Grief and Religion The Five Stages of Grief and Religion

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss researcher, presented a list of five stages that individuals experience when dealing with death; and since then these principles have since been applied to loss and grief in general. The five stages of the Kubler-Ross model are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance; and it can be asserted that these stages are experienced in one form or another by all humans regardless of cultural background. ("Five Stages of Grief") In other words, the five stages of loss and grief are emotional reactions that are universally experienced by all humans. (Kubler-Ross, 2005, p. 199) Different religions have traditionally created their own means of dealing with loss and grief particularly from a death, and while they may approach the subject from different points-of-view, they all must deal with the five stages that people experience when grieving.

In the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, grief and loss are things that are widely discussed in the Bible. For instance, there is the story of Job, a strongly religious man who's faith is tested by a number of losses; including the loss of his family fortune, and health. However, while Job experiences the five stages of grief, the acceptance that he must come to is not the acceptance of loss but the acceptance that his life is in the hands of God and that everything happens according to God's plan. When Job is first cursed, he enters a state of denial, but it is the denial that he has sinned and is being punished. Since he is not a sinner, he cannot understand why he has suffered such loss, and while...

But as time goes by and his suffering increases, Job enters the Anger stage by cursing the day he was born, but even so, he still refuses to direct his anger at God. Instead, Job is "…weary of life; [and] will leave my complaint upon myself." (Job, 10:1) He may be angry at his situation, but he is not angry with God, the actual cause of his suffering.
The Bargaining stage is something that Job considers doing, but this would require him to come face-to-face with God and plead his case that he is undeserving of the pain and suffering that he has experienced. In his consideration of bargaining with God, Job is also getting closer to the acceptance that his loss and grief are indeed caused by God. However, during chapter 24, Job falls into the fourth stage of grief: Depression, and gives a speech where he admits that evil often prospers at the expense of good, and God does not always seem to reward the good. It is in his depression that Job is coming close to accepting that God's will is mysterious, and that the loss and grief he has been forced to experience may be part of some larger plan by God. Therefore, his life, as well as his loss and grief, have been inflicted upon him by God, but as part of an overall larger scheme which involves God's wisdom and grace. Finally, after God confronts Job and explains it to him he finally accepts that God has indeed inflicted his pain and suffering, but that pain and suffering are often the tools used by God to perform a greater good; such as teaching lessons. The Book of Job is a lesson in how to deal…