ByFaith Magazine, the web magazine for the PCA, has a very insightful interview of Ken Myers by Walter Henegar. Here’s one of my favorite comments by Myers:
“As one example, why have Christians embraced cremation in the last 20 or 30 years without apparently a lot of thought? The early church was profoundly concerned about burial and not adopting cremation because of their theology of the body. The question is not how God will regenerate cremated bodies, but how do we honor our dead?”
Alan Noble (Co-Founder/Editor) is a graduate student at Baylor University pursuing his Ph.D. in Contemporary American Literature. To feed himself and his wife, he teaches Freshman Composition at the university. In 2006, he graduated from Cal. State Bakersfield with a Master’s degree in English. In addition to studying, teaching, and writing, Alan enjoys watching college basketball (Go Bears!) and NBA games with his wife and daughter, and loves Star Wars. While not particularly good at making art of any kind, Alan has an intense interest in the arts and culture and how believers ought to interact with them to the glory of God and edification of others. Alan lives in Waco, Texas with his Math-loving wife, owl-loving daughter, and their no-longer-able-to-skateboard-because-of-an-injury English Bulldog, Gertrude.
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Wait, how does he know we haven’t put thought into it? Just because he disagrees with the conclusion arrived at?
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty
Oh Dane, he’s not talking specifically to you. Consider the audience and the context. Wouldn’t you agree that most Christians have not thought about it? I can only think of one occasion where one person mentioned the fact that their father might not have believed that cremation was a proper thing for Christians to do.
Besides, he does say “apparently.”
I know he wasn’t talking to me. He’s, presumably, speaking of his PCA readership (as By Faith is the denomination’s magazine). I’m just saying that I’ve talked with people about this before within presbyterian circles and not even been the one to bring the topic up. Granted that the most heated discussion of the topic was in an OPC setting, but still…
My point is: while maybe discussion of cremation doesn’t happen to the degree that Myers wants, it does happen. And the reason it probably doesn’t happen more is that most of us, having considered the issue and not found any plausible objection to it, have not considered it the kind of topic that needs further mulling over. In the same way that we (Presbyterians) don’t find ourselves constantly revisiting the issue of whether drinking wine like Jesus is acceptable practice today.
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty
That is not to say that I don’t approve of giving things their due thought or being willing to entertain a contrary perspective. More, just to say that people are thinking things through—but just focusing on more immediate issues than one-note topics like cremation.
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty
People think about it. They might even say it out loud. Then they’ll ask about the people burned at the stake and such, decide that God can fix it, and move on. It’s clear not a lot of thought, though, since we haven’t seen a lot of academic ink spilled. Let’s agree to say that Christians have give it “some” thought.
Charles Joness last blog post..Rock My Worldview