quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

---

So are cars, plane flights and praying in English. As for Christ's own example... well, I'm sure you can guess the obvious objections to that argument.

What were the other reasons?
 

---

Posted by mr_ricarno (# 6064) on :
 
I guess it's something I never really thought about. When I first encountered it, as a child, it seemed a bit odd but I didn't think much of it.

At the moment, I think I sympathise with the Orthodox position on cremation, but a few years ago I would have said something like: 'God is big enough to cope with cremated bodies on the Day of Resurrection'.

And I still think that's true - it doesn't make it an acceptable practice though.

My parents have put in special requests to be buried rather than cremated, and my mother has reservations about organ transplants (ostensibly because she thinks God will have problems putting all the organs back in the right places).

Would it be fair to say that, on a practical level, cremation saves space and if we buried every corpse we'd struggle to find land to bury them under?
 

---

Posted by Nunc Dimittis (# 848) on :
 

quote:

---

Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

I think the very nature of crematoria is an argument against cremation. Crematoria are soulless, godless places. Impersonal, inhuman. *shudder*

I have requested burial and not cremation, largely for the reasons you cited, Fr G. I'd rather decompose naturally (just as in life I composed naturally ok, sick pun).
 

---

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I remember reading about the history of burial and cremation, and some of the descriptions of noxious odours filling churches from the crypts are quite horrifying. It was a real problem in the 19th, as graveyards became full literally to overflowing, and became a serious health hazard.
 

---

Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I remember reading about the history of burial and cremation, and some of the descriptions of noxious odours filling churches from the crypts are quite horrifying. It was a real problem in the 19th, as graveyards became full literally to overflowing, and became a serious health hazard.

---

quote:

---

(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

quote:

---

(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.

---

quote:

---

(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.

---

quote:

---

(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

---

Couldn't put it better than mdijon

As you have made clear, the remaining arguments against cremation are theologically symbolic or for the very short term. If you are a Christian who does not hold on to symbolic theological ideas, or even (gasp) a "freethinker", the present situation works fine. No one is forced into cremation - except in very particular circumstances - and 70% of Brits choose that way to go each year.
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, for two reasons. Firstly the "space" issue - if everyone was buried then with today's population we'd very quickly need whole cities dedicated just to graves.

Secondly, I just don't see any theological problem with it other than the purely symbolic. If it doesn't actually matter, it shouldn't be required.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I remember reading about the history of burial and cremation, and some of the descriptions of noxious odours filling churches from the crypts are quite horrifying. It was a real problem in the 19th, as graveyards became full literally to overflowing, and became a serious health hazard.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
[qb] (1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

Perhaps it affirms our faith in the spiritual context of the resurrection. I don't see that it symbolically denies the resurrection promise unless one really believes the corpse being interred is a sacrament of sorts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zealot en vacance:
At least in the UK we live not unadjacent to a large ocean. If the graveyards overflow and the crems are too expensive to run, we can all join Mr Maxwell, and go with a splash...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
...
(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.
...
(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zealot en vacance:
Does orthodox doctrine have a problem with people whose bodies are consumed by fire due to accident or warfare, or even vapourised due to nuclear weapon assault (and is this a reason for the relaxation in Japan?).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:

(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cedd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

Perhaps it affirms our faith in the spiritual context of the resurrection. I don't see that it symbolically denies the resurrection promise unless one really believes the corpse being interred is a sacrament of sorts.

---

Except, of course IMHO, the Christian view of resurrection is both spiritual and physical. To paraphrase St Paul our current physcial body is the seed which falls into the ground and gives rise to the resurrection body. In the same way the new Jerusalem is a physical city not a metaphysical one. The Christian "afterlife" (as I view it)is of resurrected people living in a restored world - not disembodied spirits floating in an ethereal heaven. Of course I believe that God is more than capable of overcoming the damage caused to our bodies by cremation but I agree with Fr G. that in "burning the seeds" in this way society is symbolically denying the Christian promise of being physically resurrected.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
According to this website, the Greek Orthodox are okay with organ donation (mostly), but not donating one's body to science.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The Orthodox Church is, as far as I know, the only church left that forbids cremation, (except where the law forbids burial, eg., Japan).

This was the historic position in Judaism and Christianity until the 19th Century. The only exceptions were the use of cremation for criminals or those who had seriously infringed the Law in the Old Testament.

So indefatigible was Christian opposition to cremation that it had been rendered extinct in Rome by the 4th century. In times when pagan Romans left the bodies of outcasts and criminals to rot by the roadside, Christians made a huge impact not only by burying their own dead but ALL the dead where they could.

This remained the position until the 19th century when agnostics, atheists and other freethinkers promoted cremation. Protestant Christians acquiesced first ... indeed PECUSA (as it was then) built the first crematorium to be used by a church.

Rome condemned the practice no less than 5 times in the 1890's only to relent in 1963 with precious little theological justification. The Orthodox alone have remained opposed for various reasons:-

(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."
(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.
(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

There are other reasons but that will do for now.

Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by babybear:
woodland burial

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:
...
As for a time to mark the death (not quoting the actual words) -- someone talked about lowering the coffin into a grave -- I and those with me found it sufficiently moving when I lowered my Father's ashes into the earth as the priest said the appropriate part of the burial office. And again when we interred my Mother's ashes.
...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:
...
As for a time to mark the death (not quoting the actual words) -- someone talked about lowering the coffin into a grave -- I and those with me found it sufficiently moving when I lowered my Father's ashes into the earth as the priest said the appropriate part of the burial office. And again when we interred my Mother's ashes.
...

---

I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.

The casket, in my experience, is placed over the grave by the poll-bearers and left there until after everyone has left. It is then that the workers lower the casket and fill the grave.

Is this not other people's experience?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I remember reading about the history of burial and cremation, and some of the descriptions of noxious odours filling churches from the crypts are quite horrifying. It was a real problem in the 19th, as graveyards became full literally to overflowing, and became a serious health hazard.

---

That was my understanding as well - and I can only imagine what that could be like today (if indeed we could find a place to bury people in the first place). I understand the points which Fr Gregory noted, and do greatly appreciate the symbolism, but I believe that purely practical concerns are why there is no opposition to cremation on the part of most sister churches.

I seldom give it much thought, but, now that the idea was stimulated, I'm not sure that 'being ashes' is more revolting than decomposition.

(I've said, in recent years, that, though I wish a dignified funeral service, I'd like to have my ashes scattered in one of the London parks. Whether that is legal I have no idea.)
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
No it isn't legal. They must be interred, stored in urns or committed to the sea.
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Eutychus

No, but you better have a damn good justification if you are overturning 4000 years, at least from where I am standing.

Concerning crematoria back way back .... cremation was de rigeur in the Empire at the time of Christ .... amongst pagans (except Egyptians) but not Jews and Christians.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Concerning crematoria back way back .... cremation was de rigeur in the Empire at the time of Christ .... amongst pagans (except Egyptians) but not Jews and Christians.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No it isn't legal. They must be interred, stored in urns or committed to the sea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

I understand revulsion to what I gather is the common British practice of having services at crematoria while the body slides into the flames (it all sounds very off-putting), but in the United States, cremation isn't public and the ashes -- usually in an urn -- are brought to the church(or to an undertaker's) for an appropriate memorial service.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I understand revulsion to what I gather is the common British practice of having services at crematoria while the body slides into the flames (it all sounds very off-putting)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Often Tradition is right. You.deal.with.it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Never heard or seen "flames" anywhere near the chapel. Industrial cremators can only fit one coffin in at a time.

---

quote:

---

Cremators are a standard size. Large cities will have access to an oversize cremator that can handle deceased in the 200+ kg range. However, the morbidly obese cannot be cremated and must be buried.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.

The casket, in my experience, is placed over the grave by the poll-bearers and left there until after everyone has left. It is then that the workers lower the casket and fill the grave.

Is this not other people's experience?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Never heard or seen "flames" anywhere near the chapel. Industrial cremators can only fit one coffin in at a time.

---

Better watch your weight too.

quote:

---

Cremators are a standard size. Large cities will have access to an oversize cremator that can handle deceased in the 200+ kg range. However, the morbidly obese cannot be cremated and must be buried.

---

Source.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Melon:
I'm beginning to wonder if the real reason Fr Gregory is so in favour of burial is so that previous generations of Orthodox believers can continue to turn in their graves whenever anyone suggests an innovation.

---

Good one!


 

---

Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Often Tradition is right. You.deal.with.it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Melon:
I'm beginning to wonder if the real reason Fr Gregory is so in favour of burial is so that previous generations of Orthodox believers can continue to turn in their graves whenever anyone suggests an innovation.

---

from me too.

But make sure you.deal.with.it, Melon.

No, really, have you dealt with it?
 

---

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
My third funeral was for a bloke who lived to be 103. He put his great age down to a glass of rum and a teaspoon of gunpowder everyday of his retired life. He left behind three children seven grandchildren and an eighteen foot hole in the crem wall.

P

[ 21. August 2006, 20:28: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]
 

---

Posted by monkeylizard (# 952) on :
 
Um, that electricity/plumbing argument doesn't hold water. If cremation was an invention of the 19th century, then that argument might work but this thread has already established that cremation was the norm in the Roman empire.

If it was the norm then (and presumably better, cheaper, faster, less of a pain as well), then why did Christians and Jews not participate at that time?

If that can be answered clearly, then we'll have the original basis for the argument against cremation and then we can debate if that's still a valid argument or not.

Are Fr.G's OP points the basis for the original rejection of cremation or just the current reasons?

As for #2, embalming is a fairly invasive (violent?) process too, but we still do that if cremation's not chosen.
 

---

Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nunc Dimittis:

quote:

---

Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

I think the very nature of crematoria is an argument against cremation. Crematoria are soulless, godless places. Impersonal, inhuman. *shudder*

---

quote:

---

If it was the norm then (and presumably better, cheaper, faster, less of a pain as well), then why did Christians and Jews not participate at that time?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I understand revulsion to what I gather is the common British practice of having services at crematoria while the body slides into the flames (it all sounds very off-putting)

---

Well, at my grandmother's funeral the coffin slid vertically down out of sight, and we never saw a hint of flame. Not off-putting at all, in fact it was quite touching.

I heard (forget where, one of those undercover documentaries probably) that some crematoriums "do" two or three coffins at a time, to save fuel. So the families could have bits of their relative mixed in with a couple of other folk. Now that's off-putting!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

Why the hell should they have? Sometimes.Tradition.Is.Wrong. Deal.With.It.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

I hadn't been under the impression that the manner of bodily disposal was a creedal issue such that changing it requires another 4000 years of meetings.

sharkshooter:

I've seen many caskets lowered into the ground. Sometimes only the family remains to see it, though.
 

---

Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
One of the advantages of cremation is that it's cheaper than burial. Maybe in London that's more of a problem than in the suburbs or countryside?

We chose cremation for Mr d, which was surprising to his Asian-Christian part of the family - they come from Hinduism a while back and maybe that prejudices them against "burning"? I will be cremated eventually and the ashes of us both will be together, if the family are organised.

There is more room in the burial places in the cemetries that belong to us for boxes of ashes than for any more coffins and bodies.

What about the tradition of putting bodies up high so that vultures and eagles can feed on them? Disposal of Pharsi bodies.. An important bit of that is to prevent pollution.
 

---

Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 

quote:

---

What about the tradition of putting bodies up high so that vultures and eagles can feed on them? Disposal of Pharsi bodies.. An important bit of that is to prevent pollution.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

Probably for the same reason that they got electricity and flush toilets -- they beat the heck out of trying to read by candlelight and crapping in outhouses. Similarly, cremation is neater, cleaner and less of a pain in the ass.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chemincreux:
One method of cremation Christians haven't tried (so ar as I know) is the open fire, Hindu style. Pity. I think this rite has wonderful symbolism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chemincreux:
One method of cremation Christians haven't tried (so ar as I know) is the open fire, Hindu style. Pity. I think this rite has wonderful symbolism.

---

I like Viking variant wherein the departed is placed in his ship and set ablaze.

I have a sailboat in my driveway, blocking the garage. Life has been busy and the boat hasn't seen water in a number of years, but I have stubbornly refused to put it up for sale. My wife says that, when I die, she's going to set my body atop the boat, dowse us with gasoline, and toss in a match.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No, they are incomplete Christians.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.

The casket, in my experience, is placed over the grave by the poll-bearers and left there until after everyone has left. It is then that the workers lower the casket and fill the grave.

Is this not other people's experience?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Melon:
I'm beginning to wonder if the real reason Fr Gregory is so in favour of burial is so that previous generations of Orthodox believers can continue to turn in their graves whenever anyone suggests an innovation.

---

Thanks to all who corrected me on the into-the-flames thing. I still find the idea of the coffin sliding out of sight unappealing. And I think Christian funerals are better held in churches than in facilities.

