Deathbed (and post-deathbed) Conversions

Most hospices and hospitals employ chaplains.  Most of these are well-versed in religious diversity and respectful of it.  However, there are some chaplains or visiting ministers who can be unscrupulous, attempting to foist a particular religious view on a person who is weakened and worried.  It is good policy to pay a visit to the chaplains, tell them who you are, and who you are working with.  Say it loud and proud: “We’re both humanists by the way.”

Celebrants sometimes hear “Mom was a what?”  And the inevitable follow-up, “Clearly she was confused at the end, because she raised me…Methodist, Baptist, Catholic…”  the list goes on.

Unfortunately, Celebrants are sometimes faced with the task of standing up for the principles of a dying or newly-departed person.  In the face of hostility to humanist convictions, tact sometimes help.  Sometimes a file with clearly written and signed documents concerning final wishes carry the day.

Sometimes after the death, however, Celebrants just have to walk away from the wrath of an overzealous loved one.  Twice in my ministry I have had to acquiesce to the wishes of the children of departed humanists to convert mom or dad after death into the perfect Christian.  In those cases I walked away and we planned our own memorial service, without the families, in our own congregation.

Unfortunately in these cases, Power of Attorney wins.