A Liberal Funeral

I was asked to play the pipes at the funeral of an ex-serviceman last Friday.  I piped the coffin into the church, played a traditional lament in the middle of the service, and piped the deceased out to the traditional return to Barracks tune, the Black Bear Hornpipe.

The message was the sort heard at almost every funeral that I have piped at, and there have been a few.  God loves everyone.  He couldn’t possibly love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make him love us more.  The deceased is in heaven, which is where we are going too.

The deceased was a very good man, loving, and loved by his family, and will be sorely missed.

What received no mention at all were the bodily resurrection of the dead, the judgement of our works, the separation of mankind into sheep and goats, and the rewards and punishments handed down from Christ’s throne of judgement.  The renewed earth was replaced by a present, ghostly, heavenly post-mortem disembodied bliss.

It was a Christian service without the Christian religion.