This post is about an untimely death, an upcoming funeral and the planned exclusion of the ex-member father.
I’m framing it with the current trend of lessons for Relief Society and Priesthood are focused on:
- Fellowshipping with those who are not of our faith; and,
- Reaching out to love less-active members.
- Elder Uchtdorf and his sermons on being open and kind.
It was in this context, and in the context of my awareness and involvement in grief issues relating to the death of a child that I ran across a recent area authority’s decisions involving the funeral for a child who died in a tragic accident. The details would make anyone weep.
The decision was that the father, who had left the church, was not to be allowed to participate in any fashion if the funeral were held at the local LDS Chapel in Mooresville, North Carolina.
His involvement with podcasting (Unequally Yoked) has been well received in communities on both sides of the divide.
But that said, I was curious about what goes into deciding to ban a parent from participating in their child’s funeral, how common that is and the way the process is engaged in making the decision and using the relief society president to deliver the message.
- Does anyone know?
- How does this decision improve how the church is perceived by the family and the local community?
- Is this a churchwide position or only part of the Church in North Carolina?
- Is there anything to the story that I don’t know and that leaves this incomplete?
Wheat & Tares 
You left out the question if excluding a parent from their own child’s funeral makes the church feel any better about itself.
Beyond that I am simply stunned speechless.
I have never heard an Ex-mormon who was not getting close to being rebaptized speak in any church meeting before. Does the ban include not attending the funeral? Although many family members are given opportunity to speak at funerals, a non-member who has never been involved with the church would be seen as such by most who attend the funeral.
The church has a legal right to exclude anyone from a private meeting, and of course can exclude active participation from any party in public meetings. Is this a good idea to do so? I am not sure at all. There are other local concerns that may also be involved. we have members and ex-members of our ward that participate in groups that actively teach counter to established church teachings. Something like this may be involved here.
We had Jewish friends and a Methodist minister neighbor speak at funerals for my daughters.
But. My experience is obviously not universal.
Ignoring the basic issue of whether the decision was right or wrong, the obvious course of action would be to move the service out of the church meeting house.
Yes; there is a lot about this story that is incomplete IMO. With the Father being an ex-member, what of the rest of the family? Did he leave the Church voluntarily or was disciplined? If his transgression was using his position as a member to speak out against the Church, the possibility of him using the funeral to do the same may have been on someone’s mind.
If some area authority banned his attendance from the funeral, that is just WRONG; and I would’ve appealed that judgment.
I understand that the funeral is being moved. The father is allowed to attend, he just was told he could not participate in any way.
There are a lot of details I do not have, which is why I’m asking questions, etc., rather than giving conclusions.
My father’s children all spoke at his memorial service, by his wishes. In an LDS church, conducted by his bishop, with several GAs on the stand and one speaking.
We seven represent quite a spectrum of belief, relationship to the church, and outspokenness. It didn’t occur to the bishop to do otherwise (although he did counsel that it wasn’t a time to air differences—appropriately, in my opinion). I don’t think it occurred to anyone to consult any authority beyond the bishop.
But we siblings thought about it. I hesitate to speak for anyone else, but I think there would have been a consensus to go outside or around the church, had we lost the roulette that’s involved.
“I understand that the funeral is being moved. The father is allowed to attend, he just was told he could not participate in any way.”
We have had part-member families hold funerals at the funeral home instead of an LDS church building specifically so that they and not insensitive priesthood holders would be in charge of what happened. If this funeral is moved out of the LDS church building, no LDS priesthood leader has any authority to determine that he cannot participate. The rest of the family, however, may have something to say about it.
I have attended funerals of LDS members where ministers of other faiths held by close family members spoke. This is not a problem, since they are clearly recognized as preachers from other churches and most definitely not expected to preach exclusively LDS doctrine. Usually at funerals, the other ministers are not going to be hitting many points on which LDS members would disagree.
I am sorry for your loss.
As I understand, the teaching is that a funeral conducted in a church building by a bishop is a church meeting, and that the bishop retains control of church meetings. Accordingly, the bishop selects the speakers and other participants. Bishops are taught not to allow free rein to families at funerals, but instead to collaboratively arrive at satisfactory arrangements.
If the church (through the bishop) will not provide a funeral service satisfactory to the family, the family may hold the service elsewhere. In such a case, the family is free to do whatever it wants.
It’s similar in other churches. I am aware of a Roman Catholic parish being unwilling to change its funeral mass procedure to satisfy a family’s irregular request. I am aware of a LDS bishop refusing a song request from the family.
That said, I think it is very rare for a LDS bishop to affirmatively bar a parent from speaking at a funeral. Maybe (I’m wondering) the difference here is that in this case, the parent wasn’t less active or a nonmember, but had purposefully left the church?
The church of course has the “right” to do this, just as they have the “right” not to allow women into the Priesthood session of conference.
But I do think the optics are hard to see this as being Christ-like or promoting families first. I am sure some are going to push this into the news and I am not sure how high up this will go. If it does go national, it will be a shiner (black-eye) on the church.