Ross
 

---

Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
I had never heard of a service at a crematorium until shipmates at the UK told me of them. We really don't do that here.
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
A partly tongue in cheek response to this ...

quote:

---

The Jews of Jesus's time & Orthodox Jews today prohibit cremation for just Fr. Gregory's views. I'm sure he is really Jewish.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
I had never heard of a service at a crematorium until shipmates at the UK told me of them. We really don't do that here.

---

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No, they are incomplete Christians.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To what post is that a response?

__AR (puzzled)

---

I wondered that. I thought maybe I'd missed one about canopic jars...

I have officiated at probably not far off 1000 funerals, and the majority will have been cremations, but I still can't really reconcile myself to the artificiality of it. But the issues are complex. There is cremation where the ashes are buried in a small casket in a grave, where the "burial" acquires an interesting significance of its own. Almost always there is an officiating clergyman. There are scatterings, usually done by the family on their own, though I have officiated at such, but very rarely. they seem connected with a theology of death as a return to a oneness with nature, which isn't mine, but there is an accommodation with the need for a sense of place. And there's the preponderant practice, round here, anyway, where the ashes are scattered in the crematorium grounds. That I can't get my head round - not least because this is the fate that's noted down as "scattering" in the chitty in the crematorium office that asks for "Method of Disposal" (sic.) And I don't think I'm the only one who has problems with that.

A few years ago, on a lovely summer's day, I went up to our local crematorium after an oddly funeral-free period, and the air was full of tinkling - it turned out, from wind-chimes, festooning the trees round about. the attendants told me that this had started about six weeks previously, and the practice had spred like wildfire among people whose relatives had in some cases died many years ago. They seemed to be people whose loved one's remains had been scattered at the crematorium so that they only had the vaguest sense of place, and this seemed to have been an attempt to put that right by in some sense hallowing all the crematorium grounds.

I was struck by that because I've often found myself thinking that the reasons people offer for cremation are just that - reasons. They don't seem to connect with feelings, and I think that a lot of people's feelings actually run in the opposite direction. People will say how clean cremation is, how land-efficient, how final - none of that irritating well-they-were-a-bit-quick-off-the-mark-burying-me subterranean resuscitation business - but I still seem to detect in lots of people a rationalization of something that they don't really believe in, but is probably going to happen to them.

Worse, I often seem to pick up that for others, the whole thing is tied in to a death-phobic culture that really doesn't want to acknowledge the reality of our mortality.

In my last charge but one, the manse was way down behind the churchyard which separated us from teh village. It took us two years to work out why we never got any Halloween guisers - the kids were too scared to come down past the graveyard at twilight! I found this out when two of them came down earlier, and had to be escorted back up, because it was "spooky". They were in my Sunday School and I told them for shame! All these people had died in the Christian faith, and they'd been buried in land which had been hallowed for fourteen hundred years! I used to walk through the churchyard at midnight and go into the church to play the organ. And I still remember the sense of faithful waiting that seemed to attend that place,a nd the dimension of the communion of saints.

You don't get that from a crematorium!
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
And I still remember the sense of faithful waiting that seemed to attend that place,a nd the dimension of the communion of saints.

You don't get that from a crematorium!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...

---

quote:

---

No reason why you couldn't get it from a columbarium.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
I had never heard of a service at a crematorium until shipmates at the UK told me of them. We really don't do that here.

---

Nor had I, and I am VERY grateful that we don't do that here!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...

---

Why do you call that death-phobic? The people I've heard it from, it's more extremely realistic: "I'll be dead, I won't be around to care, the body is a husk." (Realistic in at least one way -- in another way IMHO it's unrealistic about most people's need for funeral rites as survivors. But not death-phobic or -avoiding. I do agree with the "I don't want you wasting lots of money on unnecessary trappings" sentiment usually involved; I just disagree that actually being able to gather and mourn, and caring about the body even if the soul is gone, are unneccesary.)

~ ~ ~
I don't have a problem with cremation. I do find it interesting the rites around funerals and what's done with the body, etc. Cremations IMHO create a different set of places/ways to meet certain needs. For example a coffin present at a funeral (ah, celebration of the life of N ) is a different thing than a casket of ashes stuck in a corner, or nothing present at all.

FWIW, the most moving to me is coffin in the church (carried in for real, not rolled in), and graveside including lowering of the coffin into the grave.

But there are all sorts of logistical variations, which haven't got a lot with burial vs. cremation, and more to do with what to do with what's at hand. So it's not like you can say "burial is necessary for the proper rites to happen."

For example in Maine when the ground is frozen burials are held until spring. So there might be one service when someone dies, and a commital come spring. That's a real different pattern than for people who die in spring, boom, service and burial. And then there are people for whom the big memorial service with lots of people is organized for well after they've died for no apparent reason (well, there must be some reason, maybe simply logistics of getting everyone together or the family being up for it, but I haven't been close enough to any of these to be able to tell).

My church has a memorial garden, so cremated ashes are buried directly after the church service: we all troop outside for it. So everyone becomes part of that. In that sense, cremation coincidentally makes more immediate connections possible at my church.

People being buried, it's not so immediate because it will be a drive to the cemetery, and there's some variance in Maine anyway about who (on the scale of immediate family / close friends / everyone) goes to the graveside for coffin burials. So who gets access to the effects of a graveside service varies for all sorts of random reasons.

~ ~ ~
I would want there to be some sort of something at the crematorium, if someone in my family were to be cremated. I would find it wierd to just arrange for them to be taken away and then several days later I get the ashes; somehow it makes more sense to be able to go and wait the couple of hours (or whatever it takes) and then get the ashes right away. Wierd I suppose as that might seem to others. I wouldn't expect that to be the main service, or lots of people to be there though. It might even just be me, if noone in my family wanted to come. I don't know if people arrange ministers for these in Maine; I suppose if the minister felt they couldn't (but wouldn't they say "yes" if I asked them to come?) I would refer to my Quaker sojourn and say prayers myself. Though I guess the purpose of the minister for something like that is in some ways more support than specific sacramental efficacy.
 

---

Posted by jlg (# 98) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And as for two coffins in one cremator - NEVER.

The crmatorium worker calls each coffin a 'charge' and it is cared for with the highest care and dignity from the moment it leaves the service to the moment the funeral director or family collects the urn a few days later.

---

quote:

---

It was at all times represented to Doris Mae Tierney and her family that she would be cremated in a respectful and ethical manner in accordance with state laws. In fact, her body was not cremated and, as recent news events have detailed, numerous unburied bodies have been found at the site of the Tri-State Crematory in Northwest Georgia. The Governor of Georgia has declared Walker County a disaster area and has accused the crematory operator of "depravity."

---

quote:

---

Scot wrote: My wife says that, when I die, she's going to set my body atop the boat, dowse us with gasoline, and toss in a match.

---

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psyduck:
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How does not having a preference equate to being "death-phobic"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Presleyterian:
What makes you so confident she intends to wait until then?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
RuthW:

quote:

---

No reason why you couldn't get it from a columbarium.

---

I suppose there may be one or two columbaria fourteen hundred years old -

---

quote:

---

But columbaria can't give you that sense of temporary (just a few million millennia!) union with the earth that a churchyard can and does symbolize. It's the dry-land equivalent of the anticipation of that dread day when the sea shall give up its dead.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
...And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chemincreux:
One method of cremation Christians haven't tried (so ar as I know) is the open fire, Hindu style. Pity. I think this rite has wonderful symbolism.

---

I like Viking variant wherein the departed is placed in his ship and set ablaze.

I have a sailboat in my driveway, blocking the garage. Life has been busy and the boat hasn't seen water in a number of years, but I have stubbornly refused to put it up for sale. My wife says that, when I die, she's going to set my body atop the boat, dowse us with gasoline, and toss in a match.

---

Yeah, well, the Vikings generally put the boat to sea. I think it will be a mite unimpressive in the driveway. Or do you think she'll relent and tow your dead butt out to Lake Perris?
 

---

Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
No crematorium for me. I want to go the way of the Plains People, so that the Great Spirit may take me away on the wings of an eagle.
 

---

Posted by KenWritez (# 3238) on :
 
Are you sure you wouldn't rather die on a Greyhound bus and just travel eternally?
 

---

Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
I experienced something close to that once. I was lost in the NYC subway system and it took me nearly 5 hours to find my way out. So, no... my spirit yearns for the open skies.
 

---

Posted by PeteCanada (# 10422) on :
 
I'm not going to be there to see what happens to the remains of me, but I am certainly not death-phobic. Been close too many times to count. My funeral's prepaid and I'm going to burn, baby, burn. I have also left suggestions about what to do with my ashes, and I hope they'll be followed, but, again, I'm not likely to care am I?
 

---

Posted by the Pookah (# 9186) on :
 
Hey Father Gregory, I know you were joking - of course you are really almost a Muslim a revert!
The insistance on the burial of the body for the Resurrection as you pointed out - Christianity & Islam stems from Judaism.
In fact under Orthodox Jewish Law if you have any body bits removed (as in amputations -ugh) They must be buried with you. Don't ask I had a relative....
Anyway, let me point out that in China where cremation came to be the norm, there are family cemetaries, the ashes are buried in the family plot with marker & you visit. Funerals are big business in China & Japan.
I actually adore cemetaries in a whole Momento Mori sort of way. Death , Decay, Ruins.
the Pookah
 

---

Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand. My uncle was cremated, he had a funeral and wake beforehand... the only difference was that after the funeral, instead of going to the cemetary, the body went to the crematorium. The funerals weren't held in the crematorium, they were held in the funeral home (in the case of my father) or the church (in the case of my uncle).
 

---

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Nicolemrw, are you meaning funeral specifically to mean a service with a coffin (and body inside) present? But not necessarily the graveside service?

I don't have a good grasp on which technical term should be used with which type of service.

And where are you seeing people talking as if cremation precludes funeral? (I confess, my post may be a case in point! I'm confused over the words at the moment.)
 

---

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
You might want to look at the outside of the cremtorium here in the city of Newcastle:

web page

Some crematoria I have conducted services in have been nicer than some churches!

They are usually consecrated by the clergy when they are opened as well - and the presence of daily prayer and worship must also go a long way in sanctifying these buildings.

Better these than those awful funeral homes you have in the US. (Six Feet Under).
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Scot:

quote:

---

Psyduck, you seem to be awfully sure of other people's unstated motivations. You seem to think that preference, or lack of preference, that doesn't fit your expectations must somehow point to a fear.

---

quote:

---

At lunch today I had choice between the sandwich shop and the taco joint. I really didn't care what I had for lunch, so I let my co-worker choose. Am I lunch-phobic?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jlg:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And as for two coffins in one cremator - NEVER.

The crmatorium worker calls each coffin a 'charge' and it is cared for with the highest care and dignity from the moment it leaves the service to the moment the funeral director or family collects the urn a few days later.

---

You may hope. Scroll down to FACTUAL BACKGROUND, para. 17 to find this little nugget:

quote:

---

It was at all times represented to Doris Mae Tierney and her family that she would be cremated in a respectful and ethical manner in accordance with state laws. In fact, her body was not cremated and, as recent news events have detailed, numerous unburied bodies have been found at the site of the Tri-State Crematory in Northwest Georgia. The Governor of Georgia has declared Walker County a disaster area and has accused the crematory operator of "depravity."

---

I quoted this because a legal document seems a pretty reliable source. Anyone wanting more complete gruesome details can google for news articles.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
You might want to look at the outside of the cremtorium here in the city of Newcastle:

web page

Some crematoria I have conducted services in have been nicer than some churches!

They are usually consecrated by the clergy when they are opened as well - and the presence of daily prayer and worship must also go a long way in sanctifying these buildings.

Better these than those awful funeral homes you have in the US. (Six Feet Under).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand.

---

For me, there is a difference between the visible finality of lowering the coffin into a tomb, and what you see in a cremation (in the case of our local crematorium, a 'now-you-see-it-now-you-dont' arrangement whereby curtains close, you hear various mechanical clanking sounds, the curtains open, and bingo! the coffin has disappeared.

I realise the entombment is not really permanent, but at least you see the coffin all the way to what looks like a resting place. I've yet to have a family member cremated, but I can see a niggle in my mind as to what actually happened to the coffin in the cremation I've described, which just 'disappeared'. Psychological rather than theological concerns.

Also, with a burial, once you're done, you're done, and people can relax. With a cremation, there's an awkward hanging around for a couple of hours to get the ashes, when people don't feel they have finished the process and find it difficult to unwind. Again, maybe a question of habit, and I'm sure this sort of thing will change over time, but that's my take.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ferijen:
Ashes usually get delivered/collected sometime later here, perhaps that day, perhaps a few days later.

As a Vicarage child, we frequently had someone in my Dad's study overnight. And sometimes, joy of joys, the box was still warm on delivery...

---

*Shudder*

 

---

Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ferijen:
Ashes usually get delivered/collected sometime later here, perhaps that day, perhaps a few days later.

As a Vicarage child, we frequently had someone in my Dad's study overnight. And sometimes, joy of joys, the box was still warm on delivery...

---

*Shudder*

---

Hey, there was a reason I chose cremation for my undergraduate dissertation topic
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It's not, thankfully, as you suggest.

