Minister delivers eulogy, forgets the name of the deceased.

[Jokerman]

"I never met Tom but I know he loved jesus."

First of all jack-ass, his name was Steve, not Tom.

Second, I knew Steve for over 25 years and NEVER heard him mention ANYTHING at all about religion. I'm not saying he didn't believe in god but doesn't it seem odd that none of his friends recall him having any interest in religion, yet he supposedly loved jesus.

Why would the family hire some dip-shit minister to drone on and on about jesus but not care enough about the deceased to learn his name?

This is the third funeral I've attended in the past year and every one of them included a eulogy from a minister who had never met the deceased. They seem to view it as a chance to proselytize to a captive audience and I think that is wildly inappropriate.

I've decided to pre-plan my own services and stipulate that anyone who mentions god or jesus will be promptly removed from the premises.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The rabbi who did my mother's eulogy based it on us passing around the phone.

When my mother died almost five years ago, we scrambled to find an available rabbi. It ended up with this rabbi who never met or knew Mom calling our house and him writing furiously our memories of Mom and trying to fashion a proper eulogy.

Mine was the Mom-isms. The stuff your mom tells you over and over and over and over. He got to the last one on my list: Life's not fair. I looked over at Mom's coffin and thought, "No shit!"

And considering the rabbi was "winging it", he didn't do a bad job.

[Jokerman]

3. At least he did his home work.

This guy read the obit from the paper word for word, then droned on about jesus for twenty minutes after which he forgot who the funeral was for.

I guess we were lucky, my mom worked for a judge who delivered a completely secular and extremely touching eulogy at her service.

My dad's will specified cremation and "no religious ceremony or funeral services whatsoever." We just took over his favorite bar for the day and traded stories.

[havocmom]

2. Pastor at wedding of an in-law blew the bride's name.

Not cool, doing the ceremony joining groom and ::insert name of grooms PREVIOUS girlfriend's name here::

Lovely, not-bridezilla type bride's day was pretty well ruined, she quietly cried through the ceremony. The Pastor just thought she was overwhelmed. He dad and sister damned near killed the man afterward. Pastor knew the families, baptized both the groom AND the bride as children, did the pre-marriage counseling. No excuses and he didn't notice what he had done until that chat with bride's dad and sister... :grr:

[Jokerman]

4. Wow, that's messed up.

Using the name of the previous girl-friend instead of the bride makes this guy's gaff look tame.

[havocmom]

5. Very sweet bride, she was really hurt by it. When groom didn't so much as clear his throat...

well, that was a bad way to start a life together. The pastor blew the name several times. People started to mumble. Groom was silent.

Bride was one sad young woman at her own wedding.

[hedgehog]

16. Someone should have pointed this out instead of allowing the

pastor to continue having a brain fart. No excuses? You don't mention how old the pastor is, but apparently he has at least 20 some years on the bride and groom. Some priests may claim to be infallible, but believe me, they 're all just as human as you and me.

[Critters2]

29. While I preach without notes or a manuscript, I type out EVERY WORD

of every wedding and funeral I do. Why? Because, no matter how many you've done, they are always stressful, and one runs the risk of forgetting something important--yes, like the bride's name. So, I fully understand how this could happen. Someone, the bride maybe?, should have corrected him. It would have been easy to do.

[Book Lover]

34. Easy? Are you kidding?

What on earth prepares a woman to interrupt the person officiating her wedding ceremony to correct her name! Have you ever been on the other side of the pulpit durng a wedding?

[Critters2]

36. Please. Members of the wedding party are whispering to the pastor

and vice versa all through the service--directions for where to stand, reminders of something worked out at the rehearsal, lots of stuff. A simple "Pastor, my name is..." would not have been that difficult. And yes, I've been on both sides of the officiant-bride relationship.

