Is it pagan to cremate?

[RileyG]

No. I myself have argued against the practice repeatedly. Indeed it used to be illegal, up until the late 19th century, and frankly I wish it still was illegal.

I want to be buried in a simple casket without embalming so my body (and casket) can truly "return to the earth" and eventually turn into nothing.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I refuse to be cremated. Christian burial for me. Destroying the body isn't compatible with Christianity.

It is permissible, for Catholics, that is, after all, why we have columbariums, but burial is the ancient tradition.

 

[RileyG]

It is permissible, for Catholics, that is, after all, why we have columbariums, but burial is the ancient tradition.

Agreed

 

[PloverWing]

One factor that has come to mind, as I've been mulling this over, is this: I'm currently undecided between the various options of burial with embalming, burial without embalming, and cremation. But I like the idea of my remains ending up in a burial place that's next to a church, so that from time to time parishioners might see my stone/plaque and pray for me.

In my area, the only churches that own traditional cemeteries are the older ones (built 200+ years ago), and even then, many of those cemeteries are nearly full. But a number of newer churches have gardens where ashes are interred, with the interment location marked by the person's name and dates. When visiting churches, I have stopped a few moments at gardens like this to remember and pray for my departed friends whose ashes were there.

Given that traditional burial would be in a secular, city-owned cemetery, but cremation could be interment in a churchyard, I'm liking the option of being able to rest under the care of my church.

 

[joshua28]

An account in 2 Samuel 21 teaches us that we should not regard dead bodies as essentially worthless shells that we can dispose of however we wish.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

An account in 2 Samuel 21 teaches us that we should not regard dead bodies as essentially worthless shells that we can dispose of however we wish.

Who is Rajesh Gandhi?

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I want to be buried in a simple casket without embalming so my body (and casket) can truly "return to the earth" and eventually turn into nothing.

As a Funeral Director, experience has shown the value of embalming done well. For family and close friends that need some closure after a lengthy illness or a traumatic death, modern cosmetic embalming can help round off the sharpness of death somewhat be providing a more peaceful memory picture for them. Seeing and touching the deceased helps people express and progress through grief in a natural, healthy and less traumatic experience. We do not embalm to try to preserve indefinitely; just long enough for funerary purposes and for sanitary reasons. I have asked my family that I be embalmed, only if they are the only ones to see me. They agree, and wish for the same for them. Please consider this and feel free to ask local funeral professionals their thoughts.

 

[The Liturgist]

As a Funeral Director, experience has shown the value of embalming done well. For family and close friends that need some closure after a lengthy illness or a traumatic death, modern cosmetic embalming can help round off the sharpness of death somewhat be providing a more peaceful memory picture for them. Seeing and touching the deceased helps people express and progress through grief in a natural, healthy and less traumatic experience. We do not embalm to try to preserve indefinitely; just long enough for funerary purposes and for sanitary reasons. I have asked my family that I be embalmed, only if they are the only ones to see me. They agree, and wish for the same for them. Please consider this and feel free to ask local funeral professionals their thoughts.

Out of curiosity, my understanding is that the mechanism of embalming in terms of halting decomposition, as opposed to the restorative arts, is derived primarily from its antimicrobial effects. Does this seem correct to you? Since by pumping embalming fluid through the loved one and then subsequently aspirating the chest, the potential media for bacterial growth is greatly reduced, which will naturally have a preservative effect even without any cosmetic interventions, indeed even if one did not set the features.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Out of curiosity, my understanding is that the mechanism of embalming in terms of halting decomposition, as opposed to the restorative arts, is derived primarily from its antimicrobial effects. Does this seem correct to you? Since by pumping embalming fluid through the loved one and then subsequently aspirating the chest, the potential media for bacterial growth is greatly reduced, which will naturally have a preservative effect even without any cosmetic interventions, indeed even if one did not set the features.

You are correct, to a point. Without going into too many details, there is a heck of a difference between modern cosmetic embalming (where, as you state, preservation to postpone the unpleasant effects of decomposition) as opposed to the type of embalming that is done for long term preservation of anatomical subjects, or the embalming of ancient pagans were the goal was eternal preservation. Neither of these would result in a remains suitable for viewing in an open casket.