---

quote:

---

Hey, there was a reason I chose cremation for my undergraduate dissertation topic.

---

That's interesting. So did I.
 

---

Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :
 
Something I've just remembered, about UK cremations (there certainly seems to be a difference of practice in different countries) is that anyone with a pace-maker etc has to have it removed so that there is no explosion.

Before the service which culminates in the cremation, we always have the body, in an open cofin, in our house so that people can come and say good-bye. It also feels like respect and love and care for the person who has just died.

And when Mr d's body arrived at our house, the two people who welcomed him were myself and my loving Muslim woman neighbour - she wasn't allowed to come to the funeral as apparently in her tradition, women have to stay away and the men go, like it was when I grew up in Scotland.

Viola and mudfrog, the three of us have advertised beautiful, appropriate, crematoriums!

Anyone got any pics of USA ones?
 

---

Posted by Custard. (# 5402) on :
 
The norm for Christians round here (C of E, not too far from FG, little burial space) is public funeral in church (with coffin), private ceremony at crematorium, ashes often scattered or buried in large (and full) church graveyard, small memorial stone.

I quite like it - it seems to combine most of the good points from both sides. Personally, I'd probably prefer ultrasonic decomposition to cremation - it's tidier and more environnmentally friendly.
 

---

Posted by Custard. (# 5402) on :
 
The rules about pacemakers are actually for a very very good reason. Pacemakers tend to have internal very long lasting power supplies, which are usually provided by having some radioactive material inside. They make sure it's properly shielded, and a lot safer than not having the pacemaker in, etc.

If the body is cremated with pacemaker, the radioactive stuff is then released into the atmosphere or the soil or wherever, which is a Bad Thing. It needs to be properly disposed of at a site that can cope with such things.
 

---

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
-- when my grandmother died, the funeral home tried to sell us a 15,000 coffin with a 5,000 grave liner. My father asked if the coffin was wired for internet and phone service. She would never have wanted us to spend 20,000 on such a set-up. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Just for clarification, what I'm saying is that when professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views say "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" it seems to me that there is an aspect of dying that they find it difficult to look at. What fascinates me is that it's the social aspect of dying - precisely the point at which our lives, at their ends, intersect with the lives of the people who knew us, and who will be marking what we meant to them. It's more than just a statement that we know that there are lots of irreconcilable beliefs about in our society on this matter. And it's precisely an abdication of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die. (It's illuminating that a decision to offer your body for medical research is, to my mind, a clear exception to this phenomenon - and one very rarely taken.) It seems to me to be to do with a social inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:
According to Orthodoxy, a person is a unity of body and soul. When a person dies, this unity is interrupted but not permanently effaced.

---

quote:

---

Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person. Cremation, on the other hand, seems to treat the body as if it were merely an appendage of the soul, to be destroyed as worthless (assuming you believe in the soul, of course).

---

The destruction happens anyway, whichever method is used. Cremation is just a lot quicker than decomposing, being consumed by worms, and/or having what little is left bashed to bits 1000 years later by the plough of some farmer who doesn't even know there are graves under his field.

From that I conclude that it's not our current bodies that we are resurrected in. Or if it is, God can put them back together no matter what state they're in by then (so cremation is no greater a bar to bodily resurrection than burial anyway). If not it's going to be one ugly afterlife .

I accept that some may feel cremation is symbolically ressurrection-denying, but it can logically never be more than that, and as I said before the purely symbolic should be a matter of conscience and not required of everyone.
 

---

Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on :
 
I really do want to be cremated. It creeps me out to imagine being left in one place, immovable, in a little box, forever.

I want the winds to scatter me, or else I want to become part of the earth itself, and to be part of the lifecycle. The world is forever changing - seasons, weather, tides - and I want to become an ordinary part of it.

BTW, people are often cremated before the funeral service, and then the ashes are interred at the Committal right afterwards. This is the way it's been at the last two funerals I've gone to, and the family does take part in casting earth and the "committal of his/her body to the ground." I can't really see why this is any different than doing the same thing with a casket; if anything, it makes you think more about death, since the loved one's body is not at all what you're familiar with anymore. Ashes to ashes.
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.

Psyduck hears: "I abdicate of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die because I have an inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
Actually, I have quite a strong preference for cremation. I don't like the idea of being left around rotting. I don't like the idea of people seeing a graveside and thinking "That's where he is" - because I won't be.

I wonder what that says about me? A self-destructive urge to do violence to myself after death? Sublimated inability to cope with my own corpse? A denial of the resurrection?

---

I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.


 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Scot:

quote:

---

Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.

---

quote:

---

"I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me"

---

quote:

---

Psyduck hears:

---

quote:

---

"I abdicate of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die because I have an inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings.

---

quote:

---

What if the person really means this?: I won't personally experience whatever happens to my body,

---

quote:

---

so I'm not really concerned by it. It may, however, matter deeply to my loved ones, so they may do whatever they wish."

---

quote:

---

That's just one alternative interpretation. There may be many others. I don't see any reason to insist on the rather condescending interpretation that you have proposed, even if we are only talking about "professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views."

---

quote:

---

I've known a number of people who, while indifferent about what is done with their body, have expressed specific and sometimes elaborate opinions about what sort of memorial service they'd like. It doesn't seem to me that they are at all unable to cope with the social aspects of death.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.

---

What that sounds like to me is somebody who has really looked at and internalized what death does to your ability to make choices about the matter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.

---

My place or yours?

---

Sure.
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Eutychus

Just for the record ... I am "happy" to relate that I am not in agreement with one word of your last post. It's entire intent and underlying assumption constitutes I fear a completely different Christianity from mine. My Christianity:-

(1) Cares deeply about the body and the physical - whether I do or not.
(2) Accepts that death is both distressing and necessary to contemplate. Funerals are indeed a time for grief, quite overt grief actually.
(3) The funeral isn't of course about the deceased's "comfort." He / she is dead. But neither is it simply and only therapy for the mourners.

For the first read "Incarnation."
For the second read "The Passion."
For the third read "Resurrection."

[ 22. August 2006, 18:03: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
I'm always amazed how comforting it is to the families I prepare funerals with if there's something - anything - that they know is what the deceased wanted. Even just a hymn. And how at a loss they feel if they have no clue as to what the deceased wanted - in other words, if they have to guess, and "might have got it wrong." I think this probably goes for secular funerals as well. I think that a large part of the consolation that people have from the funeral of a loved one is the knowledge that "it's what s/he would have wanted..."
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Not caring what happens to one's corpse=not caring about the physical? That seems a fairly large leap.

And I don't see where Eutychus says anything to minimise the grief or need for contemplation.

And as for saying his Christianity is quite different on the basis of his attitude to funeral rites ... breathtaking.
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
I think that a large part of the consolation that people have from the funeral of a loved one is the knowledge that "it's what s/he would have wanted..."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:
...Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:

(1) Cares deeply about the body and the physical - whether I do or not.

---

quote:

---

(2) Accepts that death is both distressing and necessary to contemplate. Funerals are indeed a time for grief, quite overt grief actually.

---

quote:

---

(3) The funeral isn't of course about the deceased's "comfort." He / she is dead. But neither is it simply and only therapy for the mourners.

---

quote:

---

It's not just the deceased's personal comfort that's at issue here, it's what it's like for the mourners - the ceremony is primarily for their benefit.

---

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psyduck:
I think that a large part of the consolation that people have from the funeral of a loved one is the knowledge that "it's what s/he would have wanted..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've often seen this being a large part of the consolation in allowing the relative a dignified death in hospital... another discussion, I know, but distinct parrallels.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:
...Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person....

---

Why the open coffin? I'm really curious, because I don't get this one At All.

I know it's important to a lot of people to have a "viewing." (One friend of mine got very upset when I said I had forbidden my family to put out my body for Show and Tell; she said, "But then we won't be able to say goodbye to you!") But all that pancake makeup and rose-colored light business, trying to make a dead person look merely asleep, with their hair unnaturally neat, really bothers me. I prefer my memories of the living person to remain intact, and not colored by the memory of the mannequin in the box.

Before we were married, I told my husband the same thing my mother told my father: "If you put my body on display, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life." I meant it, too. It's not a fear-of-death thing; I just don't like it. I especially don't like it when children are dragged along and subsequently suffer nightmares.

Ross

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The destruction happens anyway, whichever method is used.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ferijen:
I might be completely misinterpreting things... does mean that the majority of the funerals in the States open casket funerals then? But funerals where cremation is involved tends to be about burying the ashes, rather than disposing of a 'full' casket?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The destruction happens anyway, whichever method is used.

---

But human agency makes a difference. I assume you don't wish to be dispatched when you get old and begin to lose your marbles because you're going to die anyway.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:
...Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person....

---

Why the open coffin? I'm really curious, because I don't get this one At All.

I know it's important to a lot of people to have a "viewing." (One friend of mine got very upset when I said I had forbidden my family to put out my body for Show and Tell; she said, "But then we won't be able to say goodbye to you!") But all that pancake makeup and rose-colored light business, trying to make a dead person look merely asleep, with their hair unnaturally neat, really bothers me. I prefer my memories of the living person to remain intact, and not colored by the memory of the mannequin in the box.

Before we were married, I told my husband the same thing my mother told my father: "If you put my body on display, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life." I meant it, too. It's not a fear-of-death thing; I just don't like it. I especially don't like it when children are dragged along and subsequently suffer nightmares.

Ross

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
"I want this to happen. Because this is my death. It's your feelings - but it's your feelings because it's my death..."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
I'm always amazed how comforting it is to the families I prepare funerals with if there's something - anything - that they know is what the deceased wanted. Even just a hymn. And how at a loss they feel if they have no clue as to what the deceased wanted - in other words, if they have to guess, and "might have got it wrong." I think this probably goes for secular funerals as well. I think that a large part of the consolation that people have from the funeral of a loved one is the knowledge that "it's what s/he would have wanted..."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
as for saying his Christianity is quite different on the basis of his attitude to funeral rites ... breathtaking.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
Hard to think that murder vs natural death are appropriate parallels for cremation vs burial.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
It's a regional thing, and it's a depends on your denomination thing. Orthodox funerals are often open casket. Southern funerals, at least in the tradition prevailing in the region my Dad's from, are often open casket, though it's not obligatory by any means. I didn't mind seeing several of those relatives posthumously, but I don't want it for myself. If you're used to it, it doesn't really upset older children (at least not in my experience).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by me:
It comes down for me simply to logistics, more than one way or the other is the better way to do it, and arranging what is needed within that to best support and represent our religious and cultural framework.

---

I was unclear a bit -- I meant I don't think non-cremation or cremation is ipso facto better.

If a coffin is present, I absolutely have very strong opinions about the logistics: at the funeral it ought to really be carried by the pallbearers, and at the committal it ought really to be lowered into the earth and have dirt put on it. But even there I recognize that logistics may intervene e.g. in terms of having people able to really carry the coffin up the aisle etc.

And since I haven't picked out a preferred final resting place for me (in particular, my church's memorial garden or not? and do my siblings have a preference?), at the moment I don't care whether I'm buried or cremated, nor, if I were cremated, what is done with my ashes. I think really the best thing to do is give my body to medical research, but so far that is the one thought I find unnerving. Even though I won't be there while I'm being dissected, having morgue-humor jokes made necessary to the survival of doctors-in-training, etc.

( deconstruct that last sentence, Psyduck. Actually seriously, I'd be curious what your view is on that set of uses of "I", even if I'm not always convinced.)

OK, I'll shut up for a bit about funerals.
 

---

Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
Oh, sorry. I've never seen an open-casket funeral. The casket was open for the visitations, and closed for the service.

What was weird was all the people sliding up to give condolences and saying how great she looked. I kept wanting to say, "apart from the whole being dead thing".
 

---

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Although (really, my last on funerals. For at least 15 minutes) I do have preferences about other funeral things besides my body, which I would express, not with a "you must do this" but a "this is what I like" precisely to help my family in the "what would AR have liked." And also because knowing my family, the less they have to argy-bargy about making decisions and just follow a preset plan, probably the better; although I know I can't alas guarantee there won't be any argy-bargy-ing either. . I can only try to make them whatever gift I can.

And (to try to be analytical for the sake of the OP) is any of this denying the Christian hope of resurrection, acknowledgement of the incarnation, agony of the passion? I don't think so. (Sorry, that's as analytical as I get. But if someone thinks it is denying those aspects, I'd be curious to hear the reasoning. Seriously.)
 

---

Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
...Do you (general you) think it's possible to shop funeral homes for one that applies makeup tastefully and minimally? or even not at all? I wouldn't mind people seeing what a real dead body looked like, but I don't want them smitten with a decaying body. I think. Unless a real unmadeup dead body really does look too unnerving.) ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
Oh, sorry. I've never seen an open-casket funeral. The casket was open for the visitations, and closed for the service.

What was weird was all the people sliding up to give condolences and saying how great she looked. I kept wanting to say, "apart from the whole being dead thing".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
...Also coffins are frequently rolled into the church on a wheeled stretcher, so there's no reality to what the pallbearers are doing....

