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From their beginning, Unitarians have reformed American deathways. They significantly influenced, intellectually and practically, how the greater culture deals with the overarching reality of the human condition: mortality and death. Unitarian innovations and reforms cited in this essay served to domesticate death in the name of the universal human condition; challenged traditions and the supernaturalisms that supported those traditions; resisted the commercialization of death by a funeral industry; and lifted up the dignity and worth of the deceased through artful and meaningful "celebrations of life." As a consequence, there is a palpable Unitarian Universalist way for meeting death with dignity and meaning. The author, a Unitarian Universalist minister, has also written the UU classic, In Memoriam: Modern Funeral and Memorial Services.… (more)