{"id":8736,"date":"2015-11-23T14:21:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T14:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=8736"},"modified":"2015-11-23T14:21:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T14:21:38","slug":"death-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/death-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Cafe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Death Cafe &amp; Grave Talk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jkk0ELcefL8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the transcript of the video above &#8211; check against delivery.<\/p>\n<p>What are these &#8216;death cafe&#8217;s&#8217; all about, are they good or bad? And what do we make of the Church of England&#8217;s &#8216;grave talk&#8217; project?<\/p>\n<p>One paper said that over five hundred death cafe events have taken place to date across the UK and further afield, including the US, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>The objective of a death cafe, so its people say, is &#8216;to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>According to the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/deathcafe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">death cafe website<\/a><\/strong>, &#8216;At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death.&#8217;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8738\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8738\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/deathcafe2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8738\" src=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/deathcafe2-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Cakes with black icing and skulls form a big part of Death Cafe, apparently.\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/deathcafe2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/deathcafe2-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/deathcafe2.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cakes with black icing and skulls form a big part of Death Cafe, apparently.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yes, Cake seems to play a big part, especially cakes with black icing and skulls on them served on plates with skull motifs.<\/p>\n<p>In Manchester, funeral director Hugh O&#8217;Brien hosted a death cafe event in Heaton Moor. \u00a0He said there was &#8220;a British reticence about death&#8221;. \u00a0&#8220;Everyone seems to be afraid of it,&#8221; he went on.<\/p>\n<p>With a finite, in this case a truly finite &#8211; market to work in, I&#8217;m surprised funeral directors aren&#8217;t falling over each other to host these obvious marketing opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the death cafe originator, one Jonathan Underwood from Hackney, is right now, in November 2015, selling shares for a permanent Death Cafe in London.<\/p>\n<p>He thinks his project is the best thing he can do to make a better planet.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Underwood has said there should be no fear about discussing death, and this is his reason: &#8220;you don&#8217;t get pregnant by talking about sex,&#8221; he says, &#8220;so why would talking about death make you die?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry old boy, but that is a non-sequitor. You can quite easily feel sexy by talking about sex, and talking about getting pregnant, especially talking positively about it, CAN help a couple have the child they so earnestly want.<\/p>\n<p>In the same way, talking about death, especially talking enthusiatically about it, can hasten it. That&#8217;s a basic spiritual principle.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/churchofenglandfunerals.org\/gravetalk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Church of England&#8217;s &#8216;Grave Talk&#8217;<\/a><\/strong> is different, because, as its website says, the Christian faith &#8216;holds the hope that death is not the end&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>A parish can put on a &#8216;grave talk&#8217; evening to help people planning or going to a funeral, to have a conversation about death and dying, or to help with grief and loss of a loved one.<\/p>\n<p>For me, that&#8217;s a good work, with an emphasis quite different from death cafe.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s face it, we&#8217;ve just had an MP trying &#8211; and failing, thank God &#8211; to bring in an Assisted Dying Bill in this country, there are people going to some ghastly overseas clinic to commit suicide, and a growing suicide cult among young people led to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bridgend_suicide_incidents\" target=\"_blank\">seventy-nine deaths in Bridgend in Wales<\/a><\/strong> over just a five-year period.<\/p>\n<p>Teenagers are taking their lives because of bullying, and suicide is the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2015\/feb\/19\/number-of-suicides-uk-increases-2013-male-rate-highest-2001\" target=\"_blank\">most common cause of death for men under thirty-five in Britain<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Death Cafe protagonists will deny their project has anything to do with promoting suicide. But even if it is just a sales pitch for undertakers, popularising the idea of death, glamorising it with skulls and black icing, won&#8217;t exactly help vulnerable teenagers.<\/p>\n<p>Our lives are more than the matter of our death, or anyone else&#8217;s. Being obsessed about death, at any level, is simply not healthy for individuals, or society.<\/p>\n<p>In the Bible, Jacob says he is about to be gathered to his fathers. He blesses his children and gives directions for his place of burial. And that&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p>You see, the overwhelming principle in the Bible is that of life. God told the people of Israel:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>People need life cafes, not death cafes, to be honest. And, thank God, we have quite a few of those. They are often held in a building with a spire on the top, or just in a hall, on a Sunday morning, and quite often they have a cross outside. There&#8217;s probably one near you. It&#8217;s called a church. Chances are, you&#8217;ll find someone inside who knows the author of life, one Jesus Christ. And if you get to know him too, death won&#8217;t hold any fear for you at all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/P1OVTZ-gb\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3940\" style=\"border: 0px;\" title=\"Join Today!\" src=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Join_donate_Logo2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"185\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Please note that persons wishing to comment on this story must enter a valid email address. Comments from persons leaving fictitious email addresses will be trashed.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the transcript of the video above &#8211; check against delivery. What are these &#8216;death cafe&#8217;s&#8217; all about, are they good or bad? And what do we make of the Church of England&#8217;s &#8216;grave talk&#8217; project? One paper said that over five hundred death cafe events have taken place to date across the UK [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-secularism","category-uk-christian-constitution"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":6,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/uk-christian-constitution\/secularism\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Secularism<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/uk-christian-constitution\/\" rel=\"category tag\">UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"This is the transcript of the video above &#8211; check against delivery. What are these &#8216;death cafe&#8217;s&#8217; all about, are they good or bad? And what do we make of the Church of England&#8217;s &#8216;grave talk&#8217; project? One paper said that over five hundred death cafe events have taken place to date across the UK&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}