Dilemma of Kazakh Christian Funerals

Our young church here has much to discern about this topic of funerals. When the father of one of our employees died last week, there was a serious problem. The father and mother, adult son and daughter are all Christians, but everyone else in the extended family are Muslim. And they are Kazak. So the family was going to follow the Kazak/Muslim traditions. They called in the Mullah to prepare the body for burial, and lead the whole process. But there was a big ruckus over the issue of the man being a Christian, and the Mullah used this opportunity to preach to the Muslims of how sinful it was for someone to leave the faith of their fathers, and he stormed out. Meanwhile the grieving family was frustrated with how to proceed. Finally someone just took up the responsibility to prepare the body, recite the Koran through the burial, and then move the family back to the house for the meal. But he was just a “regular” guy, not a Mullah, not a pastor, so there was a feeling of hopelessness for the departed – he might just rot in hell because his departure was not handled correctly. At least that is how it seemed to the Muslim extended family, who started cursing the believers, including the widow, for messing everything up. Not a good way to handle a funeral.

Our staff that participated in this particular funeral came back with a heavy burden – how can we help to have appropriate funerals? Can there be common, Christians and Muslims together, rites of passage? Or will there need to be “Christian only” or “Muslim only” events? Our guys are leaning towards separate functions but I think there needs to be something integrated, because survivors, whether Muslim or Christian, are all of the same family and need a funeral rite. But how? There are many questions for the whole process, from the preparation of the body to the 1-year memorial, and we have people wrestling with what is appropriate.