Explainer
Creed
Death & life
7 min read

How Christianity transformed attitudes towards death

Once we buried bodies outside cities. Then we started burying loved ones inside them. This is why.

Andrew works at the intersection of theology, science and philosophy. He is Canon and Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford.

Dozens of candles in cloured jars and holders litter the ground of a cemetry.
Commemorative candles at cemetery in Srebrniki, Gdańsk, Poland.
Ludomił Sawicki on Unsplash.

‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’  

Seeing things two ways at the same time doesn’t mean ambivalence. Christianity has two things to say about death, and it says both forcefully.  They particularly come to mind during November, as the season of the year when we remember the dead. In this month we get the modern secularised rituals of Hallowe’en, but we also get Remembrance Sunday, when we think of those who fell in war; and on 2 November, we have All Souls’ Day, when ‘the faithful departed’ are recalled, and in many traditions, prayed for. 

Christianity’s two entwined attitudes to death are lament and hope. On the one hand, death is a shadow; on the other, a light has dawned that will banish that shadow.  Both aspects are in that line from St Paul:  

‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’  

Death is our enemy; death is slated for destruction.  

Whatever a popular funeral poem might claim, death is not ‘nothing at all’.  That poem has been suggested a few times when I’ve been planning a funeral. It’s never stayed in the draft order of service longer than it’s taken me to ask the question ‘But do you really think that death is nothing at all?’  

Unlike our benighted predecessors, ancient and mediaeval, don’t we now understand that death is natural, just part of being the sort of creatures we are? 

I take the opposite approach to funerals. I do not treat death as ‘nothing at all’. I wear black vestments: I do not assume that mourners are ready, only a week or two into their bereavement, to skip to the bright hope of white as a liturgical colour. I make the liturgy solemn. I avoid circumlocutions like ‘he’s moved on’ or ‘she has passed’ (somehow popular at present). No: someone has died, and even if that came after a long illness or a long life, a death is a loss.  

The idea of death as enemy, though – ‘the most fearful of bodily evils’ (Thomas Aquinas) – might look out of date in the twenty-first century. Unlike our benighted predecessors, ancient and mediaeval, don’t we now understand that death is natural, just part of being the sort of creatures we are?  

It’s almost always a mistake to underestimate our forebears. They knew that we are animals, but also said that we are animals of an odd sort: we are ‘rational animals’. That left them with a conundrum (and here I continue to have Aquinas in mind). On the one hand, we are animals, and animals are mortal, so that makes death natural. On the other hand, Christianity also insists that death is a wrench, a disjunction, an affront.  

Reconciliation for this tension rests on that odd status of the human being, as a rational animal. We are animals, but also the sort of self-aware animals who are made for a relationship with God: suited for it, called to it. One model for that relationship, remarkably, has been friendship, with Moses as an example: ‘So the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.’ That sort of relationship, that sort of seeing God face to face, would confer immortality on our naturally mortal bodies (‘when we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’). Thus, both parts of the conundrum are true: as animals, we are naturally mortal, yet our animality is called to a destiny beyond its nature. Our tragedy is not that we are animals, but that we are rational animals foolish enough to turn from God, and from the light of immortality.  

  

The message of the Incarnation and the hope of the resurrection turned something around for early Christians. They no longer found dead bodies frightening.

That’s the first half of our opening phrase: death is our enemy because, although mortal by nature, we were originally called to something beyond nature, but lost it. God was turned towards us, but we turned away. However, enmity, tragedy, and loss are not the whole story, and they are certainly not the end of the story. There is also death’s destruction. That’s what the life, death, and resurrection of Christ were about. If death is our enemy, then it’s a routed enemy, overcome, although not fully destroyed, until God recreates the world.  

Christians can be so excited about the prospect of death’s destruction that they forget that this destruction is still a promise, and we still live under its sway. For now, the hope and the sadness lie woven together.  That is why we read in the New Testament about ‘not grieving as others do who have no hope’. I don’t take that as a blanket injunction against grieving (death is still our enemy, after all), but as standing only against the kind of grief that has no hope (because death’s destruction is assured). Again, here are the two strands, woven together. We also see that two-sidedness in a funeral prayer used by Eastern Orthodox Christians (and at the funeral of the HM Queen Elizabeth II), the kontakion of the dead. Its final lines put place wrenching tears right next to the church’s great word of praise and celebration, ‘Alleluia’:  

All we go down to the dust; 

weeping o’er the grave we make our song: 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. 

