Culture and the End of Life: A Review of Major World Religions

Abstract

This is the last in the series of articles on cultures and end-of-life care. I enjoyed writing and editing the series. In particular I enjoyed writing for you—the hospice and palliative care nurses and others who work at the edge of life and death. It has been an honor. It seems fitting to end the series with an article on faiths and end-of-life care. Often, faith and culture are intertwined to the extent that it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. In some cases, faith clearly has a far greater impact than culture on how a person and family go through the myriad experiences during the end of life. In other cases, though a person professes a particular faith, it becomes clear that faith has little effect on the experiences. In most cases, however, the approach of death means reflection on faith and ultimate reality; and religion is our common way of understanding the enormity of life and death.—CK