(un)certain: a collective memoir of deconstructing faith

Abstract

shrines, and religion and grief. Although in the UK we are inclined to expect that whatever is happening in the United States will soon be over here: I didn’t find the book had that cutting edge, or that of an article, but rather the looking back of a text book, which it essentially is. The chapter on the hospice movement, new in this edition, isn’t new to the UK. I found the discussion of the expressions of grief of Princess Diana somewhat familiar, but in the final chapter on death and grief, the description of bereaved parent’s self-help groups was fascinating. Dennis Klass describes what looks like a new kind of religious community formed of bereaved parents. There are insights for making sense of grief which ministers can take into pastoral practice. My own hope is that there might be a renewal of All Soul’s services where ritual and remembering might enable corporate and personal grief to be addressed creatively by churches. I recommend this book for the student of religion, and those Christians new to funeral ministry who will benefit from understanding the direction of practice and the experience of the bereaved, as well as those in a multi-faith chaplaincy context where reading it with others will benefit the whole.