No Disneyfying ornaments: the culture of The Burial of the Dead

The loss of religion makes real loss difficult to bear; hence people begin to flee from loss, to make light of it with Disneyfying ornaments ... - Sir Roger Scruton, 'The Work of Mourning'.

If there is one word that cannot be reconciled with the Prayer Book's The Burial of the Dead, it is 'kitsch'. 

There is no room for kitsch in a Prayer Book funeral. 

The seriousness of death and the reality of resurrection are sharply set before us: sentimentality, which attempts to obscure the first and ignore the second, is banished. 

In the very midst of death, The Burial of the Dead proclaims a robustly Christocentric vision. 

Here "Disneyfying ornaments" have no place for they are exposed as trite and insubstantial.

Here hope is firmly rooted in the truth and substance of Christ.

O merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life; in whom whosoever believeth shall live, though he die; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in him, shall not die eternally ...

As Peter Hitchens famously demonstrated in his comparison of the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales, funeral customs matter. They carry significant cultural meaning.

They convey what is believed about death, and about life beyond death - or its denial.

In a culture shaped by the kitsch of the Diana funeral, there is good reason for Anglicans, retrieving the strengths and ethos of the Prayer Book's The Burial of the Dead, to likewise retrieve the funeral culture and customs which embody those strengths and that ethos.

Attire should be that of mourning, a recognition of the reality of death - no silly, facile encouragement of garish colours to 'celebrate life'.

If there is to be a tribute by a family member or friend, it should respect and reflect the solemnity of the funeral.

The Burial of the Dead is serious business: there is no place for supposed 'light-heartedness'.

Nor is it a time for trite music, seeking to deny death's sting. 

If there is music alongside a few well-chosen hymns, that music must serve the proclamation of the Christian Faith.

Otherwise, it can have no place in The Burial of the Dead.

Likewise, with any poetry to be read.

Funeral sermons have traditionally paid tribute to the departed. Consider Jeremy Taylor's funeral sermon for the Countess of Carbery:

now that we are come to weep over the grave of our dear sister ... we cannot choose but have many virtues to learn, many to imitate, and some to exercise ... She lived as we all should live, and she died as I fain would die.

They do so, with thankfulness for those virtues which are the gift of God - not empty banalities derived from secular humanism, nor the sentimental cliches of a greetings card.

And such tribute is always in the context of the Christian hope. 

As Taylor concluded his sermon at the funeral of the Countess of Carbery:

And we also, if we live as she did, shal partake of the same glories; not only having the honour of a good name and a dear and honour'd memory, but the glories of these glories, the end of all excellent labours, and all prudent counsels and all holy religion, even the salvation of our souls in that day ...

A funeral sermon is, therefore, to be defined by a serious, confident proclamation of the Christian hope of "The Resurrection of the body, And the life everlasting".

The culture of The Burial of the Dead is to reflect and embody this.

The reality of death and mourning must be recognised, else the truth of the resurrection is denied.

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.

Mourning attire, solemnity, reverence for the funeral rite: these do matter.

When they are replaced with "Disneyfying ornaments", with words and music and attitudes which attempt to make light of death, which desire to encourage jollity in the face of the grave, then there is but froth, not the reality of death's sting.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The "displays of kitsch emotion", says Scruton, are not the stuff of either authentic mourning or abiding hope:

This life and this love, it tells us, were no more real than the feelings displayed at the end of it, so let’s make a pretty display of them and move on.

Against the kitsch and the froth, Anglicans should be confidently setting forth a radically different understanding of funerals, mortality, death, and resurrection.

Promoting and demonstrating a culture which points to the seriousness of death and the truth of Resurrection: this is what should be seen in Anglican churches, recovering the great strengths of the Prayer Book's The Burial of the Dead and the customs accompanying it.