---

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psyduck:
"I want this to happen. Because this is my death. It's your feelings - but it's your feelings because it's my death..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although for me, that involves a fairly strong preference for cremation. If it just wasn't possible, or it would cause distress to relatives, I guess I could live the alternative... (wait for it)... but my own personal view is that I quite like the idea of being cremated and scattered. Somewhere open and without a clear landmark.

I don't think that is a nihilistic interpretation... or a denial of the resurrection... in fact for me, it symbolises my view of the life to come and my hope in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
Cremation: If it was good enough for Caesar, it's good enough for me.

---

quote:

---

Once there, they arranged the funeral according to what my sister said was the "Australian way" and not the USA Way. They got their minister to phone me, so I could explain about the non-viewing thing, the closed casket, the desire for simple services etc...

The Presbyterian minister seemed flummoxed...( )

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
... Cremation is the holocaust of the dead.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
Cremation: If it was good enough for Caesar, it's good enough for me.

---

It was good enough for Brunnhilde....

Ross

---

I knew there was another good reason I was forgetting to mention....


 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Banner Lady:
"Ashes to ashes" seems just as appropriate as "dust to dust"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I wouldn't mind people seeing what a real dead body looked like, but I don't want them smitten with a decaying body. I think. Unless a real unmadeup dead body really does look too unnerving.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Jews and Christians, however, at least until the modern age insist on the holiness of matter

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Cremation is the holocaust of the dead.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
In fact, "I won't be there" in relation to one's own death, is a fascinatingly evasive statement. If you don't believe that life is anything but a physical process, then you will indeed be there - but you'll be dead. So "I won't be there" is denial in a literal, not just a psychological, sense. If you do believe that life is a phenomenon that transcends corporeal existence, then it's likely that you hold that belief in a religious framework. And as Father G points out, religious framworks have always, until very recently, prescribed precisely what should happen to a dead body. To hold a religious framework is to want what that framework demands to happen to your body after death.

On the other hand, if you adhere to a religious framework which allows you a choice, as has become possible with modernity, then abdication of choice is also an abdication of the responsibility of using the freedom that that tradition entrusts you with regarding the treatment of your body after death. And that implies, surely, that it's something you don't want to look at or think about. Which to my mind pretty much fits the bill for "death-phobic".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
...Have you heard these comments before?

(1) The body is only a temporary house for the soul. The body is only the envelope, the shell, the packaging.
(2) When I'm dead I won't care so toss me out with the garbage.
(3) I don't want to be cooped up ... I want to be free, spread on the wind. ...

---

quote:

---

...Abortion is the holocaust of the living. Cremation is the holocaust of the dead.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jlg:
... My Dad died in a commercial plane crash. The undertaker talked my brother out of letting us actually see the body (I'm still annoyed about that)...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
I think I've found the problem - a tradition of premodern science.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Jews and Christians, however, at least until the modern age insist on the holiness of matter

---

This is going to come as a shock to some, but matter is not destroyed by combustion. Sure, some small amount of matter is lost as various forms of energy, but a similar conversion process happens during organic decay. Most of that precious matter is still around post-cremation in the form of carbon dioxide, ash, bone fragments, or water vapor.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Banner Lady:
"Ashes to ashes" seems just as appropriate as "dust to dust"

---

Exactly. Fr Gregory's post is poetic, but I think what he's talking about is symbolism that has been attached after the fact to certain cultural practices, not symbolism that is naturally and necessarily tied to Christian doctrine.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Cremation is the holocaust of the dead.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
As for Christ's own example... well, I'm sure you can guess the obvious objections to that argument.

---

Well, the phoenix--which rises from its own ashes--is used as a symbol of Christ...


I personally want to be cremated (ideally, in an outdoor funeral pyre) and have my ashes scattered at sea. The decay factor of death freaks me out. Cremation gets around that. If I'm going to have symbolism, I'd rather have myself set free in the ocean than be left to molder in a box in the ground.

And I think God can cope with cremation just fine. She has to deal with people who die in fires, after all.
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Autenrieth Road:

quote:

---

And since I haven't picked out a preferred final resting place for me (in particular, my church's memorial garden or not? and do my siblings have a preference?), at the moment I don't care whether I'm buried or cremated, nor, if I were cremated, what is done with my ashes. I think really the best thing to do is give my body to medical research, but so far that is the one thought I find unnerving. Even though I won't be there while I'm being dissected, having morgue-humor jokes made necessary to the survival of doctors-in-training, etc.

( deconstruct that last sentence, Psyduck. Actually seriously, I'd be curious what your view is on that set of uses of "I", even if I'm not always convinced.)

---

Sorry - missed that one. OK - well, for starters, it's clearly not saying "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me". As to the pronoun - well, where am "I"? As of yesterday, I'm on a list to do a course in Perth in September. I'm also a telepresence (in the way Kenneth Gergen seems to use the word) in front of you as you read this - and when we converse about it we do so in "cyberspace", so I'm there too. Wherever that is. Who am I? Well - there you go! Who am I to whom? In a sense, the "skin-bound" self that is one referent of "I" is really just a part of something vastly more complex. And as Lacan points out, if I point into a mirror and say "There I am!", I'm actually indexing an illusory "self" that's been foisted on me since the day my mother held me up to another mirror and said "That's you, baby!" And that mirror image is what "I" think people think of "me". Small wonder that we lose our purchase on embodied selfhood! The body itself becomes a surface, then a text, as we write our identity messages on it in tattoos and piercings and changing fashions. And then we scrunch it up and throw it on the fire...


Psyduck; producing poetry from postmodern crap since 1999...
 

---

Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :
 
Isn't it amazing how much our own experience colours our view? For example, I don't think of cremations as impersonal or ugly at all, because the two crems I know best are beautiful buildings, full of light. One has a lovely stained glass window which you walk past on your way in, and when the light hits it, you are walking through pools of colour. Inside there are pews and a small chapel organ. The vicar usually robes. The services have been conducted with a mixture of simplicity, dignity and warmth. And in one of the crems, the (closed) coffin is not removed until afterwards, so you can walk past and 'say your goodbyes'. Far from the cold, impersonal, production-line experience which some have described.

My grandparents' ashes are buried together in the churchyard, and my mum puts fresh flowers on them every few weeks. Most visits to that church are concluded with a short look at the grave. I don't feel that cremation has altered the way I can do that.

Incidentally, at my grandad's service at the crem, the organist played 'To Be A Pilgrim'. No-one had requested this, and the organist didn't know him: but it was the perfect hymn to sum up my grandad's life of quiet, deep faith and untiring service to others. Of all the funerals I've attended (and I've played the organ for many), that is one of the most beautiful I remember.
 

---

Posted by Custard. (# 5402) on :
 
What harm does it do those who are dead in the flesh but alive in Christ to have their flesh burnt?

I see there are psychological arguments in favour of burial, but FG seems to be saying there is more than that.
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
(Need to master ETA)

If I were to give my body to medical science (Like they'd accept! - ooh, that was spooky, the smilie is called "killingme"!) I don't think I'd have or create problems in saying in one context that I was in heaven, or with God, or at least hoped so, and in another context that I was being dissected on a table. Any more than that people create problems for themselves or others say, virtually simultaneously, that grandpa is in heaven, "with me always", or "buried in Prestatyn".
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Ruth

I used poetic language but my reasons were theological. So, when I (deliberately) provoked with "holocaust of the dead" I wanted the crematers here to appreciate just a little perhaps the depth of visceral disgust I feel on account of the disrespect for the body and the desacralisation of the same that is involved for me as an Orthodox Christian when contemplating cremation. The theological issues of body - soul dualism are pertinent here and not later "add-ons" to a preconceived practice or cultural aspect. No one (yet) has addressed the theological issues I have raised. If you rule them inadmissible because (allegedly) committal is only about disposal then you have already proved my point about utilitarianism.

To all those who keep on repeating:- "God can resurrect the cremated" .... of course he can! That has never been part of my argument here. God can do anything he pleases. The issue is what WE should or should not do and the basis for that decision. The "more" to which Custard has alluded concerns our actual attitudes to the body and the nature of our Christian hope as expressed in those actions.

Neanderthal man buried his dead with flowers .. we know because archaeology has revealed the pollen residues. This goes back a long way!

[ 23. August 2006, 08:02: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

---

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
Quick question here: what should we do about burial at sea, when we know (assume) that the body may be eaten.

(Sorry if anyone has relatives buried this way).
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Burial at sea is as far as I can see entirely biblical (Revelation 20: 13)

There's the story that when Bishop Wand came to the west door of St Paul's to be enthroned as Bishop of London, he rapped on the door with his crozier and it swung open to reveal the clergy of the diocese assembled in the gloom. Some of them were exceedingly venerable, and Wand is supposed to have turned to his chaplain and said "Lo, the see gives up its dead..."
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Neanderthal man buried his dead with flowers .. we know because archaeology has revealed the pollen residues. This goes back a long way!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No one (yet) has addressed the theological issues I have raised.

---

quote:

---

Quick question here: what should we do about burial at sea, when we know (assume) that the body may be eaten.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
and I don't misrepresent me

---

Psyduck - thank you for your clarification.

I am still not sure that I agree with you, but I am sincerely sorry that I unintentionally misrepresented you.


 

---

Posted by Papio (# 4201) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So, when I (deliberately) provoked with "holocaust of the dead" I wanted the crematers here to appreciate just a little perhaps the depth of visceral disgust I feel on account of the disrespect for the body and the desacralisation of the same that is involved for me as an Orthodox Christian when contemplating cremation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I know that the buriers here are an endangered minority and that itself is significant for it reflects the lack of confidence in our own Christian tradition when, historically it confronted the cremation movement in the 19th century.

---

quote:

---

Psyduck - thank you for your clarification.

I am still not sure that I agree with you, but I am sincerely sorry that I unintentionally misrepresented you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
...the usual problem at the heart of all these discussions.

The overarching, a priori assumption that the Orthodox way is right, ordained by God, supported by Holy Tradition, and that all others are in error. Even symbolically.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:


One person may feel cremation symbolically denies the resurrection. Another may feel it affirms it. Who is right?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
But there does seem to be a pretty widespread association, in the UK, at least between cremation and some (generally ill-defined) concept of 'setting the spirit free from the body'. At least that's what I've found on funeral visits etc. as well as in reading the bumpf crematoria and funeral directors put out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
That having been said, I don't think people should be denied (or even strongly discouraged from using) an option the Church allows them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
I guess most would consider this to be a bridge too far, then?

---

quote:

---

The graveyards in the capital, Athens, are already full to overflowing. For many a burial plot is only rented for three years before the body has to be exhumed to make way for the next coffin.

It can be extremely distressing for relatives. Sometimes the exhumed bodies have not fully decomposed.

---

quote:

---

These are the fault of capitalism,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
Even capitalism cannot be held fully responsible for <snip> Pop Tarts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by GreyFace:
What happens to the exhumed bodies? Are they cremated at that point?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:

This is the point at which I have to state - yet again - that I have absolutely no problems with people who have a principled, or even a genuinely emotional, preference for cremation. My point is that the enormous social pressures in favour of the normalization of cremation are deeply linked to social pressures for the sanitization of the whole business of dying, and in favour of conforming our whole human existence to the demands of consumer capitalism. Even people whose deep personal preference is for burial find themselves carried along by the instrumental-rational logic of this. Because our society and culture isn’t about a tiny degree of extravagance in our expression of grief; it’s about colossal extravagance in conspicuous consumption and built-in obsolescence (now there’s a concept you could apply to modern views of death!) and the play of desire through advertising. Everything is commodified, including death. You get your twenty prettified minutes, and that’s it. After death comes closure.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:


Everybody suffers grief at the death of their loved ones - sometimes for the rest of their lives. To suggest otherwise is simply silly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:


Everybody suffers grief at the death of their loved ones - sometimes for the rest of their lives. To suggest otherwise is simply silly.

---

That is simply not true, if by 'suffer' we mean a conscious process. People can, and, do repress grief , spending the rest of their lives in denial, to the detriment of their mental health.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
If they haven't properly decomposed (and I understand 3 years is cutting it a little fine), they get reburied in a shallowish grave, to decompose a bit further.

A relative is required to be present at the exhumation to confirm the process.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
[Q] Q.E.D.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
though I think it would be foolish to generalise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
[Q] Q.E.D.

---

Well, only if by 'everybody' you meant 'some people'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
You made the point that some suffer through repression, and I agreed.

---

quote:

---

Posted by Gregory:
No one (yet) has addressed the theological issues I have raised.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
You made the point that some suffer through repression, and I agreed.

---

Not I didn't. I explicitly said that we could only say that if we conceded that we need not be conscious of 'suffering', which I suggest is not the ordinary language use of the word. People can be in denial and/ or have resultant mental health issues without suffering at the conscious level one jot. Indeed it is arguable that repression is a tactic against certain types of suffering.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:

(1) The creative purpose of God. (The "good" of Genesis).
(2) The assumption of our flesh in the Incarnation. <snip>
(3) The hope of resurrection.

