Death after Death Issues

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 22 February 2022

Absent from the body, present with the Lord…but what do we do with the body?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #7 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

In Western culture, the traditional answer to the question of what to do with the body was “Bury ‘em,” but the new answer is “Burn ‘em”—no disrespect intended.

Burial versus cremation is not an abstract debate. Since death and taxes are unavoidable, if you haven’t yet faced the bury-or-burn question within your extended family you likely will.

Cremation, the act of turning a corpse to ashes, was once virtually unknown in the United States but not anymore.

The first recorded American cremation, aside from ones long conducted by some Native Americans, took place in 1876. Still, before 1930 cremation was virtually unknown and by 1975, according to the Cremation Association of North America, cremation was chosen for body disposal in only 6% of all deaths in the United States.

Since that time the number of cremations has increased dramatically. By year 2025 the Cremation Association projects 57.27% of American deaths will be administered via cremation, an amazing cultural shift in just fifty years. In 2021, ten states recorded cremation rates higher than 70%. Nevada’s rate was highest at 80.7%.

To put this in global perspective, consider that Japanese families choose cremation in 98% of deaths. For Great Britain, the percentage of deaths handled via cremation stands at 77.5%. Scandinavian countries register about 70%, and the Canadian cremation rate is increasing rapidly, currently over 73%.

Reasons for cremation include:

Lower cost than traditional burial—no casket, usually no gravesite, no gravestone, less expensive mortuary process,
Declining available space in crowded cemeteries, while cremated remains require limited to no space if ashes are scattered,
Convenience in part due to increased family mobility in a transient society less connected to a given area,
Easier to transport remains,
Environmental considerationssuggesting cremation is more hygienic, protects land,
Changing religious views.

Various religions have embraced cremation, for example Hinduism and Buddhism. Others rejected cremation in favor of burial: Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, Christianity, Islam – for these groups, not getting a “proper burial” is a dishonor.

Ancient Israel placed bodies in the ground in a pattern imitating the burials of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Phrases like “gathered to his people” suggest burial in family crypts (Gen. 35:29). This practice continued in the New Testament era with burials of, for example, John the Baptist, Lazarus, Stephen, and the Savior Jesus.

Historically, Christian tradition opposed cremation as a pagan rite that attempted to thwart the promised bodily resurrection, rejected the body, or reinforced the idea of reincarnation. Christians believed that a deceased person’s physical burial best pictures the substitutionary atonement of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and, in turn, the bodily resurrection of the Saints at the time of Jesus’ Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:35, 37, 42-44).

Christians preferred to symbolize in burial the promise of the resurrection. The word “cemetery,” for example, has Christian roots in the term dormitory, a place where people “sleep,” implying they will awaken again.

We know from the catacombs that Christians buried their dead for centuries. With the spread of Christianity, internment, whether by land or sea, became so common the term “Christian burial” became synonymous with the practice.

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Some Christians contend that any use of fire in funeral ritual smacks of false religion.

Yet this begs the question of why deaths involving fire should be viewed any differently, e.g., individuals burned or vaporized by explosives, people dying in fiery plane crashes, or individuals perishing in building fires like and including the Twin Towers of 9/11.

Some have argued that a gravesite is an important place for gathering, grieving, and remembering, and it is. But so, too, can an urn be a focus of remembering. And with few exceptions, gravesites are not permanent; most dissipate with the sands of time.

Mostly, arguments for cremation are based upon economics or practicality—less expensive, easier. Arguments for burial are based upon symbolism and tradition—pictures the resurrection, distances Christians from superstition.

But the Bible does not condemn cremation nor mandate burial. In fact, while the Bible says a lot about death, and while bodies are God’s gift and should be respected, what ultimately happens to bodies is a secondary consideration. So “to cremate or to bury” is today a matter of Christian liberty.

Centuries-old practice indicates burial is practical. In days gone by, when people died, they were often buried on the spot. Burial met the need.