[Book Lover]

37. That makes me even more surprised at your lack of compassion

nm

[Evoman]

6. I've ranted about this before.

Same sort of shit happened at the funeral of my cousin, who was agnostic (and I believe a closet atheist). The pastor did nothing but talk about jesus. After he gave his stupid god speech, my dad and my cousins best friend did the real eulogy, in both spanish and english.

It was a bad day. Not only was I sad, but I was furious at the fake-ass slimy funeral home director and exasperated at the idiot pastor. No fucking tact.

[Critters2]

11. Why the hell was a Christian minister asked to do a funeral for an agnostic?

Who was the idiot who asked him to do this. THAT is the person you should be pissed at.

[Evoman]

13. I can't be. It was a christian funeral because both her mother and her husband are christian.

And although my cousin was definitely not christian, and said so on many occassions, I suppose funerals are not done for the dead, but for the living.

I'm sure they had no problem with it. The weird thing is, that my family consists almost exclusively of atheists and agnostics, with the exception of my aunt (her mother), one of my uncles (fundie), and my grandmother (who is more pantheistic than christian).

The rest of us had to grumble. However, we just couldn't fight my aunt on this...she is pure emotion and she took it really bad. 2 years later, and she is still not dealing with it well. I think most of us would have even out-right converted to christianity if it made her feel even a bit better, the poor woman.

[HamdenRice]

7. Martin Luther King's predecessar at Dexter Avenue Baptist once gave a eulogy

that went something like this (this was Rev. Vernon Johns):

"So and so lived a trifling and worthless life. He went around Montgomery daring someone to cut his throat. Saturday night somebody obliged him. He lived like a dog; he died like a dog. Undertaker claim the body."

This story according to Andrew Young who could not recall the deceased's name. The family had imposed upon Johns to give the eulogy, which he resented.

So, it could always be worse.

[Occam Bandage]

8. If you want your minister to know who you are, consider meeting him before you're dead. nt

[Jokerman]

18. True, if that is what you want.

I have no problem with a religious funeral for a religious person. A eulogy from clergy with a personal relationship with the deceased is entirely appropriate.

My concern is when the family decides a minister is what THEY want even if it is a dishonor to the deceased.

[Critters2]

30. The deceased should have planned a funeral. This is easy to do, every funeral home

has programs for this, and it can include a religious service, a secular memorial, or nothing at all. One then names a friend or family member to see that this is done, and well, it's done. Even if the family wanted a religious ceremony, the "official" funeral would be the one the funeral home had pre-arranged plans for.

[Occam Bandage]

31. Well, I can't very well blame the clergyman here. He was presented with a corpse, and it seems

the family did not attempt to become involved with the planning. If you're the head of a church, and a family drops a corpse at your door and says to eulogize it with no further explanation about its former beliefs, it's usually a good assumption that the deceased believed in your church. Sometimes, such as in this case, that's literally all he can go on to write his eulogy.

[knitter4democracy]

9. Oh man, that one really gets my goat.

A funeral is not the time to win souls to Christ, if that's your thing. A wake is not the mission field. Instead, you should follow St. Paul's admonission to cry with those who cry and ease the loss in any way you can. A pastor giving the eulogy who doesn't know the deceased should get the heck out of the way and let people who knew him/her speak up. Those are usually better anyway.

[Critters2]

12. Families shouldn't ask clergy to do funerals for people they don't know. nt

[knitter4democracy]

27. I agree, but if that happens, then the clergyperson needs a backup plan.

And the backup plan shouldn't be to have an altar call.

[Critters2]

10. This is the fault of the family and/or the deceased.

Asking a clergyperson to do a funeral for a person who is not religious is just assinine. Clergy will agree to do these services to be kind to people in grief. But it's not the clergyperson's fault that he never met the deceased, or that the family asked him to do such a service.

I never get why the clergyperson is criticized in these circumstances. It's the family who did a stupid thing!

[Evoman]

14. There is a difference between saying "She is in jesus' hands"

and giving comfort, which a pastor should be able to do, and using the opportunity to preach.