---

quote:

---

Apart from the Orthodox ... does anyone here think that there is anything to regret in the now widespread Christian acceptance of cremation?

---

Nope...resurection is that of the soul, and as for re-united with your body, if everyone returned to whats left of their body, many people wouldn't be best pleased (apart from the fact that their in heaven )
 

---

Posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf (# 2252) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan the Man:
Nope...resurection is that of the soul

---

quote:

---

Gregory, it seems a bit odd to say that burning a body is active while burying it is not.

---

quote:

---

you don't explain why activity or passivity is a theological issue.

---

quote:

---

This assumption is nothing more than a cultural preference. Cultures other than yours would say just the opposite.

---

quote:

---

I say that deliberately isolating human remains from the cycle of decay and growth is a a clear denial of God's will as expressed in nature.

---

quote:

---

I say that you are mistaking historical context for principle.

---

quote:

---

If we understand that matter does not vanish and if we assume that God can resurrect whomever he chooses, then your argument is completely spurious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Callan:
Herodotus concludes that impiety is in the eye of the beholder: "For if one were to offer men to choose out of all the customs in the world they would examine the whole number, and end by preferring their own; so convinced are they that their own usages far surpass those of all others".

---

quote:

---

What's amusing, though, is that Fr Gregory has adopted the usages of another culture which he believes far surpasses the usages of his own.

---

quote:

---

And so he begins thread after thread on this board to prove to us that our post-Enlightenment culture is hideously gone astray.

---

quote:

---

Too bad some of us are happy to live in a post-Enlightenment culture.

---

quote:

---

I don't see anything in these arguments that lifts them out of a particular symbolic interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
...Correct ... but the culture of which I speak is a Judaeo-Christian culture which in this matter remained in tact for 4000 years....

---

quote:

---

Posted by Gregory:
In Orthodoxy ANYTHING humans do is by definition a theological issue. To talk of God is to talk of humankind. To talk of humankind is to talk of God.

---

quote:

---

I WANT to be eaten by worms rather than incinerated by my fellow humans ... NOT because it will make the slightest difference to "me" as a corpse but because it will be consistent with my Orthodox faith (ante).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't see anything in these arguments that lifts them out of a particular symbolic interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I know what and to whom I belong thank you Ruth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
In that case, I don't understand your response.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Cremation involves ACTIVE destruction of the deceased's body by humans. (It wouldn't matter for this argument whether this destruction was by fire, explosion or by a big mincing machine).

---

quote:

---

ACTIVE destruction of remains by humans assumes that the deceased's body is deserving of no special respect

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ACTIVE destruction of remains by humans assumes that the deceased's body is deserving of no special respect

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:
I'm not sure this exceedingly commonplace treatment is particularly respectful.

Ross

---

quote:

---

10. The funeral industry promotes embalming and viewing as a means to show "proper respect for the body," and to establish the "clear identity" of the corpse so that the reality of death cannot be denied by those who view the body. Many funeral directors are convinced that seeing the body is a necessary part of the grieving process, even if the death was long anticipated.

---

quote:

---

12. Embalming gives funeral homes a sales opportunity to increase consumer spending (by as much as $3,000 or more) for additional body preparation, a more expensive casket with "protective" features perhaps, a more expensive outer burial container, and a more elaborate series of ceremonies.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Doublethink

The oft quoted "no room, no room" has already been dealt with Divine Outlaw Dwarf. Please read his post.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
Problems with land for cemetries, in the UK, and probably in Greece, issue from land prices. These are the fault of capitalism, not of the practice of any particular Church!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
It is the AGENCY of the destruction / dissolution that matters not the dissolution per se. In other words 'human burns human' or 'bug eats human.' I don't think that I can make that simpler.

---

Ok, so "bug eats human" is natural and right, and "human burns human" is not?

Following that logic, should we do *anything* about a dead body? Doing anything disturbs the natural process in *some* way.

 

---

Posted by Papio (# 4201) on :
 
I don't see why the agency matters.
 

---

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
From a purely practical point of view, burial has major implications for land use in heavily populated countries. What do you think would happen if, as of tomorrow, everyone who died was buried ?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No, neither do I ... which is why we don't like it either. As I said before, embalming does not have to happen for burial to happen. Wash, present, inter promptly. It's quite straightforward really.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
...you better have a damn good justification if you are overturning 4000 years, at least from where I am standing....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
In the ground the body dissoves, coffin or no coffin. Personally I would prefer the shroud only method but even wood rots eventually and in any event is not sealed against the agents of decay.

---

Am I correct that this means Orthodox burials never involve metal coffins, much less the concrete vaults which are the norm, if not actually required by law or cemetery covenants in much of the US and Canada.

It's going to be a long time before my mother's molecules (simple pine coffin, no vault, but she was rather full of embalming fluids) manage to comingle with my father's (body bag, heavy-duty cherry coffin, concrete vault, no embalming) even though they are buried side-by-side and my father has a fifteen year head start on natural bodily deterioration. He may or may not have "dissolved", but I'm quite sure that he is pretty welled "sealed" against the normal "agents of decay" - not to mention the pesky question of how even those anaerobic agents of decay which might try to operate inside the body bag are coping with all that jet fuel he got soaked with. At any rate, I suspect it's going to be a long time before his molecules make it past all those barriers and contact the actual dirt.

But you'll surely be happy to hear that they both are wrapped in very nice white silk shrouds (in accordance with an obscure Baha'i burial requirement that is probably observed less often than RC priests wear maniples).

If you're going to argue against cremation, Fr Gregory, you need to stop presenting a rose-tinted ideal version of burial.
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
When does ... "This behaviour is not part of Christian tradition" as part of a forum debate become a "sin" or an attempt to "force your cultural assumptions on the rest of us?"

Others used the word "sin" not I. "You're oppressing us" isn't an argument.

There is a casuistry here that seeks to make something very simple essentially very complicated ... which is deeply ironic since some have accused me of being obscure!

The natural, non violent, reverent committal to the earth is but one argument in my list of objections. OK, so it doesn't persuade you. Fine. You think it's merely culture, a practice devoid of theological significance. Fine. But 4000 years of unbroken practice until now stands against you. So, you're Protestant and couldn't give two hoots about Tradition? Fine. But yours is not the only account of Christian praxis ... not even in the history of your Protestant forebears. So please do excuse me. I am deeply sorry for having a contrary position on the matter and going against the grain. I guess that makes me a Protestant too eh?



[ 24. August 2006, 07:11: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Trouble is, though, Fr. Gregory, that your "having a contrary position on the matter and going against the grain" has basically let all your opposnents off the hook. Because they can represent you as an extremist, they don't actually have to look at the death-phobic aspects of the way in which the practice of cremation meshes with contemporary culture.

And for the record, I'm not terribly keen on having Protestantism misrepresented as not giving two hoots about tradition. The world may be full of Protestants who haven't a clue about how the Protestant tradition works, but that doesn't make that the definition of Protestantism. There are some of us with a workingt knowledge of what the Reformation stood for.
 

---

Posted by KenWritez (# 3238) on :
 

quote:

---

Fr. G:the depth of visceral disgust I feel on account of the disrespect for the body and the desacralisation of the same that is involved for me as an Orthodox Christian when contemplating cremation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
I'll take a stab at it, Father Gregory.

From the Old Testament post-Adam, the physical manifestation of God most often given in scripture is "wind" or "ruah (ruach)." God is not Earth in Christian scripture; God is Wind. Again, God is a spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth, two formless modes of interaction.

The scriptures speak over and over of subjugating Flesh to Spirit, notably in the writings of Paul. Any clinging to the flesh is depicted as wrong and sinful.

In death, we will be made into Wind by slow or rapid oxidation of our carbon. Fire does so rapidly; biological processes slowly.

Before the oxidation of carbon to carbon dioxide was known, our ultimate fate as Wind was not known. We now know and are free in Christ to choose slow or rapid oxidation to Wind. Christ did not have this choice because he had to rise physically from the dead to insure the weak of faith that we do in fact survive death. But he showed that he was Wind as well, blowing through the cracks in walls and ascending like smoke into Heaven.

The strong in faith have always known that we do indeed survive to fill the nostrils of those who come after. We can raise a stench, or a sweet smell. After we die, however, there is no hope of joining the sweet smell of the Ruah. Our chance has come and gone.

Is this more what you had in mind?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
There is nothing symbolic about fire, the worm and the risen body of Christ; nothing symbolic about my flesh and yours, corruption and incorruption.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
It's the agent of the action that is the matter of concern, not the means of dissolution. If in an alternative universe dead bodies automatically spontaneously combusted that would be fine.

---

quote:

---

Not one person has engaged with the biblical and theological data ... <SNIP> All the arguments have been utilitarian ... and therefore, predisposed to make my arguments (and yours for that matter) fall at the first hurdle.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
As I said, 4000 years of unbroken tradition was once considered mainstream and cremation unthinkable THEOLOGICALLY.

---

quote:

---

I don't see how blaming capitalism deals with the problem.

---

After the revolution, people like you will be put up against the wall and shot, before being buried in picturesque country churchyards.
 

---

Posted by dorothea (# 4398) on :
 
I'm new to this thread, so sorry if repeating previous concerns.

Basically, whilst there are some sound practical reasons for burial, the whole concept of a bunch of bones being reanimated on the day of judgement doesn't carry much weight (no pun intended ). Even if one takes the resurrection literally as 'the risen body', Jesus's physical body was three days not three years, thirty years or three centuries dead. And also, what about people whose bones have been destroyed in an explosion? Are they to be excluded from the 'kingdom'.

J

[ 24. August 2006, 08:28: Message edited by: dorothea ]
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
OloviaG: Frederic Jameson argues that postmodernism is the culture of late capitalism. Postmodernism is characterized by all sorts of death-phobic impulses - it's been suggested that the astronomical body-count of Schwarzenegger movies is death-phobic inasmuch as the whole point of the film is that after the slaughter, the only people guaranteed to be left alive are Arnie, the Linda Hamilton type person, the "her son who the evil terminator is after" type person, and me, the viewer. The worst thing you can be, or be called, in postmodern culture, is a "loser", and dying is the ultimate in being a loser. Ergo death is denied by making slaughter into a balletic carnival celebratory of the viewer's immortality.

Equally, death is denied by the profession of the "mortician", the privileging of youth, the consequent significance of cosmetic surgery and cosmetics generally (neither Cleoparea nor Marie Antoinette made up so as to appear youthful ) and even by such things as "Campaigns for real Beauty" which appear to affirm ageing. And all of this is a cultural imperative of the phase of capitalism which we have entered.

Relevance - of course there are other reasons for choosing cremation, but the prevalence of cremation and the horror of burial in our culture are plausibly attributable to a death-phoboia connected with what late "disorganized" capitalism makes of us as human beings.
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
I have to say, Psyduck, that although cremation as part of a death-phobia cult might make sense... and be arguable... I suspect the reality is rather more stark.

I think that cremation has become acceptable simply because of the limitation of space in churchyards, and the expense of the funeral. The same forces that appear to be driving some in Greece to want cremations legalized.

Funerals are events where most people don't want to do anything different. Most people follow the default position that they'll do what their parents did burying the grandparents... and what Joe Bloggs next door does.

When that was burial, I suspect that's all anyone ever considered doing.

Until finance become such a serious pressure, it wasn't possible anymore. I expect cremation took some time in the UK before it was considered acceptable - until the critical mass of Joe Bloggses and parents built up enough.

You might be able to trace death-phobia developing among it, but I'd find it hard to believe that was the driving force. Similarly, I've seen just as death-phobic grief-phobic funerals using coffins - where no-one speaks of the "deceased" unless completely unavoidable, the service is held before a quick race to the graveside and huried departure...

I'd suggest the post-modern analysis is this;

That there are two seperate narratives, with a degree of cross-talk, which you are forcing into a single narrative.

[ 24. August 2006, 09:03: Message edited by: mdijon ]
 

---

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Scot and Ruth

ACTIVE destruction of remains by humans assumes that the deceased's body is deserving of no special respect which, contrastingly, would be indicated by committal without HUMAN violence.

---

quote:

---

That the body of the deceased can be ACTIVELY destroyed does injury to the Christian doctrine that human physicality has permanent value in:-

(1) The creative purpose of God. (The "good" of Genesis).
(2) The assumption of our flesh in the Incarnation. The myrrh-bearing women were equippped to anoint the body of Jesus ... not burn it.
(3) The hope of resurrection.

---

quote:

---

This injury is a "denial by act" in relation to the body. I am not talking about soul or spirit since crematers seem to ascribe some preferential aspect to these - but this is not what I understand by the resurrection.

---

quote:

---

The best way to roll back cremation is to present authentic Christianity as "with the body" - ALWAYS subsisting that is; in life, in death and after death - not in spite of it. God having take our flesh to himself forever enhanced status and character of that flesh (beyond even its existing high status in Judaism) whether or not it is now recognised by humans themselves.

