It's hardly a burning issue for most of us – but then again, perhaps it is. Along with taxes, death will come to all of us. We should be prepared. Some people write extensive instructions for their executors (my grandmother kept her funeral arrangements by her bed for the last 20 years of her life). Among these last wishes is likely to be a preference for cremation or burial.
Nowadays in the UK Christian community it's not really seen as a major decision, though Catholics are more likely to opt for burial than Protestants (cremation was only permitted for Catholics in 1963), and Orthodox Christians are still opposed to it. But historically this wasn't always the case – there was Church opposition to the legalisation of cremation in 1902 – and now the influential writer and author John Piper has stepped into the fray.
Piper's blog post on his Desiring God website, entitled 'Should Christians cremate their loved ones?' takes a traditionalist line, with a few unique twists. He doesn't think that ultimately it matters, in terms of our eternal destiny, but he argues very, very strongly that burial is Christian and cremation isn't. He grounds his belief in the meaning and importance of the human body and in "the meaning of fire as it relates to the human body, now and in the life to come". Christians see the body as essential to full humanity and look for resurrection, not just survival; burial is a powerful symbolic statement of that belief. Burning, on the other hand, is a symbol of destruction, associated with hellfire, so why would you?
To give Piper his due, he is making, so far, a reasonable point – and he's at pains to say that he believes burial is "preferable" for Christians: "I say preferable, not commanded, in the hope that the culture created would not condemn or ostracize a person who chose differently." And he says churches should be prepared to offer financial help to members who opt for (more expensive) burials, so they aren't put off doing the right thing just because of the money.
But then things get a bit weird. He says calling it cremation instead of burning is like saying "abort foetuses" instead of "dismember babies" – extraordinarily emotive language. It's all to do with rampant secularism – "Where Christians are a small minority, cremation is high." The first cremation in America (1876) was accompanied by readings from Charles Darwin and Hindu scriptures, he says. You don't know if a crematorium is actually cremating your loved one rather than just "disposing of the body". And you don't know whether the ashes you're given are the right ones.
These arguments undermine his attempts to come across as pastoral and reasonable. Cremation isn't just a less-good choice, it's actually wrong, he argues; you're putting yourself on the same side as the enemies of God. And it has to be said that playing on people's fears about their loved ones' remains is both a low blow and a flawed argument (I recall the fallout from a body being buried in the wrong grave from my own years in pastoral ministry).
In his opposition to cremation Piper is being consistent with his previous comments on the subject. And it's true that burial is, at one level, a symbol of resurrection in a way that cremation is not (though it's important to say that Christians don't believe a body is reconstituted, but recreated). But at another level that's not true at all. The burning of a body to ashes – living cremations – has been experienced by Christian martyrs throughout history. And their deaths have been an eloquent testimony to their faith that God would raise even these ashes to life again. In this light, cremation is a far more powerful testimony to the Christian faith in a powerful God than burial.
In fact, people choose cremation over burial for all sorts of reasons. One is that yes, it's cheaper – and that's not a bad reason. Another is that space, particularly in our big cities, is running out. Another is people's wish to spare their relatives, who might be living at a distance, from having to care for their graves. Another is an aversion to the thought of decay. Still another is a wish to lie close to a loved one when there's only space for an urn, rather than a coffin. And all these are valid reasons and should be respected.
The historic and theological symbolism of burial is something people might want to take into account when they're choosing between that and cremation. But it's not the only thing and it's not the most important thing, and it's hard to see that it justifies the full-on condemnation it attracts from Piper's pen.
However we think of life after death, it has nothing to do with how our physical remains are disposed of. What Christians do believe is that we will be more alive than ever we were before, and that what lies ahead of us is far better than what lay behind. So, as John Donne wrote:
"At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go..."
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
