Not so long ago, public grieving for the victims of a bombing or fire would be tempered by the consolations of heaven, where the souls of the departed would one day be joined by those of loved ones. Even if many Christians did not privately believe in the afterlife, the publicly expressed idea that part of us would survive death made the process of mourning more bearable. At the very least, it gave us something hopeful to say to one another after we’d exchanged grave looks and shaken hands.

Terrorism blows up beliefs alongside bodies. Our whole liberal system of thought is centred around the idea that societies can be improved — perfected, even — through education and science. But events such as the Manchester Arena bombing remind us that in critical ways, nothing has changed since the era of Viking raids, and that when we promise our children we will keep them safe, we are speaking in white lies. Two months ago, I took my 11-year-old girl to her first concert (a 14-year-old YouTube star named Johnny Orlando). On Monday, after hearing the news from England, she told me: “I don’t want to go to concerts anymore.” No doubt, she will eventually change her mind. But in the moment, it was heartbreaking.

This discussion was not the first of its kind. On Christmas Eve last year, a boy at my daughter’s school was killed, along with his parents and brother, when a fire destroyed their cottage on Stoney Lake, northeast of Toronto. The news came in on her social media after she’d opened her gifts. And I realized that I hadn’t the slightest idea how to talk to my children — or anyone — about death.

Not so long ago, public grieving for the victims of a bombing or fire would be tempered by the consolations of heaven, where the souls of the departed would one day be joined by those of loved ones. Even if many Christians did not privately believe in the afterlife, the publicly expressed idea that part of us would survive death made the process of mourning more bearable. At the very least, it gave us something hopeful to say to one another after we’d exchanged grave looks and shaken hands.

We have preserved a few pale echoes of this religiosity — such as in editorial cartoons that mark the passing of famous politicians and athletes by showing them making jokes with Saint Peter. But otherwise, God is now excluded from public grieving. Even as early as 1998, Christian clergy who spoke at a memorial service for the 229 victims of a Swissair Flight that crashed off the Nova Scotia coast were instructed by federal protocol officials not to mention Jesus or the Bible in their remarks, lest the audience become uncomfortable.

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