased were unknown or ambiguous. It is important to be clear that if the deceased was known to have no such beliefs then a church service might be appropriate. In this situation as clinical as it may sound, the onus is on the deceased to make this explicit.
· The deceased person was not religious per se but did believe in some deity, higher spiritual power or an afterlife of some kind. In other words, they considered themselves to be a spiritual person as opposed to a religious person.
· The deceased person may have had a trauma or negative experience in their lifetime which caused them to question their birth faith, but they still retained a degree of spirituality in the kind of broad terms outlined in the above point.
Finding out about the person
Overall interfaith funerals can be structured as the deceased wishes in that they can choose everything from readings and music to how the occasion itself will be structured. Often what will happen due to scheduling and time constraints the actual burial or cremation will happen at a church or equivalent site of worship and celebration of a person’s life will occur at the wake. This is why many ministers will spend time with the family of the deceased providing emotional support as well discussing exactly how the funeral will play out on the terms desired by the deceased.
By adhering to the wishes of the deceased, mourners can say goodbye to the person they love in a manner that is built on unconditional love and respect for them as a person and their achievements in life.
http://www.jcwalwyn.co.uk/coffins-and-caskets.html