Death and Religion in a Changing World

Death and Religion in a Changing World is a comprehensive and accessible study of the intersection of death and religion, examining how everyday people enact religious responses to death in the twenty-first century.

With contributions from leading religious studies scholars, this book moves away from the field’s focus on traditional beliefs to explore how religious traditions evolve in relation to their changing social contexts. Employing an ethnographic approach, Death and Religion in a Changing World further details how people from a wide variety of religious traditions and people without religious affiliation draw on and adapt religious practices as they respond to death in modern societies.

Every chapter in this second edition has been thoroughly updated and new chapters on the ethical issues of dying, including life-prolonging medical treatments, palliative care, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, and the modern hospice movement have been added. This book also covers emerging social and religious phenomena, such as public shrines, the Covid-19 pandemic, funeral celebrants, death with dignity, spiritual bereavement groups, and online funeral practices.

This cutting-edge work is essential reading for students and scholars of religion who are approaching the subjects of death and religion, and ritual studies.