comfort has gone the way of the baptists...
hello my friends.
today i attended the very sad funeral for a friend, rachael r. grudem, who was married to a friend of ours, alexandar grudem. they had only been married 3 1/2 months. she was 23 when she was struck by a pick-up truck and died on saturday.
it was very strange to be at a funeral surrounded by young people, myself and my wonderful husband included, who have yet to even grasp what death really means.
it was even stranger to be at a baptist funeral that basically saw the loss of a beautiful daughter of the King as a means to lure numbers into the Kingdom. at one point, john piper, after reminding us of the details of the accident that claimed rachael's young life (a pickup truck ran a stop sign and killed her instantly) declared emphatically "what will you give as an account for your life if you get hit by the pickup truck today?" umm, sorry, but i thought we were at a funeral to help minister to each other and the family in the middle of our grief, not contemplate our own spiritual vacancies and, yet again, make it an all-about-me festival, that we american christians are so willing to do. and then to stand and "triumphantly" sing the traditional baptist hymn declaring that our 'victory is in Jesus'... really??? i would say that before we start shouting victory chants, a heavy dose of 'have mercy on me' would do wonders.
i like victory, heck, at one point in my juvenile life, i even contemplated being a cheerleader. i'm even partly baptist, being a bethel grad and all. but could the kind people of bethlehem baptist church allow the family and friends of rachael grudem to grieve a little, and not try to placate the grief with theological debates on how the Lord 'gives and takes away'? thanks.
today i attended the very sad funeral for a friend, rachael r. grudem, who was married to a friend of ours, alexandar grudem. they had only been married 3 1/2 months. she was 23 when she was struck by a pick-up truck and died on saturday.
it was very strange to be at a funeral surrounded by young people, myself and my wonderful husband included, who have yet to even grasp what death really means.
it was even stranger to be at a baptist funeral that basically saw the loss of a beautiful daughter of the King as a means to lure numbers into the Kingdom. at one point, john piper, after reminding us of the details of the accident that claimed rachael's young life (a pickup truck ran a stop sign and killed her instantly) declared emphatically "what will you give as an account for your life if you get hit by the pickup truck today?" umm, sorry, but i thought we were at a funeral to help minister to each other and the family in the middle of our grief, not contemplate our own spiritual vacancies and, yet again, make it an all-about-me festival, that we american christians are so willing to do. and then to stand and "triumphantly" sing the traditional baptist hymn declaring that our 'victory is in Jesus'... really??? i would say that before we start shouting victory chants, a heavy dose of 'have mercy on me' would do wonders.
i like victory, heck, at one point in my juvenile life, i even contemplated being a cheerleader. i'm even partly baptist, being a bethel grad and all. but could the kind people of bethlehem baptist church allow the family and friends of rachael grudem to grieve a little, and not try to placate the grief with theological debates on how the Lord 'gives and takes away'? thanks.
posted by Anonymous at 7:21 PM
5 Comments:
First of all, I'm loving the idea of you as a cheerleader. Rah rah.
This story made me really sad. Then mad. Then sick to my stomach. It's so beyond me that some people can't allow people to grieve appropriately. Maybe those people have never had to grieve in this way and they just don't get it. Or maybe this particular message was comforting to them in their grieving, oddly enough. At any rate, thank you for sharing.
It's nice to have you back in blogland. :)
Deo Gratias . . . you KNOW what you know . . .
I have never been to anything BUT nasty baptist/evangelical funerals. Not only do they completely sidestep grief/grieving but they also have great tendency to elevate the deceased to the lofty status of "saint without sin". What's wrong with simply being honest about the person - good and bad. In our grief do we only think of positive things? come on!
I am so sorry that you lost a sweet young friend. And I am sorry that the funeral was not a good place to grieve, that too is a loss. I hope you, your friends and Rachel's family and husband can be together and grieve your loss in other ways and places. God grieves His plans for Rachel too.
I'm sorry for your loss(and Alex's--he used to wait on me on occasion at Dunn Bros). I was at a similar victory-through-denial funeral a couple of months ago (not to pick on any one group but, yes, it was Baptist). Thanks for reminding us that grief is not antithetical to sovereignty and that deep sadness is part of life in the kingdom. It's not up to us to tie up all the seemingly loose ends. God is here, God just is, and we can be free to come present to loss and hold the tensions.
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