CONDUCT GOSPEL-CENTRED FUNERALS
Applying the gospel at the challenges of death
By Brian Croft and Phil A. Newton. Day One. 106 pages £5.00
ISBN 978 1 846 252 662
This book is a warm-hearted, Christ-centred, thoughtful and theologically aware guide for the conduct of funerals.
It is written by two pastors who have clear evangelistic zeal and love for people in distress, and who are exemplary in their desire to be both faithful to the gospel and sensitive to the delicate occasion. It also aims to be very practical, offering help for before and after the service, and has an appendix with several actual examples of funeral sermons for different occasions.
The problem with this book, however, is not the content, but the ‘culture’. Though produced by a British publisher, the authors are American Southern Baptists and everything about the book breathes ‘Bible Belt’. Cremation, which represents almost 75% of funerals in the UK, is not mentioned in the entire book, and there is no recognition at all of the vast spiritual gulf between the British and US situations. This book never hints at the realities of many funerals in the UK, where pop songs have long since replaced hymns, where superstition and spiritualism are far more common than anything approaching historic Christianity, and where crematoria slots get shorter and shorter, frequently leaving no more than a few minutes to say anything worthwhile.
In summary — if you want to be reminded that the gospel ought to be at the centre of every funeral, this book will help. But if you want to really know how to do this in the UK situation then, in this reviewer’s opinion, you are advised to look elsewhere.
Colin Tamplin,
an FIEC pastor in South Birmingham
