TO BURN OR BURY IS NOT THE QUESTION

Today's blog entry discusses ideas about cremation vs. burial - or - how one ought to treat the human body. The picture to the left is of the resurrection of Christ by Matthias Grunewald, from the Isenheim altar - 1515.

The link to the article above (click on the headline) will give some ideas about this subject, but suffice it to say that burial is a particularly Christian practice - not that others don't bury their dead, they do, but Christians have done it for different reasons.

In paganism both burial and cremation were practiced. When Christianity appeared in the Roman empire, it began to practice burial exclusively. Some of that may have been a reaction to the practices of Rome, but certainly the practice of Christian burial became the result of the teachings of the Apostles.

Paul, in I Corinthians 15, gives numerous pictures why Christians should bury their dead. Though this is not contrasted against cremation or anything like that, it is a treatise that stands on its own. This teaching was radical in his day. It seemed like a strange teaching because it was associated with the idea of the resurrection. Paul suffered much and was mocked, ridiculed and dismissed as a nut for preaching the resurrection. Just check out how people reacted when he talked about the resurrection. From rulers in Palestine to philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul was scoffed at when he preached the resurrection. Today people still baulk over the idea of the resurrection, both for Christ and for us, but resurrection is at the center of the gospel.

It use to be that the Church, meaning the church of Rome, forbade cremation. It was considered a sin, and if I remember correctly, it was a very bad sin, one that was said to condemn the soul.

Well, I am not sure that it is a bad sin, or that it is a sin at all, but there are some strong reasons for choosing burial over cremation. I do know that some attitudes about the body are probably sinful, or at least ignorant, and that might be more to the point.

The church has often interpreted things in moral terms that need not be placed in that category at all. Cremation vs. burial may be one of those. Issues of burial are, as far as I can tell, more of a didactic issue than a moral consideration. In other words, it is what "Christian burial" asserts and teaches about the human body that is more at the core of the practice than the way one may care for the body after death. I believe that people can have the right or wrong ideas in their heads regardless of their funerary practices. The inverse is also true.

Some will argue that it is not hard for the God who made the body to call it back from ashes, any more that it is an obstacle for him to reconstitute the body after it has been reclaimed by the earth, therefore cremation is not a problem.

Of course that would be true if God's abilities were the issue, but it is not. Jesus said that God was able of the stones, to raise up children unto Abraham. In other words, God is able to do not only the impossible, but also the unimaginable.

Some believe that the body is just a husk that will be discarded in order to set the soul free to be with God. First, this is not a biblical view. It is a view that comes partially out of pagan ideas and partially out of Greek ideas.

The immortality of the soul is Socrates idea (as well as others), and it is not a scriptural concept; resurrection is the biblical view, and that is very much different than notions about the immortality of the soul.

Second, the view that the body is worthless and can be discarded in anyway one wants comes close to promoting the lowest view of the body possible; again, not biblical. And THIS is the real issue at hand - a low view of the body. What do we believe about the body? This issue is central to the historical Christian faith.

This importance of the human body has been the battle ground of many theological "discussions," which may be at the root of why the Catholic church, to their credit I might add, has taken the treatment of the body into the arena of morality. Believers in Jesus do, without any doubt, have a moral/spiritual responsibility to the human body. The Catholic church may be wrong in its particular conclusions, but if it is, it is probably not far from the "spirit of the law" regarding this matter.

Further, some will argue that the funerary culture these days is a racket that preys on the emotions of loved ones in order to make a profit. This may be true, but it is a fallacious on numerous levels. It is a distraction from the core issue, i.e. one's view of the body, and makes it an issue of economics, of which it is anything but. This economic view leaves one with the same low view of the body. It does nothing to retrieve us from the unfortunate error of a low view of the body.

Not only this but such a view ignores the possibility that those who run crematoriums can be just as greedy, just as ignoble as those who sell plots and caskets. It further implies that all those companies that provide plots and caskets are insensitive and greedy, and that is too sweeping to be true. It is too stereotypical and emotional to be an accurate picture.

In the news, we have at least one horrible example of a crematorium owner dumping bodies all over his property rather than cremating them, because it was too expensive to cremate them. Can the view of the human body get any lower than that? I hope not.

So, the argument that one part of the funerary industry is more virtuous than another does not hold water, and is, in itself, an sufficient reason to choose cremation over burial. Greed is ubiquitous. It affects everyone. Not only this, but all one need do then to provide a cheaper means of burial and the tide of opinion will swing back to burial. But, again, this is to reduce the treatment of the body to an economic quotient. That seems rather crass and utilitarian to me. It is entirely a modernist construct that views the body as nothing more than material, without any intrinsic value, without any inherent dignity. The body is ultimately junk, like a broken automobile, and should be disposed of in an efficient and economical manner. This is, again, a low view of the body.

The reasons why Christians buried their dead from the first century onward, and in fact the reason why the Jews buried their dead before Christianity, is for entirely different reasons than what we discuss about the dead these days.

The reasons Jews and Christians bury the body was for at least two reasons (there may be more). First, Jews and Christians buried rather than burned the dead because they had a high view of the body. This is key. They believe that the body is more than dirt, that it has dignity because it was created by a good God, and that it has a destiny beyond the grave.

The body, as we are told in the beginning of the Bible, was made in the likeness and image of God. Some seek to relegate that "image" and "likeness" to the confines of the human soul alone, but this would be to read into the scriptures something it does not say. The body, in some mysterious way, is part of that image of God. Just because we cannot conceive of its entire ramifications does not mean it is not still true. Not only this, but Paul give us some hints as to its deeper implications when he refers to this body as a seed of a new body. I wonder if we have even yet began to ponder the implications of this truth. It is only the small mind that would think that God looks like some wise old man with a beard, and yet, there really is something to the idea that the human body is part of the revelation of God in this world. I will leave that for you to ponder. The human body is important; far more important that most have considered. Selah.

Not only this, but Christ himself (as far as Christian teaching is concerned) took upon himself a body. Phil 2:5-9 . . . Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, NIV So, not only was man made in the image and likeness of God, but God was made in the image and likeness of man - in Christ. The incarnation is the ultimate scandal. Heb 10:5-7 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, 'Here I am — it is written about me in the scroll — I have come to do your will, O God.'" NIV

For the remainder of this article, please go http://www.danielriceart.net/ILLUMINATRIUM/body.html -
I think you might appreciate completing the entire thought.

Painting: Resurrection of Christ, by Peter Paul Rubens