This duality in Christian attitudes to death shows up in how Christians treat the bodies of the dead. We probably take burial practices for granted, but the idea of treating the bodies of the dead with utmost care and dignity was a point that Christianity really belaboured. Christ, for instance, had given a list of six good deeds in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering travellers, visiting the sick, and visiting prisoners. It would be a bold decision to add to any list draw up by Christ, but the church did it, adding a seventh ‘act of corporeal mercy’: burying the dead. 

Christianity is definitively the religion of the Incarnation: of God taking up human flesh. Bodies therefore matter. Talk of casting off the body, as if the body were just some old cloak that the soul has outgrown, is not something Christians say. We are bodily creatures, so Christian hope is for the resurrection of the body. (So also – I should add for completeness – is Christian doom also bodily. Those who die at enmity with God and the good, the faith insists, turning down the offer of reconciliation, face the consequences in the resurrected body.) 

The message of the Incarnation and the hope of the resurrection turned something around for early Christians. They no longer found dead bodies frightening. In the ancient world, bodies were to be buried outside the city, cast out from the human community. Christians changed that, and started burying their loved ones inside the city. Bodies were to be treasured, not feared. The bodies of their heroes – those who excelled in virtue, and especially the martyrs – were brought right into their churches. Before long, no altar (the communion table) was quite proper unless it was built over the body of a martyr or other saint, or at the very least contained some part or relic.  

Veneration of relics has not been so common in the Church of England (the church to which I belong) since the Reformation, nor in the wider Anglican Communion. Slowly, however, it has edged its way back. In 2002, the cathedral where I’m a canon, St Albans, received a shoulder blade of St Alban, England’s first martyr, the gift of one of the dozen remarkable Romanesque churches in Cologne. That bone gets considerable honour on the weekend closest to his feast day (22 June). Relics are also familiar in the church in Philadelphia where I currently celebrate the Eucharist once or twice per week. The altars are usually at least lightly decked with relics. During Eastertide, they groan under the weight of them, including some impressive whole-bone affairs. Only in Advent and Lent – penitential seasons – do the relics disappear to the sacristy, replaced with statues of the prophets in Advent.  

It’s easy to grow accustomed to relics after a while. I should remind myself of their strangeness. Defying any trend in religious thought down the ages to denigrate the body in favour of the soul, here the body is holy, recognised as the site of God’s great works. Here, dead bodies are no longer to be feared. They are the most precious things the church owns, and threaten no contamination. Or, rather, if they suggest any contagion, it is a contagion of the good.  

Care towards the bodies of the dead reflects both poles of Christian attitudes to death. On the one hand, Christians have preserved the bodies of the dead with great care because death is an affront. Death is the enemy that falls upon us all, even the most holy among us. Lamenting that loss, we keep bodies safe until it is reversed. And there is also the other side of the Christian attitude to death: alongside lament there is hope in death’s destruction.  

Christianity, at its wisest, has not skipped through lamentation too quickly, but neither has it given lamentation the final word. Day-by-day funeral practice probably connects most clearly with the sadness, although the hope is woven through. The place of relics in many strands of Christianity (although by no means all), swings more towards an emphasis on death’s defeat. It rejoices in having among us, in all those slivers of bone, fragments poised towards Resurrection, when ‘death shall be no more’. 

  

Essay
Creed
Trauma
8 min read

Pain’s scars and the difficult hope they demand

The tension of pain and hope is hard-wired into the human condition.
A close up of the face of a bruised and bloodied cyclist with a large bandage on his forehead.

When I felt a twinge in my lower back at the age of 30, little did I know that this would lead to chronic pain for over 20 years and counting. Defined as persistent or recurrent pain that is present for more than three months, chronic pain can lead those of us who battle it to struggle to carry out daily activities or to socialise freely. Research shows that up to 15 per cent of the UK’s population live with pain that is moderately or severely disabling. Whether discal, muscular, arthritic, or related to auto-immune or other conditions, medical researchers inform us that we are facing a silent epidemic of chronic pain in our society. 

