Cremation and Annihilation
Cremation was reintroduced in Europe in the late nineteenth century and has become popular for various reasons. It is now cheaper than burial, it uses less space, and there is usually no headstone to be maintained. Others do not like to think of their bodies rotting in the grave and prefer to have them burnt. For relatives, it may be a convenient way of evading the ongoing reality of death: there is no dead body and no grave, and the deceased is almost reduced to being an idea of the past. In this way cremation fits well with atheistical notions of annihilation and of people going out of existence at death.
With burial, on the other hand, there is a body – or whatever remains of it – lying in the ground, in a particular place; and in looking at graves, the Christian’s thoughts will never be far from the resurrection. Christ will return to this world on an appointed day and will raise all these bodies out of their graves (and those that have been cremated too, and those eaten by animals, and so on). To some it will be a resurrection to everlasting life (Dan 12:2) and to others to shame and everlasting contempt. Christ lay in the grave, and the believer is happy to sleep there as well when his turn comes. He does not fear or recoil from the corruption of the grave because it is only for a little while, and that which is sown in corruption will be raised in corruption and glory and power (1 Cor 15:42-3).
The burial of the righteous in the ground is the sowing of a seed for eternity, but the furnace in which a corpse is cremated gives us a picture of the fate of the unrighteous. In that day, however, it will not be a body without feeling that slides into the flames but a body and soul united and susceptible to eternal torment. Burial for the believer is a mark of hope; cremation for the unbeliever is an evidence of despair.
DWBS
Päivi Räsänen
In 2004, a member of the Finnish parliament, Mrs Päivi Räsänen, wrote a booklet entitled Male and Female He Created Them – Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity. A Lutheran bishop, Rev Dr Juhana Pohjola was responsible for its publication. In 2019, 15 years later, both were investigated, and now, in 2022, they have been prosecuted on hate crime charges; Dr Pohjola for publishing the booklet and Mrs Räsänen for writing it, and for things she has said when defending the Christian position.
Dr Pohjola said that “people are responsible before God for their way of life or moral choices. The homosexual lifestyle is contrary to God’s order of creation and a transgression against His will. If we are not allowed to teach this publicly, the message of sin and grace will be left without foundation, and freedom of religion will decline.”
Mrs Räsänen further offended the prosecutors by tweeting a protest against a Pride event in Helsinki in June 2019. She included a quotation from Romans 1:24-27: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts . . . ”. “The Pride event’s ideological goal is to take pride in the type of relations that are described as being against God’s will”, she wrote. “Homosexual relationships, like those relationships outside of marriage are described in the Bible as sinful and shameful.” It would seem the prosecution’s case involves twisting and distorting the meaning of a number of Scripture texts and statements by the defendants, in an attempt to make the words hateful towards homosexuals rather than the sin of homosexuality.
The case was heard in March of this year, and the court unanimously dismissed all the charges against the accused, saying that “it is not for the District Court to interpret biblical concepts”. Sad to say, the prosecutors are not prepared to let the matter drop and have taken the matter to the Helsinki Court of Appeals. The appeal has been permitted to go ahead and is expected be heard in the Autumn of this year or early 2023. It is to be hoped that the Court of Appeals will not uphold the appeal and if sent to a higher court that it too will throw out the case. Failure at a Supreme Court or the Court of Human Rights should prove a great discouragement to those who would pursue vexatious and wicked prosecutions. On the other hand, success would give momentum to those who would persecute the cause of Christ.
Hate crime already gives concern to us in the UK and to our friends overseas. We have already seen attempts in the British courts to prosecute Christians for refusing to conform to the LGBT and gender-identity norms of current times. Christians must keep a careful watch on all these new forms of persecution and be prepared to protest vigorously and defend our Christian freedoms. “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20). FRD
No matter how learned or simple the instructions of the pulpit may be, no matter how rich and varied or how well adapted and spiritual . . . it would be powerless without the superadded power of God.
Gardiner Spring