Cremations were once rare, now they’re becoming the norm

and in cases of cremation, the church requires the family to make sure the body is respectfully interred in a cemetery or columbarium. The ashes cannot be scattered in nature, separated among loved ones, or stored in a home or similar setting, according to church rubrics.

The Rev. David Bonnar, pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church in Mt. Lebanon, said he has seen a “marked increase in cremations” in his 29 years in the priesthood. “Cost is certainly a factor along with convenience,” he said. His parish asks families who are having loved ones cremated to sign a form promising to have the remains interred. “It is a very sensitive topic that demands a pastoral touch,” he said.

Cremation has also become a common practice among Protestants, including more conservative evangelicals.

In his nearly 20 years of presiding at funerals at Orchard Hill Church, Rob Bohnenstengel said he has seen an increasing number of families opting for cremation.

But as evangelicals placing a high value on the authority of Scripture, they often seek assurance first that cremation is OK.

“That’s why they ask the questions,” said Mr. Bohnenstengel, the community care pastor at the large Franklin Park-based congregation. “The Bible doesn’t address it directly. In our faith we believe one day our bodies and our souls will all reunite and that would take place some time in the future when Jesus comes back. ... If God created the heavens and the earth and mankind, why couldn’t he put us back together? So we go through that with families. They feel a little better.”

Some evangelicals continue to urge families to choose burial when possible, not so much as a mandate but as a statement. They say it reaffirms the Christian view that the body is an integral part of the human self and will be raised up, rather than seeing the body as a temporary shell for a spirit.

They note that archaeologists traced the spread of Christianity in the Roman empire by the location of ancient tombs with bodies aligned on an east-west axis — a burial practice that contrasted sharply with the pagan practice of cremation.

That practice endured in Western countries for nearly two millennia.

“In burial, we’re reminded that the body is not a shell, a husk tossed aside by the ‘real’ person, the soul within,” wrote Russell Moore, who leads the Southern Baptist Covnention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord ... , but the body that remains still belongs to someone, someone we love, someone who will reclaim it one day.”

Orthodox Christians, OrthodoxJews and Muslims all forbid cremation, say local leaders, while Mormons encourage burial but do not forbid cremation. More liberal Protestants and Jews are more open to cremation, although for Jews of all denominations, the practice has negative connotations because of the forced cremations of Holocaust victims.

In contrast, the practice is the norm in Eastern religions and is accompanied by rites that have been developed through the ages. In Hindu teaching, for example, cremation is seen as returning the body to the elements from which it came, according to a ritual guide published by the Hindu Mandir Executives’ Conference of North America. The accompanying rituals help the jiva, or departed soul, move on from this life to a new incarnation.