We Don’t Dance on Graves: To Those Celebrating the Death of Phyllis Schlafly

People. Get ahold of yourselves.

I get it. She tried to single-handedly squelch the Equal Rights movement with her own cold, unfeeling hands.  She has been the unsmiling, judgy face of the Moral Majority. She made “feminism” a bad word in a whole lot of circles She was a hypocrite who enjoyed a wildly successful political career, even as she insisted that a woman’s place was in the home. She used her privilege as a wealthy white woman to exact social change that would harm the poorest and most vulnerable. I get it. She’s not great. She’s not our favorite.

Even so, I’m disturbed by the ecstatic vibe surrounding her death. I’m disappointed [insert mom face here] by all the “Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead” memes. As our friend Mark Sandlin said: “Celebrating the death of another person is neither progressive, nor Christian.”

This is not who we are. This is not what we do.

As a pastor, I’ve done a lot of funerals. I’ve done funerals where people sad-cried and happy-cried for hours, because this was such a beautiful life, so rich in love and meaning. We tell stories, we sing songs, we hug and cry some more, and there is no end to the wonderful words that might be spoken over this person’s life and legacy. This is one of the best parts of my job.

But I’ve also done this other kind of funeral sometimes… The kind where a person was difficult. Contentious. Unloving. And/or, maybe just left a lot of hurt people in the wake of things left unsaid and undone. Those are hard days. On those days, you don’t try to pretend that this person was everybody’s favorite. What you do is, you speak good news about hope and resurrection; about the mystery and fullness of life, even if it is ultimately made complete in ways that we can’t quite see or understand. You say words about the transforming love of Christ, and how it receives even imperfect people. And isn’t that great news, since we are all pretty imperfect?

That is always the message, because it is always true. A life is a whole life, and not just the sum total of achievement and failure, joy and heartbreak. A life is a whole life, and everyone is someone’s child, parent, spouse, sibling or friend.

And we–we are resurrection people. We are not “I’m so glad she’s dead” people.

The good news is, nobody is asking you to preach a eulogy for Phyllis Schlafly. You don’t have to pick through the archives of her near-century-long life and try to dig out a few kernels of wisdom or happiness or meaning. Nobody is asking you to comfort her family, or make sense of life and death in general, or say the words that will bring meaning and cast a glowing end to her days. You don’t have to do any of that.

But you also don’t have to celebrate. You don’t have to dance on her grave. Or anyone’s for that matter.

We are resurrection people first. Always.