 

[tampasteve]

I would like to add that I find it amusing we are discussing/debating burial habits or restrictions and burdening the gentile community with the restrictions, yet we outright state elsewhere that gentiles, or sometimes all believers, are not beholden to the Mosaic code, which is explicitly laid out and does not always show that gentiles are not beholden to it - or at minimum to restrictions related to the Sabbat (DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A SABBATH RESTRICTION THREAD, I am merely making a point)

 

[joshua28]

I would like to add that I find it amusing we are discussing/debating burial habits or restrictions and burdening the gentile community with the restrictions, yet we outright state elsewhere that gentiles, or sometimes all believers, are not beholden to the Mosaic code, which is explicitly laid out and does not always show that gentiles are not beholden to it - or at minimum to restrictions related to the Sabbat (DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A SABBATH RESTRICTION THREAD, I am merely making a point)

Scripture shows that burial was not something that all of God's people of all time did because it was part of the Mosaic code. Job and Eliphaz were not Jews, they were never under the Mosaic Law, and yet they spoke of burial:

Job

Job 3:22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Job 10:19 I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Job 17:1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

Job 21:32 Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.

Job 27:15 Those that remain of him shall be buried in death: and his widows shall not weep.

Eliphaz

Job 5:26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

Moreover, hundreds of years before the Mosaic Law was given, God promised Abraham, who was never under the Mosaic Law, that he would be buried.

Genesis 15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

 

[The Liturgist]

Scripture shows that burial was not something that all of God's people of all time did because it was part of the Mosaic code. Job and Eliphaz were not Jews, they were never under the Mosaic Law, and yet they spoke of burial:

Job

Job 3:22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Job 10:19 I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Job 17:1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

Job 21:32 Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.

Job 27:15 Those that remain of him shall be buried in death: and his widows shall not weep.

Eliphaz

Job 5:26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

Moreover, hundreds of years before the Mosaic Law was given, God promised Abraham, who was never under the Mosaic Law, that he would be buried.

Genesis 15:15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. (Gen. 15:15)

Indeed, and it is for this reason that I think Christians should be strongly discouraged from cremation, and churches should engage in initiatives like those practiced by the Orthodox Christians and Jews to make burial affordable.

When one thinks about it, including the fact cemetery plots can be reused after a set period of time or accommodate multiple persons through vertical stacking, and mortuary buildings and chapels within churches can be even more space efficient, a simple burial should cost less than cremation since it does not require the operation of complex equipment such as cremators (also known as retorts) and cremulators by trained technicians. Much of the cost of burial is the cost of embalming, which is why I am interested in irradiating or freezing the deceased as a way of reducing the cost while still retaining most of the sanitary benefits @MarkRohfrietsch refers to. And the other huge cost is the land, but this could be mitigated by church ownership and operation. I would note that monasteries, even those with very confined space such as St Catharine’s in Sinai, are able to bury their own dead very inexpensively.

 

[The Liturgist]

You are correct, to a point. Without going into too many details, there is a heck of a difference between modern cosmetic embalming (where, as you state, preservation to postpone the unpleasant effects of decomposition) as opposed to the type of embalming that is done for long term preservation of anatomical subjects, or the embalming of ancient pagans were the goal was eternal preservation. Neither of these would result in a remains suitable for viewing in an open casket.

Indeed, but if we just wanted the sanitary anti-microbial benefits, it seems to me like that could be obtained less expensively, even though I would agree with you that embalming does a better job. Although if we went with irradiation, we could kill all microbial life in the deceased while making them only slightly radioactive through neutron activation, which would be fine for the closed casket scenario.

 

[joshua28]

Indeed, and it is for this reason that I think Christians should be strongly discouraged from cremation, and churches should engage in initiatives like those practiced by the Orthodox Christians and Jews to make burial affordable.

There is no biblical basis to support cremation, and many biblical bases support our very strongly encouraging all believers to bury their dead.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Genesis 18:27 KJV
27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord,
which am but dust and ashes:

Job 30:19 KJV
19 He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.

Genesis 3:19 YLT
19 by the sweat of thy face thou dost eat bread till thy return unto the ground,
for out of it hast thou been taken, for dust thou art , and unto dust thou turnest back.'

We all return to dust (or ashes). God can deal with that.

 

[joshua28]

We all return to dust (or ashes). God can deal with that.

