THE BLOG

Recently, as I parked my car and then made my way into our county hospital to make a visit, the weather forecast in the sky itself was that a serious thunderstorm with soaking rain and blowing winds was about to unload on the hospital and surrounding areas. Dark, ominous clouds billowed above me while winds began to increase in intensity.

Recently as I left the funeral service of a high school classmate, my mind tried to wrap itself around what I had just experienced. I had just witnessed what is to my remembrance, the first ever God-less funeral I’ve ever attended. As you might imagine, in my role as a pastor I have both conducted or attended hundreds of funerals. But until Friday I’d never attended a God-less one. When I say God-less, I’m not using it as an antonym to “godly.’ I’m using it in the sense that, other than one brief moment when a speaker looked at the casket and said to the corpse of his best friend lying within, “Go with God”, God was never mentioned – not in the one generic prayer, not in the music selections, not in the remarks of several close friends, and not in the remarks of the woman who emceed the service.

Bertrand Russell (1870-1972) was a British philosopher, historian, author, and winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. He was also a self-proclaimed atheist. One time he made quite a profound statement when one considers his thoughts about God. He said, “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”1 Russell was onto something.