Cremation also meets the need, practically if not traditionally. And as long as Christian doctrine isn’t denied, cremation cannot be considered unbiblical.

Besides this, no burial method is a threat to Christian resurrection or to the soul. God can resurrect ashes as well as dust.

Stewardship is an important Christian concept. We’re responsible to God for how we live, handle the world’s resources, use our time, talent, and treasure—and how we pass from the world.

The intent and content of a funeral service is what really matters, not the method of disposition of the body (or whether body parts have been donated). It’s not death and despair but life and hope that should be our focus, looking past the end-of life to the afterlife.

So, burial or cremation?

One thing’s certain, “for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 February 2021

Walking in a cemetery might seem morbid or creepy. Not for me.

To amble through the graveyard in one’s hometown is to invite a flood of memories, for the names on the stones are familiar. My twelve years of public school classrooms were filled with kids with those last names.

I knew some of the people resting here. Teachers, shop owners, farmers for whom I put up hay, women who scolded me to behave or they’d tell my Mother (with whom they had gone to school), that guy-the-unbelievable-gardener, veterans of every war, and of course Grandpa and Grandma, Uncles, Aunts, cousins, and Dad, who forever marked my life.

There are a few bad apples resting on that hillside, but by far most were decent, honest, hard-working, religious, patriotic, working/middle class Americans, some of long vintage, some whose parents arrived at the turn of the last century.

Roots. It’s good to hail from a small town.

A walk through a cemetery offers perspective re country, culture, life itself.

In a graveyard, everyone is alike.

Sex can be inferred from feminine or masculine names but not sexuality, as argued these days.

No visible differences are discernible in race, ethnicity, nationality, education, wealth or poverty.

Beauty and appearance, eloquence, intellect, achievement, fame, power, even personality mean nothing.

Typically, no flags wave proclaiming any allegiance other than the American flag, visible on veterans’ resting places but usually also somewhere in large form on the property, signifying a key principle of Americana, patriotic e pluribus unum.

Political party is not in evidence. Nor is ideology Right or Left. No Trump or Biden signs. Posturing and pretense are gone. It’s a peaceful landscape.

Religion is not for sure identifiable, even if headstone architecture features religious symbols, for these may say more about those left behind than the deceased.

Either way, as someone said, “He was but now is, and his is is greater than his was.”

So, we’re more alike than some of us care to admit.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 13 May 2020

Breaking news!

The death rate in the United States, and apparently globally, is 100%.

This agonizing trend will continue until a vaccine in the form of a Fountain of Youth is discovered, tested, and marketed. Researchers the world over are frenetically looking for this Fountain but have been thwarted by reality.

Until the Fountain is found, the public is advised to avoid family, friends, food, fresh air, and fun.

Remember: Stay Home, Stay Alive…well, maybe. Hide under your bed.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 13 May 2020

Breaking news!

The death rate in the United States, and apparently globally, is 100%.

Until the Fountain is found the public is advised to avoid family, friends, food, fresh air, and fun.

Remember: Stay Home, Stay Alive…well, maybe.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 28 March 2012

Keziah: A Little Piece of God’s Heart by Lizzie Grayson is the impetus for this blog. I read the book flying home last week from Cyprus, and I haven’t been able to get the subject out of my mind.

Keziah is a profoundly moving book about coming to terms with the experience of a stillborn child. It’s a book about a child “lost” and also ultimately about the sovereignty of God, faith, and praise amidst pain.

The author Lizzie Grayson shares she and her husband Mark’s experience with multiple pregnancies, two that ended with the births of their living and healthy children Joshua and Iona, and three that ended with a blighted ovum, a baby that died in the womb, and a stillborn child, Keziah.

Lizzie Grayson candidly relates her emotional highs and lows, her worries, fears, and weariness, and her questioning God’s design and intentions. She also catalogs in clearly stated spiritual terms what she learns about the Lord, herself, the Christian faith, the incredible support of faithful family and friends, and life itself. Their story is at times a tearful one, but it’s also one that, eventually, in the grace of God is a triumphant one.

