Death, Ritual, and Bereavement by Ralph Houlbrooke

Author:Ralph Houlbrooke [Houlbrooke, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367437091
Google: XwqMzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Limited
Published: 2021-12-30T03:50:08+00:00

The same response was put in a more succinct form by the Earl of Shaftesbury. ‘What’ he asked, ‘would in such a case become of the blessed martyrs?’33

Some opponents of cremation, however, saw the doctrine of the resurrection as possessing more than simply religious significance. It was believed rather to underpin a whole philosophy of social and political conservatism. Any attempt to undermine the faith of mankind in the doctrine was interpreted not only as an attack on the Christian religion, but also on existing forms of political organization. Theologians of the Church of England, and of the Catholic Church, traced the modern agitation for cremation to a decree of the French republic, 25th Brumaire 1797, giving cremation a permissive sanction,34 and saw in this movement an attempt to introduce naturalism among the population which would ‘inevitably destroy, little by little, the necessary conditions of moral order and even the security of States.’35 Licentiousness and immorality would be the inevitable outcome of this ‘disastrous social revolution.’36 The opinions of dissenting clergy on the subject are less well documented.

On the Continent, advocacy of cremation had long been equated (often justifiably), with the assumption of ‘progressive’, socialistic ideas. In Germany, for example, the cremation movement was ideologically connected with political liberalism. Liberals opposed those theological dogmas and prejudices which had prevented the cremation of men like Frederick the Great, who had expressed a wish that their bodies be so disposed.37 In Italy also a link was drawn between cremation and political liberalism. Most burial grounds at the time were controlled by religious orders, and since the liberals supporting the movement for Italian independence were forbidden the use of these grounds, many advocated the practice of cremation. An element of anti-clericalism was thus mixed up with the sanitary and political motives of cremation is ts, accounting, perhaps, for the vociferous-ness of reformers in Italy.38

The political allegiances of English cremationists were believed to be similarly radical. Mrs Basil Holmes, in her work entitled The London Burial Grounds, noted that

It has to a certain extent happened hitherto that those who have been cremated have been more or less associated with the advanced school… those that consider themselves ‘enlightened’, Radicals or Socialists, or persons of little or no professed religious views.39

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