Is cremation acceptable for Christians?
A. Cremation was introduced to the Western world by the Greeks as early as 1000 B.C. Records of how it came to the Greeks are sketchy, but the custom apparently began as a way to deal with soldiers who died in battle. In order to ensure a funeral by family and fellow citizens, corpses of soldiers who died on foreign battlefields were burned. Their ashes were carried to their homeland. The Romans followed the Greek fashion and cremated their military heroes. The practice of cremation grew in popularity in the general population and eventually became a status symbol in Rome. The practice ceased about A.D. 100 probably due to wood shortages, as well as the lack of encouragement for cremation by Christians (mainly the Roman Catholic Church), although the practice was not actually considered taboo. Some thought (erroneously, of course) that cremation would interfere with the promised resurrection from the dead. Cremation was common in Scandinavia, due to a belief that it “freed the spirit f
