Abstract: The Honest Death
This talk focuses on funerals provided by humanist celebrants in Britain, and what makes a death good. Within the humanist tradition, the art of dying well is premised above all on facing death with what I will call “honesty.” The honest death emphasizes qualities of truthfulness and dignity, especially as they are realized through intellectual reasoning and the exercise of free agency. The honest death is marked by the willingness to “face facts,” to manage fear, to acknowledge yet process the emotions associated with suffering and grief, and to champion any reasonable avenue of choice and control. In the humanist ideal, this death involves the recognition and acceptance of mortality. Our mortality should not be feared; nor should fear unduly color the natural expressions of emotion that accompany death and mourning. To die well is also to die prepared, and, in as much as this is possible, in control. In short, at stake in the honest death is an acceptance of life’s finitude and an assertion of the subject’s sovereignty.
Matthew Engelke is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. Trained as an anthropologist, he is the author of three books and has conducted fieldwork in Zimbabwe and Britain on Christianity, ritual, public culture, and secularity, among other topics.