In the past 20 years, pastoral work has opened my eyes to the fact that those of us who face the ignominy and anguish of chronic pain cannot claim a monopoly on suffering. No stranger to significant hardships himself, psychologist and Auschwitz-survivor Viktor Frankl suggests that all suffering should be taken with utmost seriousness, however brief or minor it proves to be. The “size” of suffering, after all, is relative. It is, he claims, like releasing gas into an empty chamber – it doesn’t matter how much gas is released, it will fill the chamber completely. In other words, it does not matter how great or small our sufferings are, they will always hold the potential to darken our hearts completely. 

Behind even the brightest smiles and the most cheerful demeanours are the scars of a thousand cuts.

Suffering and struggle have been particularly marked in our society in recent years, with the twin-tribulation of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis leading to so much grief, illness, depression, loneliness, poverty, and isolation. Some years back, I undertook hydrotherapy at the local hospital. With each patient having endured various injuries, many quite serious, I was struck by the plethora of scars in the pool each week – on backs, shoulders, arms, knees, and ankles. The many years of struggle and pain in that pool was all too visible, but, as I undertook my aquatic exercises, I recall thinking to myself: if we could peer into the souls of those around us, how many more deep-seated scars would we notice? Behind even the brightest smiles and the most cheerful demeanours are the scars of a thousand cuts. 

Neither should we fall into the trap of believing suffering merely impacts us as we age. While it is true that there is a correlation between age and bereavement, illness, and disability, the dark hand of suffering is not partisan to age or circumstance. Many children and young people go through all manner of serious trauma and illness, often hidden to those on the outside. Research is showing a sharp rise in chronic pain in young people, for example, while teachers bear testament to the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of so many of their pupils. Moreover, when I was a university chaplain, I saw how deeply young people were affected by incidences and events, even those that, to others, may have seemed trivial. Younger generations are certainly not immune to life’s struggles. 

Like that tenacious and resilient tree breaking through the harsh concrete, we witness hope and promise shining out of the pages of his letters. 

Christians, of course, have always been aware of the philosophical questions surrounding the existence of suffering. The book of Job in the Old Testament details one of the earliest attempts to consider theodicy, while numerous scholars down the ages have grappled with the “problem of pain” (C.S. Lewis) and the question of “where is God when it hurts?” (Philip Yancey). Their musings are well documented and discussed, but, as a Christian with chronic pain, I have become less interested in the “why?” of suffering and more concerned with the “what now?” In other words, I am increasingly interested in how faith responds when confronted with the crippling and dehumanising personal impact of pain, grief, illness, disability, relationship break-ups, depression, loneliness, poverty, or anxiety. 

During a particularly acute flare-up of back pain recently, I took short walks around our immediate locality. We live in a concrete jungle – there are houses, streetlights, cars parked down both sides of the road, and vehicles driving up and down, especially at school drop-off time. In my pain, I was struggling to see any hope in the incarceration of a city. Then I noticed something on our road that I’d walked past on many occasions. It was a small, solitary tree, which is about twice my height. For a brief moment it lifted my heart and I thought to myself how wonderful that someone had planted that tree, just to give some greenery to this urban sprawl. But then I noticed that this beautiful little tree had not been planted at all. Rather, it had broken through the hard, unforgiving concrete, desperate to reach up to the sunlight and take in the oxygen in the air. That small tree is, in many ways, an apt metaphor for the Christian response to personal suffering. 

From the book of Acts and his letters in the New Testament, it is clear that St Paul had walked the gruelling path of pain and struggle. He faced prejudice, persecution, and prison, not to mention his battle with a personal affliction, which he called a “thorn in my flesh”. Scholars posit this may have been an illness or a disability, such as blindness. Yet Paul does not allow his letters to become dark, depressing diatribes of fear and hopelessness. Like that tenacious and resilient tree breaking through the harsh concrete, we witness hope and promise shining out of the pages of his letters. Here was a man who knew suffering, but, through his vivid encounter of the person of Jesus, he had also grasped the profound meaning of hope. When we attend a funeral or a wedding, we will quite often hear uplifting passages of hope and joy written by him. Discussions around the tension in Paul’s epistles between “flesh” and “spirit” are well worn, but, when I read his letters, especially in light of the life and death of Jesus, it is the tension between “suffering” and “hope” that is most conspicuous. 

