Funeral celebrant Funeral celebrant Funeral celebrant is a formal term denoting members of a group of non-clergy professionals who are committed to preparing and delivering high quality funeral ceremonies, which are not closely linked to any religion or to belief in an after-life. The concept of funeral celebrants is analogous in Western countries to that of civil celebrants (for marriages). It began in Australia in 1975. On 19 July 1973 the Australian attorney-general Lionel Murphy had appointed civil marriage celebrants with the aim of creating ceremonies of substance and meaning for non-church people. As secular (civil) marriage ceremonies became accepted, first in
The Humanist Institute of THI is to provide educational opportunities that serve humanist and secular communities in world where humanism is widely accepted and respected life-stance. The Institute was founded to educate and train effective leaders, organizers, and advocates for a variety of organizational settings, including within the humanist movement itself. The idea for the Humanist Institute originated in Pittsburgh in 1976 and was the brainchild of Paul Beattie, a Unitarian Universalist minister. In August 1982, Rabbi Sherwin Wine organized a gathering of forty-five humanist leaders at the University of Chicago [where] the North American Committee for Humanism [NACH] was formed with Rabbi