---

quote:

---

That Christians should not now see this is, to me, most sad.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
As I say, if we continue the discussion in the terms of the OP, we're not going to get anywhere. The OP embodies theological truth as Fr. Gregory understands it. It's a completely self-consistent statement of what he believes. Eutychus, you aren't going to overthrow his theological position, because he isn't going to step outside it to discuss with you on any other basis, and he's been completely consistent in this. We are trading, not in arguments of what's better or worse, but in statements of what's right and wrong. There isn't a debate going on here.

---

quote:

---

I have to say, Psyduck, that although cremation as part of a death-phobia cult might make sense... and be arguable... I suspect the reality is rather more stark.

I think that cremation has become acceptable simply because of the limitation of space in churchyards, and the expense of the funeral. The same forces that appear to be driving some in Greece to want cremations legalized.

---

quote:

---

Funerals are events where most people don't want to do anything different. Most people follow the default position that they'll do what their parents did burying the grandparents... and what Joe Bloggs next door does.

---

quote:

---

When that was burial, I suspect that's all anyone ever considered doing.

Until finance become such a serious pressure, it wasn't possible anymore. I expect cremation took some time in the UK before it was considered acceptable - until the critical mass of Joe Bloggses and parents built up enough.

---

quote:

---

You might be able to trace death-phobia developing among it, but I'd find it hard to believe that was the driving force. Similarly, I've seen just as death-phobic grief-phobic funerals using coffins - where no-one speaks of the "deceased" unless completely unavoidable, the service is held before a quick race to the graveside and huried departure...

---

If I were proposing causal explanations, I wouldn't be a postmodernist, now, would I? What I'm proposing is a significant intertextuality - or congruence, if you will. This, all at once, is what's going on in contemporary culture. We are immersed in late-stage capitalism with its death-phobia, which is both inimical to, and threatened by, the Christian tradition. We have to be that paradoxical thing - postmodern Christians. Which Father Gregory is doing, as Hooker's Trick said:

quote:

---

What's amusing, though, is that Fr Gregory has adopted the usages of another culture which he believes far surpasses the usages of his own.

And so he begins thread after thread on this board to prove to us that our post-Enlightenment culture is hideously gone astray.

---

quote:

---

I'd suggest the post-modern analysis is this;

That there are two seperate narratives, with a degree of cross-talk, which you are forcing into a single narrative.

---

Bingo! You see precisely what I'm doing! Just as longas you understand that I understand it too! The one word I have problems with is "force". I'm really just reading them together, and enjoying the intertextuality...
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
And as long as you understand I understand you understand that...

I guess my interpretation of the inter-textuality is that it is almost accidental - that were cremation to be the expensive rite of old, invested with great meaning... and burial a johnny-come-lately method, cheaper and easier to organise, we could as very well have the same inter-textuality between modern grief-phobia and burial.
 

---

Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
Absolu... Sorry, postmodernists aren't supposed to say that. So - yes...
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Absolu... Sorry, postmodernists aren't supposed to say that.

---

quote:

---

Postmodernism is characterized by all sorts of death-phobic impulses - it's been suggested that the astronomical body-count of Schwarzenegger movies is death-phobic inasmuch as the whole point of the film is that after the slaughter, the only people guaranteed to be left alive are Arnie, the Linda Hamilton type person, the "her son who the evil terminator is after" type person, and me, the viewer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
As I said, 4000 years of unbroken tradition was once considered mainstream and cremation unthinkable THEOLOGICALLY.

---

I repeat my contention that the same could be said of slavery. Care to comment?

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Have you ever seen Terminator II?

---

yup

---

So you've forgotten the bit when John Connor tells Arnie that he's not allowed to kill anyone?

I think there are six deaths in Terminator II. The two policemen killed by the T-1000, Connor's foster parents, the scientist who gets blown up with the prototype Skynet, and the chap caught in the cross fire between Arnie and the T-1000. Oh, and both Terminators end up being melted in a vat of molten metal.

So, not exactly a balletic carnival of slaughter with only Arnie, Linda Hamilton and the kid the terminator is after as the only survivor.

Now, if you'd talked about Commando you might have had a point but I'm not sure that it's any more Thanatophobic than the Song of Roland or the book of Joshua, for that matter. Good guys killing bad guys has been a staple of narrative since Homer smote his bloomin' lyre.

Callan
Postmodernity sceptic and bad movie buff.
 

---

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Callan:
I think there are six deaths in Terminator II. The two policemen killed by the T-1000, Connor's foster parents, the scientist who gets blown up with the prototype Skynet, and the chap caught in the cross fire between Arnie and the T-1000. Oh, and both Terminators end up being melted in a vat of molten metal.

---

quote:

---

Now, if you'd talked about Commando you might have had a point

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The Orthodox alone have remained opposed for various reasons:-

(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."
(2) It promotes human violence against the body rather than a natural return to the earth.
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.
(4) It is in clear violation of millennia of practice and Christ's own example.

---

quote:

---

The christian attitude to slavery changed for theological reasons - i.e. it was seen to be immoral. As we've seen from this thread, the acceptance of cremation was largely pragmatic.

---

Cremation has always been tolerated on pragmatic grounds. Bodies were often burned in time of plague, for fairly obvious reasons. Given the choice between cremation and interment and the nineteenth century practice of chopping up bodies to make more room in graves, the decision to opt for cremation strikes me as being compassionate and humane. If everyone had a straight choice between being buried in an idyllic country churchyard and cremation, I'm sure most of us would choose the former but as, practically, that is rarely the case the introduction of cremation was the least worst option. I don't particularly mind being considered pragmatic in this instance. As no-one on this thread has yet suggested a means by which vast tracts of land on a crowded island could be converted into cemeteries, we're saddled with the current situation. Banging as if a pragmatic decision was some kind of horrific apostasy won't alter that in the slightest.

mdijon - it's a fair cop
 

---

Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Neither HT. Have you REALLY read all my posts here? If you had I don't see how you could have said all that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
It seems to me you only want to argue on your own terms, abiding by your own agenda, and do so in a way that doesn't ever quite come clean about that agenda.

---

No, say it isn't so HT!


 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Yes, I give up; it's true. I do believe that theology takes precedence over sociology when it comes to Christians considering their mortality and their hope in Christ. Why should I want to argue someone who isn't a Christian into my inhumation practice? Not at all. If, however, such a person was to leave a body by the roadside, as experienced by my predecessors in the early church, I would bury him / her.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
If, however, such a person was to leave a body by the roadside, as experienced by my predecessors in the early church, I would bury him / her.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Yes, I give up; it's true. I do believe that theology takes precedence over sociology when it comes to Christians considering their mortality and their hope in Christ. Why should I want to argue someone who isn't a Christian into my inhumation practice? Not at all. If, however, such a person was to leave a body by the roadside, as experienced by my predecessors in the early church, I would bury him / her.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(1) I explain the theological rationale for inhumation against cremation.
(2) Those who take a utilitarian approach cover over one eye and declare "I see no theology."

---

Well, not in my case. I buy your theology of the human body, and like you I reject the dualism that sets spirit separate from and above flesh. I believe in the goodness of God's creation, in the Incarnation of Christ, and in the resurrection of the body.

I just don't buy the notion that burning the human body is inherently disrespectful of it. It depends on how you do it, just as burial being respectful depends on how you do it.
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Thank you Ruth.
 

---

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
FG,

Speaking as a semi-disinterested semi-objective observer that really doesn't care about how one gets buried or burned, I take umbrage at how you characterized Their theology:

Yours is as Utilitarian as Theirs.

Theirs is as Theological as yours.

The problem here is not Their gall, it is yours for thinking you have a corner on this truth with nothing more than your opinion and a bunch of people that did things a certain cultural way 4000 years ago, or so your people say. I had an ancestor 4000 years ago that crapped standing up, it doesn't mean I mean I want to now.

[ 24. August 2006, 18:11: Message edited by: Mad Geo ]
 

---

Posted by Henry Troup (# 3722) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
...I just don't buy the notion that burning the human body is inherently disrespectful of it. It depends on how you do it, just as burial being respectful depends on how you do it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Sorry, not playing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Isaac David:
The christian attitude to slavery changed for theological reasons - i.e. it was seen to be immoral.

---

quote:

---

As we've seen from this thread, the acceptance of cremation was largely pragmatic.

---

quote:

---

The tradition was grounded in shared theological considerations. Almost everybody except the Orthodox have changed the tradition for almost any reason except theology. And almost nobody is prepared to say why.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
As I said, 4000 years of unbroken tradition was once considered mainstream and cremation unthinkable THEOLOGICALLY.

---

I repeat my contention that the same could be said of slavery. Care to comment?

---

The same could be said of the old view of women, who, in 4000 years of unbroken tradition were seen as spiritually, mentally, and physically inferior to men, and --

Oh, wait.

Never mind.

Father Gregory does seem to be using this issue as just another club with which to beat those who disagree with him. All the actual discussion is taking place among the latter group. He's just doing Theme & Variations, with no genuine interaction.



Ross
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
Actually, I don't find this at all . The thought I had while walking home this evening is that the requirement of specific burial practices reminds me of the Orthodox requirements of incense and icons; perhaps the comparison is not apt, but if so one of the Orthodox can let me know. I can see the theology these things are supposed to express, but I don't see that burying an unembalmed body, using incense in church or kissing/venerating icons are the only ways of expressing, communicating or embodying that theology.
 

---

Posted by Papio (# 4201) on :
 
But Gregory's argument appears to be that the Orthodox have always said that it is the only way to expres that theologically, so it MUST be....

And anyone who challanges that is told that they are just a stupid heretic and that they have "gall" and that they are being wilfully ignorant.

And it is impossibly to argue with that. And that it is impossible to argue with says nothing about the validity or otherwise of Gregory's assertations. Because that is what they are: assertions, not arguments.
 

---

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Fr. Gregory's further explanations of his position have got me thinking about "the resurrection of the body," and what that really means (or might mean), which I've never thought about much before.

It does make my head hurt pretty quickly and for once want to quickly prooftext with Paul about our resurrected bodies being different -- what I read behind that statement is that actually we don't really know what comes next.

Psyduck, thank you for the custom deconstruction. I have grasped onto

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
the "skin-bound" self that is one referent of "I" is really just a part of something vastly more complex.

---

quote:

---

Fr Gregory:
The tradition was grounded in shared theological considerations. Almost everybody except the Orthodox have changed the tradition for almost any reason except theology. And almost nobody is prepared to say why.

---

quote:

---

Eutychus:
If you have a theology which allows for the concept of change of praxis with respect to social realities (and I think I've only just started on how one could find that in the NT without too much difficulty), the distinction you draw falls away.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
This is the game we play here ...

(1) I explain the theological rationale for inhumation against cremation.
(2) Those who take a utilitarian approach cover over one eye and declare "I see no theology."
(3) I say: "I am not going to repeat myself nor flog a dead horse."
(4) Others reply by traducing my theology into absurd vacuous sound bytes and then have the gall to challenge me to justify my position based on those garbled versions.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Now that this has happened, cremation is made to look no more objectiinable or praiseworthy than burial because the mourners' hands no longer often attend the lowering into the grave with hands full of dirt nor do they think of cremation as anything other than the disappearance behind a curtain and the almost magical appearance later of the ashes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The Church only changed from her pacifistic stance in the early centuries as she became necessarily embroiled in the project of transforming earthly kingdoms.

---

quote:

---

The modern funeral "industry" (actually whether by burial or burning) has succeeded in distancing us from the object of our fears.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
If, for example, I, as a driver, inadvertently killed a child who ran out into the road without warning, I could no longer from that moment serve as a priest.

---

Why not?
 

---

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by the coiled spring:
There is a tradition in parts of India where the widow throws herself on the funeral pyre. With all the multi-culture and diversty stuff being bantered about is there anyway we could suggest this tradition to Tony and Cherie

---

quote:

---

From Eutychus:
it's hard to see how even theology could change if continuity is your prevailing value.

---

Sure, but it isn't our prevailing value. Any attempt to reduce Orthodox theology in that way results in an oversimplification. I don't have time right now to tell you how to do Orthodox theology, but even if I did, I suspect I would fail. Explaining Orthodox theology is rather like explaining a poem or a piece of music. It may help, but the best explanation is the poem or piece of music itself. Maybe that's why repetition is such a strong feature of our contributions.

quote:

---

Since when were theology and pragmatism mutually exclusive?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The modern funeral "industry" (actually whether by burial or burning) has succeeded in distancing us from the object of our fears. Let's just deal with burial for a moment for contemporary practice exhibits the same pathology.

