Promote, oppose, accommodate or compensate? Four ways religion can interact with society’s death practices

The article outlines four ways that religions interact with a society’s dominant practices for dying, funerals, grief and mourning. Examples are given of religious promotion of practices that may eventually become normative for society; of religious opposition to a society’s death practices; of subsequent accommodation, whether by mourners or their religious leaders; and of how culture may compensate if a dominant religion fails to provide adequate rites for mourning. At a personal level, when religious requirements and societal practices do not mesh, and in mixed-religion families whose members disagree over what rites are necessary, grief can become complicated for both individuals and families.