No one knows why God takes a child home stillborn and Grayson doesn’t try to offer special wisdom much less clichés. What Grayson and her husband offer is their tale of woe, comfort, and joy as they walk with the Lord, not always understanding but trusting. In the end, they conclude from experience that “God is good,” not simply because he in time blessed them with a living and healthy baby girl, Iona, but because he blessed them with a child in heaven, Keziah.

I know personally Keziah’s grandfather and grandmother, people of profound spiritual commitment and gracious spirits. So somehow I’m not surprised to learn their daughter and son-in-law are people of similar strong Christian faith.

This story brought back memories. When my wife and I were in our early twenties we “walked through the valley” with a couple whose beautiful daughter was stillborn. They had two sons who looked like their blonde father. Then they had this little girl whose jet-black hair and features copied her mother.

The wisest thing the preacher did, I thought, was recommend our friends allow a complete funeral process. My wife assisted Mother in preparing. I drove Dad a few miles along the interstate and will never forget his quiet but deeply felt grief during that drive. We attended the wake with them, viewed the little girl with them, heard the pastor speak briefly but meaningfully to them, went to the cemetery with them, and stayed with them for a time thereafter. I claim no special part for us, but I will always be glad we were able to be there with our friends through this time.

The process of “Good-bye, for now” that the funeral day allowed may not have brought immediate “closure”—who can feel “closed” when they’ve lost a daughter? But the process made a profound statement that this deceased little girl was not a “thing,” not an “it,” not a trauma to get past, but a human being living forever in heaven. Like Keziah’s parents, to this day our friends celebrate, more than thirty years later, the existence of their daughter and their trust in God’s perfect will.

I recommend Keziah. It’s a personal, practical, and powerful book.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 May 2011

Eleanor Roosevelt has been called the most influential American woman of the Twentieth Century. This isn’t her actual gravestone epitaph, but it’s how she’s remembered, so we might call it her practical epitaph. Will Rogers’s memorial epitaph reads, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” It’s one of Will’s famous lines, which captures his spirit for those of us who never knew him.

Reclusive but influential poet Emily Dickinson’s epitaph in Amherst, Massachusetts reads simply, “Called Back.” The Temperance Movement reformer, Carrie Amelia Nation, who used a hatchet to attack saloons and wrote her name “Carry A Nation” for the publicity value, was laid to rest with this eloquent epitaph in Belton, Missouri: “She hath done what she could.”

Old cemetery epitaphs are often thought provoking and entertaining reading. A gravestone in Thurmont, Maryland says: "Here lies an atheist. All dressed up and no place to go." Or how about this one in Round Rock, Texas? “I told you I was sick.”

One gravestone in New Mexico says, "Here lies the body of John Yeast. Pardon me for not rising." An epitaph in Winterborn Steepleton Cemetery, Dorsetshire, England reads, "Here lies the body of Margaret Bent. She kicked up her heels and away she went."

And then there's this one from Florida: "I promise never to marry again, Jack." Now was Jack trying to say his marriage had been so bad he didn't want to experience it again, or so good he pledged his troth to his wife forever? Or was he saying he'd been married several times and finally had had enough?

One of the most complimentary epitaphs you’re ever likely to read is written upon the West Point gravestone of Lt. Col. Herbert Bainbridge Hayden. It reads: "In appreciation of a loyal friend, a square man, an efficient officer, in every way a thoroughbred."

We’re also creating legacies with our families and our associates. Every day, we're influencing someone in a spiritually productive or unproductive way. Everyday our actions become reputations become legacies become epitaphs, the summary of our life and how we will be remembered.

What will your epitaph be? What will your associates write? What will God write?

Epitaphs don’t just happen to us. They are crafted by our choices day by day, so in a very real sense, we can write our own epitaph. Perhaps the greatest epitaph a person could hope to have is simply this: "Here lies the body of a godly man/woman who loved God and loved others."