Embalming, funeral homes as "parlours", pretending that the person is "not dead really ... just around the corner" and all that crap, coffins rather than shrouds (coffins only started to be used in a widespread manner in the 19th century), sentimental secularised eulogies rather than realistic gospel messages about mortality and hope ... all these have conspired to sanitise death and distance its reality from human experience. Even when pain and blood and mess have preceded a funeral, the funeral is all about extirpating that from the memory. In this context we can barely watch the crufixion of Jesus in Gibson's Passion ... we are far happier with mass slaughter a la Arnie where we THINK we have dealt with death, but not at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Actually, I don't find this at all . The thought I had while walking home this evening is that the requirement of specific burial practices reminds me of the Orthodox requirements of incense and icons; perhaps the comparison is not apt, but if so one of the Orthodox can let me know. I can see the theology these things are supposed to express, but I don't see that burying an unembalmed body, using incense in church or kissing/venerating icons are the only ways of expressing, communicating or embodying that theology.

---

It's not the topic that's ; it's Father Gregory's approach to (for want of a better word) discussion.

Ross
 

---

Posted by KenWritez (# 3238) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ANYTHING that we do to cherish the human, and that includes first and foremost the body, physical needs etc. etc. is God pleasing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The Orthodox have deeply rooted in their theology of the HUMAN a respect for physicality similar to the Jains who sweep the paths before their ascetics lest they tread on an insect, (although not as extreme as that of course!)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
If, for example, I, as a driver, inadvertently killed a child who ran out into the road without warning, I could no longer from that moment serve as a priest.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
However, violence against the person... all of these remain sins needful of repentance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
funeral homes as "parlours",

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
pretending that the person is "not dead really ... just around the corner" and all that crap,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
sentimental secularised eulogies rather than realistic gospel messages about mortality and hope...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Even when pain and blood and mess have preceded a funeral, the funeral is all about extirpating that from the memory.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I would respect the cremation position here on this thread much more if proponents were henceforth only prepared to attend open pyres as in India,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(...just more aspects of The Great Cover Up).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ANYTHING that we do to cherish the human, and that includes first and foremost the body, physical needs etc. etc. is God pleasing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I respect Hindus far, far more for insisting on going round the back to the actual furnace ... as many insist on doing in the UK. I would respect the cremation position here on this thread much more if proponents were henceforth only prepared to attend open pyres as in India, (not that this is legal of course ... just more aspects of The Great Cover Up).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
...But a practical problem does arise with current death rate. ...

---

quote:

---

FGs last post certainly doesn't contain any theology.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ANYTHING that we do to cherish the human, and that includes first and foremost the body, physical needs etc. etc. is God pleasing. So whether it's the Salvation Army's "you can't preach the gospel to an empty stomach" (St. John Chrysostom would have approved), a gay man tending to his lover dying of Aids or simply giving a hug to a lonely person; all of this is venerating and chershing God's handiwork.

---

quote:

---

ANYTHING that we do to cherish the human, and that includes first and foremost the body, physical needs etc. etc. is God pleasing.

---

quote:

---

The Orthodox have deeply rooted in their theology of the HUMAN a respect for physicality...

---

quote:

---

However, violence against the person, even when this fulfils the criteria of the so-called "Just War" or the legitimate use of deadly force by the State ... all of these remain sins needful of repentance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Henry Troup:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
...But a practical problem does arise with current death rate. ...

---

As far as I know, the death rate is still that same as always - one per person.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Maybe only the Orthodox think that theology is only about God and not about humanity and human culture. Surely not?!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I don't anticipate that anyone will have in the least changed their own views on the matter by the time we have reached page 99.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Psyduck:
Relevance - of course there are other reasons for choosing cremation, but the prevalence of cremation and the horror of burial in our culture are plausibly attributable to a death-phoboia connected with what late "disorganized" capitalism makes of us as human beings.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
... I still consider cremation to be beyond the pale. However, Orthodox cremation services do exist WHERE THEY HAVE TO LEGALLY ... eg., in Japan where that is the only option.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Geo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
... I still consider cremation to be beyond the pale. However, Orthodox cremation services do exist WHERE THEY HAVE TO LEGALLY ... eg., in Japan where that is the only option.

---

I find this interesting. Have you explained how this exception is made "theologically"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ANYTHING that we do to cherish the human, and that includes first and foremost the body, physical needs etc. etc. is God pleasing. So whether it's the Salvation Army's "you can't preach the gospel to an empty stomach" (St. John Chrysostom would have approved), a gay man tending to his lover dying of Aids or simply giving a hug to a lonely person; all of this is venerating and chershing God's handiwork.

---

I think this is actually two different issues here. The first -- love of the human body -- I feel is actually very non-Christian in nature and unsupported by any scriptural teaching. We are told that "all flesh is grass". Jesus didn't seem to have much honor for the body, when He taught it was better to cut off part of it than for it all to go to hell and how we are not to worry about our bodies' needs, etc. Oh, I know we're too care for our bodies and that we're the temple of the Holy Spirit, etc., but I don't find any reference of "cherishing" them.

I do believe we are taught to care for the physical needs of others, but I believe it is the act of love and service involved which actually "pleases God", and not specifically because we're doing something which "venerates His handiwork".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Some of the most pernicious death-phobias are generated by certain Christian traditions ... eg., you can't cry because you are a Christian and your love one is in the Lord.

(1) He/she may not be.

---

quote:

---

It is believed that one of the ways in the holiness (saintliness) of a person is revealed is through the condition of their relics (remains). In some Orthodox countries (such as Greece, but not in Russia) graves are often reused after 3 to 5 years because of limited space. Bones are washed and placed in an ossuary, often with the person's name written on the skull. Occasionally when a body is exhumed something miraculous is reported as having occurred; exhumed bones are claimed to have given off a fragrance, like flowers, or a body is reported as having remained free of decay, despite not having been embalmed (traditionally the Orthodox do not embalm the dead) and having been buried for some years in the earth.

The reason relics are considered sacred is because, for the Orthodox, the separation of body and soul is unnatural. Body and soul both comprise the person, and in the end, body and soul will be reunited; therefore, the body of a saint shares in the “Holiness” of the soul of the saint. As a general rule only clergy will touch relics in order to move them or carry them in procession, however, in veneration the faithful will kiss the relic to show love and respect toward the saint. Every altar in every Orthodox church contains relics, usually of martyrs. Church interiors are covered with the Icons of saints.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
... I want to be cremated and my ashes thrown into an active volcano on Hawaii.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Yes, I'm interested in bones and relics, too. For instance:

quote:

---

It is believed that one of the ways in the holiness (saintliness) of a person is revealed is through the condition of their relics (remains). In some Orthodox countries (such as Greece, but not in Russia) graves are often reused after 3 to 5 years because of limited space. Bones are washed and placed in an ossuary, often with the person's name written on the skull. Occasionally when a body is exhumed something miraculous is reported as having occurred; exhumed bones are claimed to have given off a fragrance, like flowers, or a body is reported as having remained free of decay, despite not having been embalmed (traditionally the Orthodox do not embalm the dead) and having been buried for some years in the earth.

The reason relics are considered sacred is because, for the Orthodox, the separation of body and soul is unnatural. Body and soul both comprise the person, and in the end, body and soul will be reunited; therefore, the body of a saint shares in the “Holiness” of the soul of the saint. As a general rule only clergy will touch relics in order to move them or carry them in procession, however, in veneration the faithful will kiss the relic to show love and respect toward the saint. Every altar in every Orthodox church contains relics, usually of martyrs. Church interiors are covered with the Icons of saints.

---

So it's not OK to cremate the dead, but it's OK to have mummies of saints to venerate, and to break up the bodies of holy people and keep their remains in altars?
The bones seem to travel great distances, too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
... I want to be cremated and my ashes thrown into an active volcano on Hawaii.

---

Isn't that sort of redundant?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So it's not OK to cremate the dead, but it's OK to have mummies of saints to venerate, and to break up the bodies of holy people and keep their remains in altars?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
So it's not OK to cremate the dead, but it's OK to have mummies of saints to venerate, and to break up the bodies of holy people and keep their remains in altars?

---

Well, I see no real harm in cremation myself, so long as it is reverently done, but where's the inconsistency in the Orthodox practice here, TubaM? It's all about reverence and cherishing, and I fail to see how that treatment of the mortal remains of those saints is not reverent - some may even say it's excessively reverent to cherish them thus (though not I).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Janine:
for thoe who vehemently oppose cremation for all the big important reasons mentioned -- how do you reconcile yourself to the horror of someone's death by fire, and their body being all or mostly burned up in the fire?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Call me crazy, but it seems fairly clear to me that raiding graves, dismembering skeletons, and distributing the bones in pieces all over the world is just a tad bit disrespectful to the dead. Not to mention fighting over them centuries later. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
But, TubaMirum I suspect that you know nothing by experience about how we venerate relics ... aside from what you have read ... venerate that is, not burn.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by me:
The requirement of specific burial practices reminds me of the Orthodox requirements of incense and icons; perhaps the comparison is not apt, but if so one of the Orthodox can let me know. I can see the theology these things are supposed to express, but I don't see that burying an unembalmed body, using incense in church or kissing/venerating icons are the only ways of expressing, communicating or embodying that theology.

---

quote:

---

Assuming that I'm getting all this business of requirements right, the Orthodox requirements of burial, of incense, of icons all seem to me like fossilizations of practices that were, in a time and culture that is now gone, ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
"Fossilisation" is a prejudicial piece of rhetoric that comes nowhere near theologising

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Call me crazy, but it seems fairly clear to me that raiding graves, dismembering skeletons, and distributing the bones in pieces all over the world is just a tad bit disrespectful to the dead. Not to mention fighting over them centuries later.

Far more disrespectful than cremating the body and scattering the ashes in a place dear to the deceased, or interring them in a church courtyard.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I think I should stop short of questioning your sanity, TubaMirum, but the genuine veneration of the relics of the Saints is, well, veneration (usually involving the careful and elaborate housing of them in precious reliquaries, keeping them safe, offering them for the veneration (by kissing) of the faithful, praying before the shrines containing them, etc.) - and as such, it seems pretty respectful to me.

Of course, jumping on the bodies and ripping them apart in a tussle with others for the bits is not very respectful in itself, so of course the Church does not (and where it appears to have done, should not) condone that. But I should have thought that that abuse is perfectly conceptually seperable from the pious and holy veneration of such relics. In fact, I should think any neutral observer could make that distiction quite clearly, and I can't imagine any relicodule (don't bother looking it up - I've just made it up) defending such greedy violence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Ruth

quote:

---

Assuming that I'm getting all this business of requirements right, the Orthodox requirements of burial, of incense, of icons all seem to me like fossilizations of practices that were, in a time and culture that is now gone, ...

---

You have very clearly understood our position Ruth but this comment and everything that follows I reject.

The iconoclasm of the Reformation is a challenge in need of justification ... not the other way round if one takes the Vincentian canon seriously.

"Fossilisation" is a prejudicial piece of rhetoric that comes nowhere near theologising ... and, to my mind, undermines everything else you say after that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Sorry, Chesterbelloc - I think we'll have to agree-to-disagree on this one. I honestly think this is about the most disrespectful thing I can imagine - particularly the idea of chopping up the bones to spread 'em around. Give the dead a decent [burial/cremation] and let them rest in peace. That's our request to God at the time of interment, anyway; one wonders why the people making it can't honor it themselves.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
What's particularly amazing to me is to watch Gregory rail on "Against Cremation" - and then blithely defend this practice. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Sorry, Chesterbelloc - I think we'll have to agree-to-disagree on this one. I honestly think this is about the most disrespectful thing I can imagine - particularly the idea of chopping up the bones to spread 'em around. Give the dead a decent [burial/cremation] and let them rest in peace. That's our request to God at the time of interment, anyway; one wonders why the people making it can't honor it themselves.

---

OK, but let's be sure we're doing so about the same thing. I'm talking about the veneration of body parts (and the personal effects, don't let's forget) of those whom the Church holds have already attained the beatific vision in Heaven - which is why their prayers are so much sought after, their being so much more freed from sinful shackles, and all that. They are with God now and forever. These folks are not "resting in peace" - they are fully alive and with their God

---

quote:

---

You have not addressed the question of how your theology (and mine, I remind you) can be intrinsically tied up in a particular burial practice; as I said before, meaning just doesn't work this way. Meaning is carried in cultural practices because we say it is; cultural practices may lose their meaning while other cultural practices take on that meaning.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So, it is for a Christian who believes that Christ's 3 day burial sanctified the tomb as a portal of his resurrection that burial and not cremation becomes mandatory. The historical divine interventional changes archetypes into "real things." It is, essentialy, a sacramentalist approach.

---

quote:

---

We should not be surprised, therefore, that constructivism has found a happier home in the Protestant rather than other Christian traditions.

---

quote:

---

Father Gregory, this is the first you have mentioned on this thread that it is Christ's burial that requires burial and excludes cremation. Why is that?

This seems like an essential reason about the Orthodox position about burial, and yet it only comes up this late in the discussion.

---

You don't expect me to use up all my ammunition on the first salvo do you? I have enough here for at least another 9 pages but I might fall asleep by then.

By "why is that" I take you to mean "why have you not spoken of this before?" However, if you mean:- "what on earth do you mean by this?" then I suppose I would say that Joseph of Arimathea knew the mind of Christ. Of course there are those who would say I have simply back projected this onto the Jews. And who do they back project it onto? Well, that's the point isn't it? Nobody back projects anything. We receive these things from from God and that includes those aspects of culture that touch on ultimate things.

