The nature of funeral services in the Scottish Highlands is changing.

I have attended countless funerals in my lifetime, and last winter has taken its toll upon a significant number of people that I knew. Witnessing these funerals I draw attention to the subtle changes that are taking place.

Instead of seeking God’s blessing upon the bereaved family, mourning friends and acquaintances, the tone is changing towards celebrating the deceased person’s life by way of thanking God for them, and supporting the family in their bereavement.  This is well and good in its own place, but it is substituting for seeking God’s blessing upon all concerned.

Scripture guides us how to comfort the bereaved when the godly die 1Th 4:13-18 and how to direct the mourners to the only true Comforter through Jesus Christ.

Instead of this, Christian comfort is being misapplied and sometimes it is even missing.

The Gospel is not overtly declared, the preacher leaving the life of the deceased to do the talking for him by way of a potted biography extolling the deceased.

The warning about preparation for meeting God in eternity is rarely heard, and more importantly, how to find peace with God is not explicitly explained.

Instead I have heard Rest In Peace (RIP) declared, the Roman Catholic prayer for souls in purgatory, whom they think are not yet at peace, so they pray even for their deceased popes to have peace. There is plenty scope for preachers to correct these misleading doctrines and to point their hearers in the right direction, towards Jesus Christ as a welcoming Saviour while there is yet time to find “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Rom 5:1.

The past

In the past, a Highland funeral service usually followed immediately upon death, at which God’s blessing and comfort was sought for the bereaved, and attendees showed their respect for the deceased by their attendance at their burial.  If the person was publicly significant there might be a memorial service arranged at a later date. 

Nowadays, the latter memorial service is being conflated and even replacing the former funeral service, beginning to conform to the varied practices throughout world history, but departing from biblical worship.

Current competition

As funeral directors compete with each other for business, there are more funeral businesses and national firms appearing in the Highlands of Scotland.  Their services to the bereaved are more ornate than the simple Presbyterian or Puritan “send-off” that has hitherto been witnessed in the Highlands. Additionally, humanist celebrants are avoiding the religious element altogether. One Inverness funeral director promoted the building of a Crematorium in Inverness, against which I campaigned at the time.  Now evangelical Christians are burning their dead, whereas the father of the faithful Abraham buried his dead Gen 23:4,8.  Jesus on His cross cried, “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.” It is as well for us that His body was not burned but solemnly buried – “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the scriptures” 1Cor 15:4-5.

From a Christian point of view, which is worse? – a humanist funeral with a burial or a christian funeral with a cremation?  One needs to ask also, what is one trying to achieve by each of these? In one, the humanist denies the being of God. In the other, the Christian burns what they believe was once the image of God in man. Humanists celebrate the life of the deceased but don’t thank God for it.  Christians seek God’s blessing on the bereaved through the worship of God, then the body made in the image of God is burned.  This is so inconsistent that you may understand why I cannot be a part of the latter hypocrisy. The former is consistent but the latter is God-defying, possibly out of ignorance. The best biblical text for demonstrating God’s displeasure with cremation is Amos 2:1.  Sometimes in Scripture we read of large numbers of decomposing carcasses being burned, probably for hygienic or practical reasons after a battle, but the singular burning of the bones of the ungodly king of Edom was abominated by God.  How much more the bodily remains of the godly?  It is an unchristian ritual, and will God bless it?

Controversial History

I gave an analysis of the principles behind funerals and burial at a Free Presbyterian Theological Conference more than twenty years ago, but the most significant person was not there to hear it, far less to “confer” upon the subject. Instead lessons were not learned and the Free Presbyterian Church had a few years of disagreement over “the funeral overture” from the Southern Presbytery and manifest inconsistences in subsequent practice.

The Synod debates on the subject were so poor that they even descended into prescribing the number of psalms to be sung at worship, the first liturgy introduced and mandated into Free Presbyterian worship in its long history. Of course, it did not hold and there was one rule for one and another rule for another.

One significant observor told me some years later that he thinks the counting of votes was wrong and according to his calculation the vote should have gone “the other way” in favour of what I was saying.

This was a failure of the spirit of Presbyterianism. Instead of conference there was imposition. I have noted many conferences that do not confer, such as the Scottish Reformed Conference which I stopped attending many years ago because it consisted simply of three sermons without any conferring. It may be my regular criticism of this point which makes the Free Presbyterian annual conference a true conference with about an hour or more of conferring. On the other hand, some lecturers run over their time with lengthy papers, such as the annual Free Church School in Theology, so that there is little or no time to confer, nor to discover that the speaker cannot answer the questions raised.

The spirit of Presbyterianism

It is the nature of Presbyterianism to confer and make use of the wisdom of “a multitude of counsellors” but too often this is abandoned in favour of “following my leader”. The ability to use biblical exegesis to solve disputes, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, has given way to following authority figures and their opinions.

“But we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”

2Corinthians 4:2

Worse than “follow my leader” is the current policy of “catch me if you can” in which church leaders simply do as they please, like teenagers testing their boundaries, to see what they can get away with.  This is becoming commoner with the worship of God, which is changing from God-centred worship to man-centred entertainment.  This spirit is developing at Highland funeral services, promoted by the next factor changing funeral practices in the Highlands.

Funeral directors

There are other factors at play in the Scottish Highlands, such as competition between the funeral directors. The established businesses are being squeezed by newcomers who are catering to the aesthetics of the trade, trying to make glamorous what is a solemn occasion and transaction, lightening the mood of the occasion.

The coffin is solemnly introduced to the celebratory occasion, with ritualistic bowing, processions and other novelties, so that the body is not “left out in the cold” – a genuine comment to me and not a humorous pun.

If it was not the worship of God, some of this might be acceptable. Possibly one needs to conclude that some of these public meetings are simply not the worship of God. They are family gatherings to which friends are invited, and some religious elements are included. Humanist funerals are becoming commoner and their lighter, celebratory, musical elements entertaining the attendees may influence some Christians to imitate them, but just as church hymnody cannot match secular entertainment, one should not think that man-centred worship can outmatch humanist celebrations. The Christian church should abide by God-centred worship at funeral services and make it meaningful and relevant.

The Christian witness

At Christian funeral services, many preachers are failing to use the opportunity to warn people about a lost eternity and to invite them to Jesus Christ with the free offer of the Gospel. Frequently the mourners are none the wiser that there is “a heaven to be won and a hell to shun”. Although the life of the deceased may be used to suggest that others should follow in their steps, yet preachers need to explain how this is done. While seeking to comfort the mourners that the deceased has gone to heaven, there is rarely any explanation how we can follow them to heaven. I was recently told after a funeral service that this “was not the time to discuss this”.  Really? If so, things are definitely changing in the Scottish Highlands.