The issue is not whether God can deal with that or not. What pleases God and is acceptable to Him is what matters.

 

[The Liturgist]

The issue is not whether God can deal with that or not. What pleases God and is acceptable to Him is what matters.

Indeed, obviously there are circumstances in which Christians have been almost completely annhilated but God being omnipotent can of course still resurrect us, and will do so.

Rather what matters is that since every human is created in the image of God, a fact reasserted in the incarnation of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, destroying the body with cremation is inherently iconoclastic, in that it involves an intentional destruction of the image of God imprinted on the body, which is what I would very respectfully stress to @Paidiske is a problem for many Christians such as traditional Lutherans and the Orthodox despite the reverent way in which cremations are properly handled. It is this violence which is objectionable, and I say this as someone whose family has nearly all been unfortunately cremated owing to the widespread popularization of this practice, and economical reasons. This is why I feel the church needs to teach that burial is to be preferred, because of the divine image imprinted on the face of every human, which remains even after death in most cases, and where that image is damaged in the process of fatality, this is unfortunate but it does not justify further damage. And there are things the church can do to reduce the cost of cremation.

Now, I understand for the beleaguered parish priest this is a tall order, and thus I would say that implementing this within churches that have an episcopal polity ought to fall to the bishops, and in other churches such as Presbyterian churches it could be handled through a special committee appointed by the general assembly and supervised by the moderator, and likewise a similiar inter-parish approach can be used in Congregationalist and Baptist churches and other churches with a congregational polity, as well as very small denominations using presbyterian or episcopal polity where the actual size of the denomination or diocese would interfere with such a plan. It cannot work if the entire burden of setting up a cost effective burial scheme is offloaded onto the parishes, and what is more, I think it is unreasonable to expect the laity to have to deal with this on their own, since increasingly given the very excessive costs of the funeral industry, which I would lament are to a large extent being driven By large companies which have acquired family owned funeral homes to push up the costs, regional legislation that often interferes with churches organizing aspects of burials in-house, and also avaricious behavior in terms of real-estate speculation on cemetery plots.

This is why I am extremely sympathetic towards people who are in this dilemma, where cremation seems to be the only viable option, and also due to very good PR from crematories, is often seen as cleaner and better than traditional burial, which is not the case with the burning of the body due to pollution, and the water-based cremation that @MarkRohfrietsch objects to has its own grotesque aspects, such as basically flushing most of the body into the sewer. Because of the burden of this, churches ought to organize and fight back, because the image of God is sacred and worth protecting. And furthermore, I think we owe it to the Jewish people as well, since their religion generally requires burial, and the Jews and Muslims are being put in a very difficult position by the high costs associated with this, and given the culpability nearly every Christian denomination has in at least some anti-Semitic acts, and given our larger numbers relative to the Jews, we owe it to them as well to act in alliance with them to reduce the costs on the basis of our shared tradition of burial.

This is particularly the case in Japan, by the way, which has a small Christian and an even smaller, but still very present, Jewish population, who experience extreme funeral costs in a society which is less than optimally sympathetic towards our situation, but it is also the case nearly everywhere, even in Orthodox countries like the former Soviet union, where Soviet-built crematoria continue to do a brisk business, and alas it is not merely former communists who are experiencing it but to a large extent the indigent.

By the way, on an ironic note, Lenin wanted to be buried next to his mother, but was preserved in a mausoleum by Stalin instead, a practice which would be repeated for many other communist dictators and which is quite grotesque, and represents one of the aspects of communism which took on a religious dimension (consider the pilgrimages to see the tombs of Mao, or the Kim dynasty in Korea, or other communist founder, and those that used to occur to see Lenin). Communism, we can assert, developed into something like a religion with its own unique funeral liturgy, hymns (The Internationale) and eschatology (the promise of pure communism after the revolution), one very much intolerant of other religions.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

The issue is not whether God can deal with that or not. What pleases God and is acceptable to Him is what matters.

Not only does it seem to be acceptable, but Paul considered it an act to be admired, like feeding the poor:

1 Corinthians 13:3 YLT
3 and if I give away to feed others all my goods, and if I give up my body that I may be burned,
and have not love, I am profited nothing.