Constructivism makes all sorts of things problematic for a Christian who grasp on revelation is slipping. Since all becomes the Great Human Project ... the games we play with "God" ... actually NOTHING matters in the end, not just sacraments. Everything is up for grabs. Only the smile on the Cheshire Cat remains. Who can believe in a smile? Only non-realists.
 

---

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Thanks, Father Gregory. Shall look forward to another 9 pages of varied ammunition. Unless you manage to sleep through the countershots .

I did mean the first interpretation of my question. I am glad you provided the answers inspired by the other interpretation, they give me another window to try to understand what you are saying.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Constructivism makes all sorts of things problematic for a Christian who[se] grasp on revelation is slipping.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Autenreith Road

quote:

---

Father Gregory, this is the first you have mentioned on this thread that it is Christ's burial that requires burial and excludes cremation. Why is that?

This seems like an essential reason about the Orthodox position about burial, and yet it only comes up this late in the discussion.

---

You don't expect me to use up all my ammunition on the first salvo do you? I have enough here for at least another 9 pages but I might fall asleep by then.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alogon:


This scene brings up a question for the opponents of cremation: what do you think of this treatment of the six thousand skulls? If it is right that these remains should be brought into the church building, then why did they need to spend a few centuries in the ground first? Or if it is not right, what should have happened to them when the old cemeteries yielded to some other use?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The iconoclasm of the Reformation is a challenge in need of justification ... not the other way round if one takes the Vincentian canon seriously.

---

• Certain continued observances have become litmus tests of inclusion. Thus, the Orthodox faithful who elect cremation are equated with physical resurrection-denying pagans and excluded from liturgical prayers for the dead.
• Superstitions have emerged despite efforts by the institution to prevent this. The Orthodox faithful dig up bodies after three years and superstitiously attempt to equate the state of decay with the “level” of Christianity the departed must have had.
• Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:

It appears to me that if one assigns pre-eminence to the teachings of Christ over strict observance to the Vincentian canon, perpetual reform and reinvention along the lines of the original intent of the tradition is required to combat the inevitable ill effects of perpetual sameness in ceremony and practice. Religious practice must change and adapt to remain alive or it will indeed "fossilize" and mimic death and injustice rather than life and justice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:


In my opinion the Christian church post resurrection immediately began the repetition of this error, which continues to this day. The institutional Christian errors that exactly parallel the instituional pre-Christian errors of Judaism are:

• Certain continued observances have become litmus tests of inclusion. Thus, the Orthodox faithful who elect cremation are equated with physical resurrection-denying pagans and excluded from liturgical prayers for the dead.

  ---

quote:

---

Superstitions have emerged despite efforts by the institution to prevent this. The Orthodox faithful dig up bodies after three years and superstitiously attempt to equate the state of decay with the “level” of Christianity the departed must have had.

---

quote:

---

Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?

---

quote:

---

Other examples can be seen in RCC and "High Church" Anglican Protestants showing up just in time for communion, because the physical act of receiving consecrated host is perceived as the most important part of the ceremony. Pentecostals make it virtually required to regularly and publically speak in tongues in order been as part of the "true faithful."

---

quote:

---

It appears to me that if one assigns pre-eminence to the teachings of Christ over strict observance to the Vincentian canon, perpetual reform and reinvention along the lines of the original intent of the tradition is required to combat the inevitable ill effects of perpetual sameness in ceremony and practice. Religious practice must change and adapt to remain alive or it will indeed "fossilize" and mimic death and injustice rather than life and justice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.

---

quote:

---

In North America the crematorium is never the site of the service.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
It's funny isn't it how often these debates degenerate into a rerun of the Reformation ... even stranger because the factors that led to a Reformation in the west never existed in the east. So, I won't be playing this game.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:


Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?

---

Different concepts. A priest is the leading voice of the laity in worship and the prohibition against such acting with blood on his hands goes back to the building of the Temple, David wasn't allowed to build it for this reason.

---

So there's no distinction between an accident and murder?

 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
For someone of such wide sympathies Golden Key you don't seem to know much about Orthodoxy. The Reformation conflict matrix and the theological infrastructure that underpins it addresses issues that simply are not on our radar in Orthodoxy nor have they ever been. So, when we say "X" you think we mean "Y" because we are sharing a similar language. The ideas behind that disarmingly similar language are, however, radically different. For example, one Reformation challenge concerned the mediation of the Church between God and Man (or so it was alleged). In Orthodoxy we have never had such an ecclesiological deformation, so attempts to being us within that familar conflict matrix are entirely misconceived and certainly leave us stone dead cold.

Dear John

No, this isn't simply for us HOW cremation is done. It's the cremation itself.
 

---

Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Golden Key:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:


Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?

---

Different concepts. A priest is the leading voice of the laity in worship and the prohibition against such acting with blood on his hands goes back to the building of the Temple, David wasn't allowed to build it for this reason.

---

So there's no distinction between an accident and murder?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:

quote:

---

In North America the crematorium is never the site of the service.

---

Yes and no. Some funeral homes have their own ovens.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:
The why it's done arguments seem to be later add-ons to your emotional reaction to what are, fair enough, some undesirable practices that you have experienced.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Thanks Ruth. Oh dear, I'm getting weary. I do wish this thread could be quietly euthanased.

---

Perhaps it could be cremated?
 

---

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Nice one Chorister!

Seriously though, this is now "doin' mi 'ead in" a bit so I will bow out gracefully now. Ta - ra!
 

---

Posted by eyeliner (# 4648) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Seriously though, this is now "doin' mi 'ead in" a bit so I will bow out gracefully now. Ta - ra!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:


No, this isn't simply for us HOW cremation is done. It's the cremation itself.

---

quote:

---

Thus the Church, due to a pastoral concern for the preservation of right beliefs and right practice within the Tradition of the Fathers, and out of a sense of reverence for its departed, must continue its opposition to this practice. Each Orthodox Christian should know that since cremation is prohibited by the canons [rules of the Church], those who insist on their own cremation will not be permitted a funeral in the Church. Naturally, an exception occurs when the Church is confronted with the case of some accident or natural disaster where cremation is necessary to guard the health of the living. In these special situations, the Church allows cremation of Orthodox people with prior episcopal permission and only by "economia."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:


No, this isn't simply for us HOW cremation is done. It's the cremation itself.

---

On further research I think the association of fire as a force for the destruction of evil as it plays out in examples from the OT has a part to play in the taboo against cremation which coupled with our predilection for collecting and venerating our ancestors' bones created a climate of antipathy to any other form of burial. This isn't found in India for example where fire itself is considered a god and sacrifice by fire seen as a good, as in purification by fire.

I think the theology, jewish and ours, has been superimposed on tradition.

Myrrh


http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Rites%20of%20Passage/ancestors2.html

http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Cremation.asp

http://www.saintbarbara.org/faith/society/cremation.cfm

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

You gotta buy Fr Gregory's view that there has been "a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it" to agree with his first "why" (and I'm not sure that I do), but he did put it forth from the very beginning.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:
If you picture the resurrection as being something like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, then you want the bones to be intact.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:
If you picture the resurrection as being something like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, then you want the bones to be intact.

---

Firstly, I don't. Not at all.

---

quote:

---

Myrrh posted:
In India where cremation is the norm I was told sannyasis are an exception.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mousethief:
Perhaps you missed the point that I disagree with this also.

---

Ah. Oops.
 

---

Posted by Papio (# 4201) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."

---

You gotta buy Fr Gregory's view that there has been "a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it" to agree with his first "why" (and I'm not sure that I do), but he did put it forth from the very beginning.

---

He did, and then he refused to engage with any of us that disagreed with that theological point, preferring to riff on how cremation denies the reality of death, or whatever it was he was on about.

Suffice it to say that I do not agree that cremation "denies SYMBOLICALLY the resurrection promise". I do not agree with that symbolic interpretation, on the grounds that bodily destruction occurs anyway, whichever method is used. Thus the symbolism of cremation is - to me - exactly the same as that of burial.

I also pointed out that the purely symbolic should never, in my opinion, be required of anyone. Because symbolism is very much on the eye of the beholder.

The good Father has yet to respond to my disagreement with any argument other than "it does because we say it does, dammit". That and a bunch of crap about how the West is far inferior to the East because we don't kowtow to our religious masters any more seem to be all the arguments he has these days...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by R.D. Olivaw:

quote:

---

Myrrh posted:
In India where cremation is the norm I was told sannyasis are an exception.

---

There are also the Zoroastrians who take their dead wrapped in linen to the Towers of Silence to be devoured by vultures and their bones bleached by the sun. They believe that rotting flesh pollutes nature.

---

Sorry, I meant exception to the Hindu practice where fire is considered holy - in temples fire is passed around and participants "draw" it to themselves and over their heads as a blessing.

An interesting exception because here fire is considered too sacred to be polluted with decaying flesh, as is water and earth, so the bodies are left to feed carrion birds.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/1870-monier-parsees.html

The birds don't always have such good table manners, as the description in the above suggests, and often fly away with pieces of the body which in the past sometimes dropped into one of the city's resevoirs, after complaints the Parsis built a garden over it. Can't recall now the depth of soil, but not much, some 18"-2' holding an astonishing amount of vegetation. They too care about the bones of their dead.

Aren't there some Native American tribes that do something similar? I've seen that in some old westerns, the body placed on a platform to be exposed to the elements and passing birds.

Myrrh
 

---

Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on :
 
"There I was, sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death..." Well, no, actually, but I was thinking about cremation in the shower this morning.

Leaving aside the spiritual realm for a moment, I find cremation very appealing because for me it means my body will continue to exist in relationship with everything else on this planet. All of my atoms were once part of the planet, and have been part of many, many living creatures. I want to feel that I am still part of many, many creatures and of this earth after my physical death. If my body were chemically preserved and isolated from the earth after death, that would me cut off from everything and everyone that I valued and enjoyed in life. If my body decays, my atoms can become part of the future.

When I euthanized my beloved T.C., I had to choose a method of "disposal". My immediate response, even while I was bawling my eyes out, was, "She was a gift from the universe to me. Let her go back to the universe." OliviaG
 

---

Posted by ship's cat (# 11793) on :
 
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.

I was shocked at my first Canadian funeral when they left the casket sitting above ground as we all walkd away.
But my main problem is with the west coast culture here in Vancouver that means there is seldom a coffin in church for a funeral - often not even ashes. There seems to be a denial of the actuality of death here somewhere.
I also don't like the idea of the body going unaccompanied to the crematorium - it seems lascking in respect somehow. Not that the body knows anything about it, mind you.
 

---

Posted by Henry Troup (# 3722) on :
 
New Roman Catholic guidelines, at least in the Diocese of Pembroke (Ontario), are cited in a Toronto Sun op-ed titled It's a dying shame.
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
the "space" issue - if everyone was buried then with today's population we'd very quickly need whole cities dedicated just to graves.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimT:
Then the body was dug up, the bones stacked neatly some place else, and the plot used over. Whoa! Did I miss that earlier in this thread? Apparently the church was fine with this?! I read one woman's statement that she was fine with it because if you saw lots of flesh after three years, it meant you were a good Christian. Reminded me of the whole scene in The Brothers Karamazov where the body of a priest didn't stink for a long time so they wondered if he might be a saint. Weird stuff. You just can't keep some people from superstition.

It seems like there is internal debate inside Orthodoxy to soften the church's offical stance, and some of it is being justified on grounds of Jesus' position that social justice overrides strict adherence to rules and tradition that become an unbearable burden.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by andreas1984:
The question, the way I see it, is this: Is synergeia essential to the gospel of Christ? To my mind, it is. There can be no gospel without synergeia.<snip> Is JimT, good old JimmyT? If that's the case, then hello old chap!

---

Yes, it's me.

The sweet-smelling finger stuff is too much for me. Your conclusion that God decided to glorify himself is the opposite conclusion of everyone else--everyone else thinks that it was to put his stamp of approval on the saint. God could have glorified himself by making a bad person's finger smell wonderful.

The 'synergeia' sounds exactly like my understanding of 'process theology.' For myself, I have a different notion of the essential message of the gospel but that would certainly be another thread for which I don't have time.

Nice to see you.
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by andreas1984:
However, many bishops spoke on the national networks, and they were clear that the Church will consider those who decide to get cremated, outside the Church, and they will not be enumerated among the faithful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by andreas1984:
However, many bishops spoke on the national networks, and they were clear that the Church will consider those who decide to get cremated, outside the Church, and they will not be enumerated among the faithful.

---

I know this will mark me out as someone who just doesn't understand Orthodoxy... or the ecumenical councillor method of decision making.... the subtleties of infallibility and indefectability... one hopelessly individualistic, a real "me and jaysus" protestant... but this strikes me as well beyond the calling of the church and the gospel to claim such authority over individual decisions... and beyond simple human decency.

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0