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{"id":22878,"date":"2017-09-14T16:40:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=22878"},"modified":"2017-09-14T16:42:06","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:42:06","slug":"everybody-live-happily-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2017\/09\/everybody-live-happily-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Everybody Live Happily Ever After?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"coffin_construction_13\"$ Excuse me for being critical of the USA, but it always happens after I return from Europe.<\/p>\n

But seriously, have you ever noticed how so much of American culture is like one big trip to Disneyland?<\/p>\n

Its like everybody is expected to be happy and healthy and smiling and successful all the time.<\/p>\n

24-7<\/p>\n

Now far be it from me to be a spoil sport, a party pooper or one to rain on anybody\u2019s parade, but its not realistic is it?<\/p>\n

There are many example of this flight from reality, but one of the most notorious is our attitude to death. Evelyn Waugh\u2019s vicious \u00a0account of the undertaker\u2019s business in American\u00a0The Loved One\u00a0<\/em>highlights American\u2019s attitude to death with biting satire.<\/p>\n

But there is more to it than the endless euphemisms, cosmetics and the soothing artificiality of it all. The sentimentality surrounding death is also, in Christian circles, where the heresy of universalism is most often displayed.<\/p>\n

What do people say when someone dies? Usually something like, \u201cWell, she is in a better place now\u201d or \u201cNow all her pain is gone and she is with Jesus in heaven.\u201d or \u201cHe was too good for this earth. Now he is with the angels.\u201d or \u201cMy dear Henry is an angel now.\u201d or the Protestant Biblical version, \u201cTo be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

This indicates two heresies: universalism- \u201cEverybody will be saved and go to heaven\u201d and the Protestant doctrine of eternal security.<\/p>\n

Yes, I understand the need to comfort the bereaved, but it is not actually much comfort if it is untrue. I accept that Calvinistically influence Protestants believe in the doctrine of eternal security and they do not believe in purgatory so they must believe that their loved ones are with Jesus in heaven because the alternative is too terrible to consider. Likewise universalists don\u2019t really believe in either purgatory or hell, so of course they will dish out sentimental nonsense about \u201cShe is in a better place now.\u201d<\/p>\n

So a smidgen of Protestant theology combined with a sentimentally unrealistic culture combines to produce this saccharine approach to death.<\/p>\n

The fact is they may not be in a better place now. They might be in a worse place.<\/p>\n

Something else in this matter has come to my attention recently. A friend told me that increasingly in Baptist type churches they don\u2019t have funerals. Instead they cremate the person\u2019s body and they have a memorial service that celebrates the person\u2019s life. Then the ashes are disposed of in whatever way the family desires\u2013sprinkling them at sea or on a\u00a0mountaintop (I can\u2019t get that scene from the Big Lebowski out of my mind) or just burying them.<\/p>\n

So instead of moaning and groaning, here is the truly Catholic approach to death.\u00a0Continue Reading<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Image Creative Commons via Bing<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"