But are we making this a new law to be observed and hinge our salvation on it? Like being circumcized or making a daily sacrifice? How far shall we take this observance? If we are just dust and ashes to start with, and if we all return to dust and ashes in the end, what difference does the mode of our decomposition make? Science tells us that the decomposition of biomatter is just a super slow-motion burning anyway.
I think this would fall under the Heb 6:1 doctrine of repentance of dead works, where we should stop trying to approach or please God with the dead works of religion and the flesh. Our righteousness and standing with God are not based on circumcision, what we eat, or how our bodies are disposed of. Our righteousness is based on faith in His death, burial, and resurrection. Anything other than that is a doctrine of works and adding to the gospel. Whatever we do, we do it in faith. That is what makes it acceptable to God.

 

[The Liturgist]

Not only does it seem to be acceptable, but Paul considered it an act to be admired, like feeding the poor:

1 Corinthians 13:3 YLT
3 and if I give away to feed others all my goods, and if I give up my body that I may be burned,
and have not love, I am profited nothing.

But are we making this a new law to be observed and hinge our salvation on it? Like being circumcized or making a daily sacrifice? How far shall we take this observance? If we are just dust and ashes to start with, and if we all return to dust and ashes in the end, what difference does the mode of our decomposition make? Science tells us that the decomposition of biomatter is just a super slow-motion burning anyway.
I think this would fall under the Heb 6:1 doctrine of repentance of dead works, where we should stop trying to approach or please God with the dead works of religion and the flesh. Our righteousness and standing with God are not based on circumcision, what we eat, or how our bodies are disposed of. Our righteousness is based on faith in His death, burial, and resurrection. Anything other than that is a doctrine of works and adding to the gospel. Whatever we do, we do it in faith. That is what makes it acceptable to God.

St James, in his epistle, declares faith without works to be dead, so I myself am unable to buy into an anti-works-righteousness based defense of cremation, considering even most Protestants would agree that good works are a sign of a living faith, if not themselves of direct salvific benefit as is argued by the Orthodox and Catholics.

Specifically, where Protestants bury their dead, to me this indicates a more vibrant and well informed Protestant Christian faith, and where they are particularly neglectful, (setting aside economic factors or issues beyond their control in terms of funeral costs or illness, physical or mental, such as an undiagnosed case of severe psychological trauma or depression resulting from extreme bereavement, interfering with normal funerary conduct) ignoring even the decent burial of the ashes which @Paidiske correctly argues for, since at a minimum cremated persons should be handled with the same dignity as anyone else, this to me suggests a lack of proper catechesis and a crypto-docetic attitude beginning to emerge, something which all church leaders should be wary of.

 

[Paidiske]

Specifically, where Protestants bury their dead, to me this indicates a more vibrant and well informed Protestant Christian faith, and where they are particularly neglectful, (setting aside economic factors or issues beyond their control in terms of funeral costs or illness, physical or mental, such as an undiagnosed case of severe psychological trauma or depression resulting from extreme bereavement, interfering with normal funerary conduct) ignoring even the decent burial of the ashes which @Paidiske correctly argues for, since at a minimum cremated persons should be handled with the same dignity as anyone else, this to me suggests a lack of proper catechesis and a crypto-docetic attitude beginning to emerge, something which all church leaders should be wary of.

I don't think it's crypto-docetism at all. I think, from what I observe locally, there are two main factors driving the increasing use of cremation; one is cost (as noted, mostly of the burial plot), and the other is that it gives back to the family a degree of control. In the case of cremation, the family can choose when, where and how to inter or otherwise dispose of the ashes (they do not have to do so immediately, as they would with burying a body, nor are they limited to designated cemeteries, and they are free to use whatever observances suit them without outside interference). In addition, if there is some reason why there is a desire for a person's ashes to be interred in more than one location, that also is possible, in a way that is not when a person is buried, and I have known some people to expressly state such a preference in their will.

Now, you can make whatever value judgements about any of that, that you like, but my observation is that families value the choices it makes available to them, and the control over their private process of mourning. They no longer wish to have the church dictate what the process should be, and the more tightly we try to control it, the more they will abandon church rites altogether and handle such matters in an entirely secular way.

(I personally find claims that burial inherently is more respectful of the image of God in the person, completely unconvincing, and I hope you would understand that I would reject claims that this indicates a less "vibrant and well informed Protestant Christian faith").