It certainly seems that a more reasonable approach would have been for a leader to have a discussion and ask if the father would be able to be respectful and not be derogatory of the church in his words. From what I understand about the tragedy, I am not sure the father is holding the church/church culture responsible. I think that would be quite a bit more reasonable.
With this current situation it sure seems like the denial for the father to speak at the funeral in the church building is going to drive the father and possibly the mother and others away from the church. I can assume this father has a wound from his faith crisis and the church just poured a bunch of salt in that wound.
It appears that what is happening is a reading of the handbook that a funeral service is a meeting and the prohibition against ex-members preaching or praying in meetings.
It appears to be a terrible confluence.
I would hope that the area authority had an incredibly good reason for this decision. Otherwise…
When I was a missionary, our branch president invited the six missionaries in the branch to sing “O My Father” at his mother-in-law’s funeral. A very Catholic funeral, inside a small, beautiful Catholic church. So Mormon missionaries were invited to sing about Mother in Heaven at a Catholic funeral, and the local Catholic church allowed us to do so.
I wish we were as permissive of that kind of thing with our own funerals.
Though not his intent, BKP had provided a number of reasons for a family to hold a memorial service not at church and not presided over by a bishop. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1988/10/funerals-a-time-for-reverence?lang=eng
Alternatively, nothing prevents having a “funeral” at church and a separate memorial service. This is a fairly regular occurrence at Catholic, Episcopal and perhaps other Anglican churches where a “funeral” is a funeral mass centered on the Eucharist. It is not primarily a recollection of memories of the departed. Of course, without some explanation in any invitations, this could confuse Mormons culturally trained to think that a funeral is a memorial service rather than another church preaching meeting.
I should have added — it seems that BKP’s own funeral did not follow his instructions and he did not in fact rise up in his coffin to rebuke the Brethren for that.
It’s not churchwide policy. At my uncle’s funeral, my cousins, who have all left the Church but one, all participated in some way or another. Yes, my militantly atheist cousin only read off the obituary, but they all participated.
The purpose of a church is to be there for people during difficult times and hold them in their pain. Unfortunately, corporatism is endemic in the LDS Church today, leading to abuses such as this.
I attended the funeral of an LDS police officer (extended family member of mine) that was held in the chapel. The only Mormons to speak were the bishop (conducted), officer’s brother (eulogy), the stake pres (standard Mormon doctrine talk), and the closing prayer. The entire rest of the 1.5 funeral were the other police officers who also took the entire choir section seating, planned the entire funeral, ran the entire funeral, and paid for it. Not a single one of them was a member of the church. So if this father was excluded, it was vindictive rather than because he was no longer a member.
Which makes me so mad. Why punish him this way??? What purpose does it serve??? Shouldn’t the church be first in line to try to help?
It’s really heartbreaking to see some people miss the forest of the gospel for the single, dead tree of the CHI.
Sad.
If my spouse dies first we are not doing a funeral at the LDS chapel.
If I die first I hope my spouse will respect the needs of my family, friends, and myself and have a service not at a LDS chapel.
I have a strange funeral story for you all. My wife’s family is very active LDS, but one of her cousins had started attending a baptist church here in Utah. He was killed in a car crash. His wife wanted to have a baptist funeral, but given his large LDS friends and family, the baptist church was too small. The pastor asked to hold the funeral at an LDS church, which accommodated. So a baptist pastor presided at a Mormon church funeral.
It was really a mixture of LDS and baptist influences. The pastor spoke about Job at the funeral; the cousin’s active LDS Sisters sang a beautiful Mormon hymn. I’ve never seen anything like it. At the graveside service, the pastor asked everyone to sing Amazing Grace, which after the first line, nobody but the pastor knew the words. Some bishops and stake presidents make accommodations, but I know many do not.
When my brother died in a car crash, we held a memorial service in California where he had recently moved from. Because he had a lot of non-LDS friends and was a member of the media, local church leaders asked the mission president to give a “plan of salvation” talk. While the rest of the service was wonderful, the mission president’s (who didn’t know my brother) talk was a stark reminder of BKP’s instructions to make this a church service. It was the worst part of the otherwise wonderful service and memory of my brother.
My brother, who had formally resigned from the church, said the family prayer before my mother’s funeral. I don’t know how resignation vs. excommunication and family prayer vs. funeral service play into all of this.
Having been involved in many funerals, as a family member, as a member of a bishopric, and a member of the stake high counsel, I can tell you this is a bishop or stake president’s call. There is no formal statement as to who may or may not participate, just a statement to keep the experience spiritual.
I’ve seen inactive members and non-members speak, even an Episcopal Priest who was a family friend. So it is really bishop or stake president roulette.
I was excommunicated March 30, 2016 for apostate behavior. Just over 2 months later my Mom passed away from a series of strokes. Per her written request, I spoke at her funeral.
No one told me I couldn’t. I was never asked my membership status.
The situation described in this post is familiar to me (FB friend). Comparing his experience with mine serves to highlight what has been called “leadership roulette” by some. Why would an A-70 get involved? It seems Church hierarchy is more involved than is publicly known. The same took place in my church discipline – an A-70 pushed for my excommunication via my SP.
