A Gentle Critique of Mourning Religion Naomi R. Goldenberg Published online: 2 December 2009 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract This article offers three points of critical reflection about Mourning Religion,a collection of essays edited by William Parsons, Diane Jonte-Pace and Susan Henking, (University of Virginia Press 2008). It is suggested that the word “religion” and related terms ought to have been contextualized, that Melanie Klein’ s theories ought to have been used more extensively and that nostalgia expressed for the loss of an idealized paternal authority ought to have been made more explicit. Keywords Mourning . Religion . Melanie Klein . Psychoanalysis . Freud . Idealized father I am delighted to have the opportunity to write about such an important new book in our field. I have had a chance to comment on the manuscript in various stages of its march to publication and am honored that a formal expression of my enthusiasm is printed on the back cover. I congratulate William Parsons, Diane Jonte-Pace and Susan Henking on the launch of Mourning Religion. Now that I have had the pleasure of praising the work of my colleagues, I want to have another type of fun—that of offering some gentle critique. I think of critique in the way that Judith Butler (2004) describes it—namely, as an activity that interrogates the terms by which living and thinking are constrained in order to open up new possibilities for different modes of living and thinking (p. 4). Here then are some thoughts in this spirit of critique. I was pleased to see Melanie Klein’ s work discussed in essays by Harriet Lutzky, “Mourning and Immortality: Ritual and Psychoanalysis Compared” (pp. 141–160) and by Mary Ellen Ross, “Theology and Mourning in Film: Loss and Redemption in the Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski” (pp. 161–176) and briefly mentioned in Ernest Wallwork’ s contribution, “Mourning Modern Ethics on the Couch” (pp. 124–140). Despite these references, I do think that Klein’ s theories—particularly her 1940 essay titled “Mourning and its Relation to Manic-Depressive States” (1940/1986)—could have been drawn on to a Pastoral Psychol (2010) 59:373–377 DOI 10.1007/s11089-009-0267-x N. R. Goldenberg (*) Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, 70 Laurier Avenue, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5 e-mail: Naomi4339@rogers.com