In this case, the pastor got the name fucking wrong. In my cousins case, it went beyond comfort, to active preaching. It is not the families fault. It's the fuck nut preachers fault.

[hedgehog]

15. So this minister broke into the funeral, then locked the doors so no one could escape,

then delivered his sermon while pointing a gun at the mourners?


Some people think church is for hatch, match and dispatch. If the minister refused to show up because the family involved or the person involved wasn't a practicing memeber of his or her congregation, then you's be upset at the minister for holding to a rule book during the family's time of grief.

[Jokerman]

17. WTF are you talking about?

I have no idea how you got any of that from my post.

Since you brought it up I would RESPECT any clergy member who declines to eulogize someone they didn't know.

[hedgehog]

19. The family arranged for the minister to be there; it was up to the family

to make sure the minister had all the proper information.

You also objected to the minister's speech. "They seem to view it as a chance to proselytize to a captive audience and I think that is wildly inappropriate." If I may quote from one of the oldest statements of Christian faith, the Apostle's Creed:

"He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

As you can see, what happens to a person after death has long been a major topic for Christians. I would expect a minister to expound on his version of the Christan after-life at a funeral. What would you expect; a discussion of the Cubs' chances this year?

[Jokerman]

21. Funny you should mention the Cubs.

My friend was a HUGE Cubs fan. He also loved the blues and attended the Chicago Blues Fest whenever he could. His friends knew about these passions yet we never heard him mention religion. This seems to be purely the idea of a distant sibling who was the only next of kin.

The point is that an overtly religious ceremony for a non-religious person is a dishonor to the deceased just as jewish, muslim, or even a secular service could be considered a dishonor to a christian.

So yea, a discussion of the Cubs chances would have been better than a sermon.

[Evoman]

25. Preaching god is fucking gross, especially when people are at their weakest.

Am I ever glad I'm not a fucking christian, lacking that sort of tact and decency.

GROSS.

[knitter4democracy]

28. A funeral is not the mission field, though.

The pastor probably was thinking of judgement and all anyway and let himself get carried away in the moment. It wasn't the time or the place, though, even if he thought he could win a few souls to Christ because everyone was thinking of their dead friend and pondering their own deaths.

[and-justice-for-all]

20. If they pull that crap with me when I die..

I am going zombie on their asses!

[struggle4progress]

22. If you're not religious, why go to a religious service?

[Jokerman]

23. Because it's not about me, it's about the deceased.

As I've said previously in this thread, a religious service is completely appropriate for a religious person. When a family member uses the opportunity to impose THEIR religion on the services for a non-religious person, they dishonor the deceased.

Exactly how am I supposed to know ahead of time that the services for my non-religious friend were going to be hijacked by christians?

Even if I knew what the slant of the services would be, are you saying that the non-religious shouldn't be allowed to pay their respects to the dead?

How wonderfully intolerant of you.

[struggle4progress]

26. I did not suggest that it was inappropriate for you to attend, I merely asked why you attended

I'd guess (perhaps incorrectly) from your comments in this thread, that your attitude has the following in common with my own, namely, that the dead do not particularly care whether we attend their funerals

The question I asked arises naturally from the fact that different people have different aims for memorial rites: for example, some might attend in solidarity with the bereaved, some might attend as part of grieving and/or simply to remember a friendship, some might consider particular traditional rituals important, and so on

The point of your OP seems to be that you are angry about the minister, who apparently did not know your friend. Did the minister appear without a request from the family and hijack a service to which he was uninvited?

If you find such services as painfully inauthentic, why not find another way to remember and celebrate that friendship?

[Evoman]

24. Well, aren't you Mr. Fucking sensitive.

1) How the hell was he supposed to know that the service was going to be religious? They don't fucking advertise it...even if its at a church or conducted by a pastor, a funeral isn't always overtly christian.

2) If the only ceremony for the deceased is religious, and we love the person and want to support friends and family, how can we not go? Unlike you, some of us are capable of sympathy.