In neither case is the Church “looking good”, in my opinion. Rather, they look parochial and more concerned about the Church’s “face” than the individual. The 90 and 9 are kept secure and the 1 is abandoned.
Shameful.
When my wife’s grandfather passed away a few years ago (he lived in a rural Mormon-heavy community in southern Utah), his sons willingly paid a significant amount of money to have the funeral at a private funeral chapel instead doing it for free at the LDS chapel. The private facility was new-ish (<10 years) and nicely appointed, but not too ornate–not that different from a newly-built LDS stake center. Their decision was largely driven by their desire to maintain control of the service, and not relinquish it to a man who they barely knew (the bishop was relatively new to the area and did not know anyone in the family, and didn't even know the deceased except at his most frail and infirm). This, and the fact that a market exists at all for private funeral venues in Utah suggests that circumventing the LDS-BKP "unwritten order of funerals" is becoming a thing.
Sometimes, especially lately, it seems like too much to ask for the Church to err on the side of love and inclusion.
Well, I learned a good deal I did not know. Thank you all for educating me.
I would guess the 70 got involved because the SP felt it might not be okay to let the father talk and didn’t know what to do. So he asked the Area authority. It’s hard to come up with any reasonable justification for this decision in my mind.
I am too stunned to even read the other responses.
First, legally the father is the next-of-kin. The remains of his child are considered his property to be treated as any other piece of his personal property, within the local laws that govern disposal of bodies. He has the right to exclude the church from the funeral. The church leaders and members are his guests at the funeral. If the funeral is held at the church building, then they have control of what is done in their building. But the church has no right to force the funeral to be held there. It can be held anywhere else.
This is as arrogant and rude as going into a person’s home and turning them out into the street. If it was my child , the church leaders might be either backing down or being banned from the funeral themselves. And I would not hesitate to rake them over the coals publicly, not at the funeral, but perhaps in testimony meeting. I doubt they would have the guts to call the police on me but I might test that limit.
There might be more to the picture. The mother is also legal next-of -kin and in some states one or the other is given precedent but in others they are not. If the father does not have custody of the child or some other circumstance might explain better what is happening. At any rate, is awfully damned rude to treat a man like this under any circumstances regardless of his faults.
My mother died from dementia after a decade of suffering only a little short of hell. Dementia is far bigger than the relief society; they did what they could, a monthly 10-20 minute visit. For this we are grateful. My mother broke her leg a few years before that and developed a blood clot to the lung that almost killed her (which would have been preferable in the big picture). At that time when she was sound of mind, she clearly stated her intentions: I, the once youthful zealot and eventual heretic would speak but no more than 3 minutes, my brother the once youthful hoodlum and eventual pillar in the ward would say a prayer of dedication, nothing from other siblings or relatives or church leaders. Only this at a short simple graveside service. No viewing either.
After her death their bishop tried to take over her funeral. He bullied my father and scheduled it at the church and arranged speakers and tried to manipulate the funeral director. But he underestimated my father who quietly but utterly refused and her body was never taken to the church. Rather it was driven the 100+ miles straight to the cemetery in the small town where he was born (and where she did not want to be buried-that is another story).
My brother wanted a little more. Other sibling refused to speak when offered. He suggested that my mother really never knew her grandchildren before her mind went south. She would have wanted them to participate. So in the spirit of honoring her unstated intentions, my father agreed to add to the itinerary. My brother’s oldest daughter then about 12 years old offered what he called a child’s prayer and she likes to pray. My daughter then about 15 years old played a few of my mother’s favorite church hymns on a violin at the end. How much damage could a couple of kids do? (Their little brothers- that’s also another story that never happened).
My father appeared to age 10 years in the days following her death. I have never seen anyone so bent over with sorrow and grief the day we buried her although he did not cry. I thought it might be merciful if we opened the coffin and just stuffed him in there with her. His purpose of living for many years had been taking care of her and at that point it seemed he had nothing else for which to live. The service was over within 10 minutes, even my brother could not pray for very long.
Then my daughter began to play her violin. The sun was warm and the gusty wind off the mountain snow was chilly. It was impossible to play two notes together in tune. Only a youth of her naïve courage would even try. But in some miraculous way God guided her hand and many of us heard something we had never heard before- the indescribably beautiful music of heaven.
A window of sorts was opened and we knew mom was nearby, at rest in a good place, surrounded by the love of her parents and sisters and others who went before her. Our burdens were lifted. Time heals and we experienced about 20 years of healing that afternoon. Almost before it seemed like it had got going good, she played her last piece. Only then we noticed 2 hours had slipped by.
I thought I saw my mother’s face in my daughter that day; the way she might have looked as a youth. My mother was a stout farm girl who could lick her older brother in a wrestling match while my daughter is a pip squeak then weighing less than 90 pounds. She wore a green old-fashion Scottish dress and her long thick auburn hair was blowing in the wind. She might have looked like any one of a number of her forgotten ancestors of past centuries. The tears of love flowed down her cheeks for a grandmother she only really met a few times on our biannual transcontinental trips home to Utah.
For those planning funerals, I submit it doesn’t get any better than this. Simplicity. Compassion. Faith. Connection to the ages. A rowdy teenager can pull it off when aided by the Spirit.