“I have seen the light – it flickers on and off like a badly-wired lamp”.

Andrew Motion

This tension, of course, is not just prevalent in the Christian scriptures. It is hard-wired into the human condition. Just take the years of the pandemic, when people were either isolated, lonely, stressed, and anxious themselves or were journeying alongside others facing illness, grief, worry, and fear. During that period, I was a parish priest and would regularly visit people, standing socially distanced on their doorsteps. Yet, despite suffering seemingly being omnipresent during the pandemic, people did not generally regale me with their miseries. Rather, they wanted to inform me of moments of uplifting hope that had broken through their difficulties – the beauty of nature on their daily walks, the tireless care of the NHS workers, and the joy of meeting with friends and family, on zoom or outside in the garden. They seemed naturally aware that hope and suffering are inextricably linked. This fact is at the heart of our Christian experience – its recognition is one of those things that define Christians as Christian. After all, the very symbol that has come to represent the Christian faith – the cross – is both an emblem of torture and suffering and a symbol of liberation and hope. 

Not that opening our eyes to moments of hope, love, and wonder is easy when we are going through difficult times. In the dark moments when my own chronic pain seems overwhelming and utterly debilitating, I am inspired by the words of the former poet laureate Andrew Motion: “I have seen the light – it flickers on and off like a badly-wired lamp”. There will be times when Christians will see God’s light clearly and its beauty and glory will dazzle daily. But there will also be times of doubt, grief, depression, anxiety, and physical pain. During those moments, we can learn to be sustained by the occasional spark of hope that will come to us, even in the very ordinariness and humdrum of our daily lives. 

And so, in travelling through life’s dark moments, Christians recognise two powerful realities. One of these has long been championed by preachers and spiritual teachers – it is the presence of a kingdom to come in a heavenly future where there will be no more tears and no more suffering. The other one, though, can speak powerfully into the present predicament – it is the presence of a kingdom all around us now, breaking through the harshness and bleakness of life, like that small tree bursting through hostile concrete. Theologians refer to these two realities as “inaugurated eschatology” and they can also help us to recognise profound moments when transcendent hope breaks into our lives. Opening our eyes to compassion, beauty, wonder, and awe can help us transcend our suffering, which so often seems all pervasive, and can lead us into a strange new world of God’s providence. 

In the soil that the broken concrete had revealed were little green, sprouting shoots. Hope had begotten hope. 

So, Christians hold onto the hope of the “not yet”, confident in the hope of life after death. But, as the old Christian Aid advert put it, we also believe in life before death. However dark and long our journey seems, hope is birthed when we take time and space to notice strange and uplifting moments of beauty, grace, and guidance breaking through our daily lives now. In these, Christians find, in the words of theologian Karl Barth, “indications, intimations and parables” of the coming reign of God. 

After 20 years of daily struggle, I have made peace with the fact that I am likely to battle chronic pain for the rest of my life. However, I have also come to recognise that hope is not all about smiles, sunshine, and flowers. Hope is often difficult and demanding. It is about delicately holding the joy and challenge of life in a wonderful balance. For the Christian, it’s about both recognising God’s kingdom in the beauty, awe, and wonder of his created world and glimpsing it in our very earthly, wearisome, and draining lives. 

But there was also something else about that small, resilient tree that was breaking through the hard and unforgiving concrete. On another walk, a few weeks later, I noticed foliage growing around the base of the tree. In the soil that the broken concrete had revealed were little green, sprouting shoots. Hope had begotten hope. And it is certainly true that the more we open our lives to recognising hope, however brief it may be in our struggles, the more it can inspire us to bring moments of light and comfort to others. And thus we live out, in the words of Karl Barth, so many “little hopes”, and, by doing so, we scatter seeds of new life and resurrection as we go, trusting that God will water them and bring his “hope, faith, and love” to fruition in the world around us.