[beam me up scottie]

42. Yeah, what was that shit they keep telling us about keeping faith out of faith based programs?

If they can't fucking do one lousy funeral without shoving it down everyone's throat, how the hell are they going to keep their traps shut when they're handing out soup or offering a bed to a homeless person for the night?

Our tax dollars will only be used for secular services my ass.

[jmm]

32. I can understand the family being so caught up in their grief or

a minister trying to help in a difficult situation planning a funeral that isn't personal but I have no tolerance for people who use funerals to grandstand.

A friend once told me of how a priest refused to acknowledge her step-grandfather at her grandma's funeral because she had been married twice. He tried to forbid the family from mentioning him. My friend wrote a fake speech ahead of time and ended up saying what she wanted to say. The best, for lack of a better term, funerals I've ever been to were special because they were about the people who died and others didn't try to make it about themselves. I've been to funerals were people complained because the deceased wasn't formally dressed. If somebody wore jeans nearly everyday of their life why bury them in something different? An uncle of mine died about a year and a half ago and there was a DJ at his funeral because that's what he wanted.

[Jokerman]

35. My mom was thrown out of the catholic church.

She married young to an abusive jerk. The church told her to either stay and keep getting beaten up or leave the church she was raised in forever. The experience soured her on religion in general and turned her into a life-long feminist.

One of my proudest moments was when a group of women I went to school with told me they marched with my mom in a NARAL rally. They thought it must be pretty cool to have an activist for a mom, and they were right.

We allowed the hospital priest to administer the last rites when she was dying but there was no mention of the church at her funeral.

[LeftyMom]

33. My mother hired a minister when my grandmother died.

My grandmother lived in an area with a very high concentration of retirees and a lot of churches, and she told me more than once it was because old people were afraid to die, and thus wanted to hear that death wasn't final. She never once said a positive word about religion, the closest I can think of is that she gave me a card with some money in it for my first communion. She was a hell of a thinker, cynical in a good way, and generally independent and free thinking.

It was funny in a sad way watching this minister try to find appropriate verses for a complete stranger (I'm told she loved the ocean, here's a verse about the ocean kind of thing) and even though I was only thirteen and was still pretty religious, it struck me as a betrayal of who my grandmother was and generally inappropriate.

If somebody wasn't religious enough to know a minister, it seems odd to assume they were religious enough to want one at their service.

[beam me up scottie]

38. We didn't have much of a choice.

We had no idea who to hire to do the service for my mom. We lived in a rural area and Mom died suddenly. It was a terrible shock, we were just going through the motions when the local funeral director sent over a young woman minister who offered to do a secular service.

She was wonderful.

She spent a lot of time with my family learning about my mom, and we did stress that since gods were not part of Mom's life, they had no place at her funeral. The minister managed beautifully, neither pissing off believers or non. And, most importantly, Mom would have approved.

I guess living in New England has its advantages. Religion is usually No Big Deal and is not normally a topic of conversation whether you believe or not. Ministers can officiate at secular weddings and funerals and everyone feels welcome.

I hope it stays that way.

[TZ]

39. Hey BMUS!

Long time no see...how are you doing?:hi:

[beam me up scottie]

40. I'm still insane, how you?

I've really been missing you guys.:hug: Unless you live down here, you have no idea what it's like in red state hell. Racism was legion BEFORE Obama got the nod, it's beyond unbearable now.

Since I'd already lost my job, several so-called friends and pissed off lots of BBF's friends and relatives when I outed myself as a godless commie, letting them know what I think of their hypocrisy now is not just easy, it's the most fun I've had in ages!

sigh...It's going to be a looooooooooooooooong campaign for those of us in the south.

I'll try to keep in touch more, I get lost and depressed easily down here.

I do hope your luck has taken a turn for the better. You were way overdue for a break.

[TZ]

41. check your PM.

[beam me up scottie]

43. .

if you need anything...well, you know.:pals: