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+ | == Anglican view on Death == | ||
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+ | The reality is that Anglicans believe all sorts of things! Although there is an Anglican orthodoxy, - which we will try to present here - if you asked a dozen Anglicans what they thought happened after death, you would get at least thirteen answers! | ||
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+ | Most would start from the resurrection of Jesus on the first Easter day. Some will see that as a spiritual rather than physical resurrection, | ||
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+ | And he promises us the same, in the way he promised the penitent crook crucified with him. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” But what of the transfiguration, | ||
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+ | Nonetheless there is a difficulty with the way the resurrected come and go. Jesus seems to pass through walls or shut doors with no problems; Moses and Elijah come and go on the mountain top. Jesus finally “ascends” with his earthly body. Can we have it both ways - a physical body such as we know now; but one that does not always follow the rules of matter? There is no easy way through this impasse. The resurrected body is the same but different - and that will be true of our bodies after death. | ||
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+ | The church has traditionally (at least since the third century) insisted that after death we remain social creatures who enjoy each other’s company. That is what is meant by the credal statement of “the communion of saints”. It is a great pity that this credal belief is so seldom taught or talked about today. What it is saying is that after death we remain communicative, | ||
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+ | So what does this mean for someone weeping for a loved one? It means that they still exist; they have a “life” and that we shall be reunited with them in a state of eternal blessedness. We grieve the separation from them - but we believe it is only temporary. | ||
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+ | == Christian views on cremation == | ||
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+ | It is not difficult to see why there may be Christian objections to cremation. “The resurrection of the body” is a basic credal belief, founded on the Gospel accounts of the physical reality of Jesus’s resurrection. If you burn the body to a bucketful of dust, how can it possibly be resurrected? | ||
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+ | Soon, denominational loyalties opened a split between, broadly, fundamentalist and Pentecostal groups who continued to resist cremation (except in extraordinary situations such as war, famine or plague.) on the one hand; and the (slightly) more liberal theologians of the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions on the other. They held that God can reconstitute any body - whether from ash or from soil - and endow it with the essential characteristics of the original so that it becomes as recognisable as it was in its earthly form. | ||
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+ | It was not until 1964 that this view became official Roman Catholic doctrine - and it was even then treated with considerable caution, not to say distaste. Both Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions make it clear that burial is the preferred mode of disposal in normal conditions. Roman Catholics do not encourage the scattering of ashes; formally Anglicans need a bishop’s permission, though our experience is that this is widely ignored. The emphasis is on dignity and reverence as marks of respect for the body and personhood of the deceased. | ||
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+ | Pentecostals and less biblically based groups like the Mormons would emphasise these, too; but would insist that the only way of securing them is by burial. Mormons have, however, recently become more tolerant of cremation, recognising that we depend on the grace and power of God to reconstitute us in our eternal state, whether we are buried, blown up or burnt to death in a house fire. | ||
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+ | Faith communities are often slow to respond to social and technical changes in the world around them - and here is a classic case of that lagged response. It was 88 years that elapsed between the opening of the first crematorium in UK and a Catholic priest being permitted to officiate at a funeral there. |