Are these practices common to all Baptist funerals or are they secular inventions by the funeral home?

I recently attended the funeral of a Baptist relative in Georgia (USA); and I noticed some practices that seemed very different from the burial traditions of Episcopalians (Anglican Communion) and the Roman Catholic Church.





Are these practices regional (Southern US), religious, or completely secular (invented by the funeral industry)?





1) The coffin did not remain closed after the visitation the night before the funeral. It was re-opened near the end of the service so that the mourners could take turns (row by row) to view the body. (The funeral took place in the funeral home's chapel.)





2) The coffin could not be lowered for burial until the mourners had left. It was left above ground with a bouquet on top. (No earth was cast on it.) The family was told that they could return in an hour and that everything would be "fixed" with the flowers from the funeral placed on the grave.

Are these practices common to all Baptist funerals or are they secular inventions by the funeral home?
All of our funerals, around Pittsburgh Pa have been done like this:


1. The casket is open for a prayer session in the morning before the funeral and then it is closed as the people are readied to go over to the Church


2. The casket is not lowered and is left at ground level while the flowers from the funeral home are placed on it. If the family has a bouquet to leave there, they do. They file past the site and leave. Prior to this there is, in the Catholic Rite, a final prayer in a funeral tent or cemetary chapel.





This is the tradition I'm used to and it seems similar to what you had experienced. I have seen that they do seem to do it different in New York and possibly in the North east, by the family putting dirt onto the casket after it is lowered. They seemed to stop that here because people thought that lowering the casket was too painful for people, or my Mother said something like that once. But I also noticed that they moved the cemetary ceremony indoors or into a tent because it was just too cold for the old people and too hard for them to walk.
Reply:No I bet it has to do with the funeral home.
Reply:I grew up in a Baptist home and attended a couple of family funerals like this. So it must be relatively normal. I'm not sure if they were doing it to 'be baptist' or just because that's how the people who died wanted their funerals to be, though.
Reply:The funeral service pretty much is determined by the deceased (before death of course) and/or the family of the deceased.
Reply:Sounds like a typical American burial to me.
Reply:That is sick! I bet there were kids there. What could possibly be gained by letting a child see a dead relative?
Reply:Sounds like a typical funeral that I have attended.
Reply:Hi there, I am a funeral director, and this has been my experience with the Greek Orthodox religion, and possibly some Protestant faiths. They practice much of what you described. We try our best to abide by the wishes of the family, so it also could have likely been the request of the family. Take care!
Reply:This is a matter of choice and offered to the family as to their preference. I do many funerals of all denominations - I am on staff at a large cemetery. I have seen what you have mentioned and I've seen it every conceivable way.





It's usually when the funeral home is running things and not a member of the clergy.