Perfect Stranger's Guide to Funerals and Grieving

Stuart M. Matlins is founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of Jewish Lights Publishing and SkyLight Paths Publishing. Both imprints focus on religion and spirituality from a broad non-denominational perspective. He is author or editor of several books, including the best-selling How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook (SkyLight Paths); The Jewish Lights Spirituality Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Exploring & Living a Spiritual Life (Jewish Lights); The Perfect Stranger's Guide to Wedding Ceremonies: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People’s Religious Ceremonies; and The Perfect Stranger’s Guide to Funerals and Grieving Practices: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People’s Religious Ceremonies (both SkyLight Paths). Stuart was the 2014 recipient of the Abraham Geiger Medal, an award recognizing outstanding service to religious pluralism, and the 2006 recipient of the American Jewish Distinguished Service Award, an annual presentation of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. He was a member of the First Catholic/Jewish Lay Conference at the Vatican in October 2007, an event under the auspices of the Interreligious Information Center. Among his many speaking appearances, Stuart has been the scholar-in-residence or guest lecturer at the National Funeral Director’s Association convention, Temple Isaiah (Palm Springs, CA), The Jewish Center of the Hamptons (East Hampton, NY), Temple Sholom (Plainfield, NJ), Israel Congregation (Manchester, NH) and at the annual gatherings of the Jewish Community Centers Association and the Jewish Outreach Institute. He also has been a featured speaker or panel member at many Book Expo America conventions, and at the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, as well as at churches and other conferences. Before publishing took over his life, he was a management consultant for over thirty years as a managing partner with Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. and then heading his own consulting firm. He is the cofounder of an innovative synagogue in Woodstock, Vermont, with his wife, Antoinette Matlins, and served as lay spiritual leader for nineteen of its twenty-one years. He has served for over twenty years on the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, and was chair of the Board of Overseers of its New York School. He is widely recognized as a leader in the spiritual transformation of Judaism in our time. Stuart is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
General Secretary, National Council of Churches

1 · African American Methodist Churches
2 · Assemblies of God
3 · Baha'i
4 · Baptist
5 · Buddhist
6 · Christian and Missionary Alliance
7 · Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
8 · Christian Congregation
9 · Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist)
10 · Church of the Brethren
11 · Church of the Nazarene
12 · Churches of Christ
13 · Episcopalian and Anglican
14 · Evangelical Free Church
15 · Greek Orthodox
16 · Hindu
17 · International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
18 · International Pentecostal Holiness Church
19 · Islam
20 · Jehovah’s Witnesses
21 · Jewish
22 · Lutheran
23 · Mennonite/Amish
24 · Methodist
25 · Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
26 · Native American/First Nations
27 · Orthodox Churches
28 · Pentecostal Church of God
29 · Presbyterian
30 · Quaker (Religious Society of Friends)
31 · Reformed Church in America/Canada
32 · Roman Catholic
33 · Seventh-day Adventist
34 · Sikh
35 · Unitarian Universalist
36 · United Church of Canada
37 · United Church of Christ
38 · Wesleyan