Natural Burial and the Christian Story: A Review of Two Books

Kimberley Wadlington

Kent Burreson and Beth Hoeltke, Death, Heaven, Resurrection, and the New Creation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2024) 

Kent Burreson and Beth Hoeltke, Lay Me in God’s Good Earth: A Christian Approach to Death and Burial (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing, 2019)

Reviewed by Kimberley Wadlington

Did you know

. . . you can use dryer lint to make an urn for human cremains and purchase a bookcase that readily converts into a coffin?

. . . you can bury a human body at sea without a permit if you alert the EPA within thirty days of burial and follow applicable EPA guidelines? (Lay Me in God’s Good Earth, pp. 37, 204)

. . . each of us will die and before death we can make choices for burial that honor creation and enable the telling of the Christian story?

These “fun facts” about burial allude to natural burial, a small but growing movement in the United States. Natural burial is burial of the human body with as little interference in the natural state of the body as possible. Rather than seeking to preserve a body for as long as possible after burial, it is the decision to introduce as few impediments to the natural process of decomposition as possible. According to the website of the Green Burial Council, “that means no embalming, no liners or vaults, and using biodegradable containers, whether caskets, shrouds or nothing at all”¹ in the process of burying bodies. Natural burial is the “ultimate act of environmental volunteerism,”² says funeral director Elizabeth Fournier, affectionately known as The Green Reaper for her advocacy of natural burial. In addition to being an environmentally sound practice, natural burial, of all possible burial practices, tells the Christian story of death and resurrection most clearly. (Lay Me, pp. 24–25) This is the argument made in this pair of books by Dr. Kent Burreson and Dr. Beth Hoeltke. 

Both books arose from their shared desire to consider “how Christians should bury their dead in ways faithful to a biblical and creedal confession.” (Death, Heaven, Resurrection, p. 6) Before writing about burial practices, they realized the need to reflect on death and dying, especially considering the Christian story and the knowledge that our culture typically avoids talking about death and denies its reality. In their first book, Death, Heaven, Resurrection, and the New Creation, they provide the Christian with a framework for thinking and talking about death that doesn’t deny the pain of death but rather places death within God’s story of new creation in Christ and the kingdom of God. In the second book, Lay Me in God’s Good Earth: A Christian Approach to Death and Burial, Burreson and Hoeltke write about natural burial and encourage the practice not only as a way to be good stewards of creation but also because they believe the practice is consistent with an identity as people who anticipate the resurrection of the body, an anticipation “that flows from the story of God the Creator.” (Lay Me, p. 21)

There is much to appreciate in these books. Because their primary argument is a theological one, I will first examine Death, Heaven, Resurrection, and the New Creation. Intended to be a Bible study, it offers six sessions that the authors suggest facilitate “a discussion of death, placing it in the context of God’s creation of the body and God’s resurrection of the body in His Son, Jesus Christ.” (Death, Heaven, p. 6) Each chapter weaves together and builds upon four major themes. For each of these themes, the authors offer practical implications for the lives of Christians. The book is laden with supporting biblical references and many questions to ponder. 

Before thinking about death and resurrection, the authors introduce “The Gift of the Body” (Death, Heaven, p. 7), offering a biblical understanding of creation. They affirm the Hebrew view of the body: that God created humans out of the earth, that spirit is breathed into us by our creator, and that body and spirit are one. As such, they reject the dominant philosophical understanding of the body as a container for the spirit. We are always body and spirit and can only relate to God and God’s creation as such. (Death, Heaven, pp. 11–13) False assumptions that the body and spirit can be separated from one another lead to debasing our bodies in life and ignoring the bodies of the dead. (Death, Heaven, p. 8) In keeping with the Apostles’ Creed, they insist that, like Christ, and through Christ, we will also be raised as a spiritual body, not an unembodied spirit. (Death, Heaven, p. 15) They also discuss the individual and corporate consequences of the “fallen body” and the effects of the body’s captivity to sin while affirming that Christ restores our humanity through the entire trajectory of his life from incarnation to his second coming. (Death, Heaven, pp. 17–32) Practically, this means we are responsible for preparing our bodies for death and resurrection by taking on ascetic disciplines that help us let go of the ways we cling to this bodily life and focus our hope on the resurrected body and the life to come. (Death, Heaven, pp. 36–37)

In chapter 2, titled “Your Death, Your Dying,” the authors seek to render conversation about death less frightening and more commonplace by sharing personal experiences of the death of loved ones and discussing the act of dying from both a medical and spiritual perspective. (Death, Heaven, pp. 44–55) They take a lengthy excursion into the idea of the soul, challenging cultural understandings of the soul and the soul’s residence in heaven after death. They acknowledge the complexity of the biblical witness to the soul in both the Old and New Testaments and that Jesus himself talks about the soul. (Death, Heaven, pp. 55–66) Ultimately, they conclude, “biblical texts talk often about a soul, but nowhere is it clearly defined. Maybe it is the image or likeness of God, or maybe it is something indescribable by humans; but it is clear that God created his creatures from the dust of the ground and the breath of life” (Death, Heaven, p. 64) and that we will be raised bodily into the new creation with Christ’s second coming.

Insisting on the unity of body and spirit and that the dead will be raised in the new creation raises questions about what happens to the person who has died in the time in between death and the new creation. (Death, Heaven, p. 67) This question has practical pastoral care implications, as it is challenging to be present in comforting but theologically sound ways as we respond to the questions of people whose loved ones have died. Many ask, “Where is my loved one now?” and, to the author’s point, wrestling with these significant questions must be a part of Christian conversation and study before the time of death. 

Chapter 3, “Facing the New Reality of Death: Finding the New Normal,” discusses the grief of those who suffer the death of a loved one. The bulk of the chapter includes generous sharing of personal stories of grief in the face of death. Through those stories the authors address some of the most tragic types of death we grieve. They offer insight about “what not to say” to someone grieving the death of a loved one and about “what those who are grieving want you to know.” (Death, Heaven, pp. 100, 102) This chapter will better equip any person in the church who offers care and sympathy to the grieving.

Moving from the hurt we carry in grief to the hope we have in Christ, the authors address resurrection in “Your Victory—The Body’s Resurrection,” chapter 4. They begin by examining the nature of Jesus’ bodily resurrection and the hope we have for our own bodily resurrection. As they develop this proclamation of the Christian story, the authors also discuss the ways that modern culture has come to view death as “merely a problem to be addressed” and in addressing death rather than facing death we have developed ways to try to avoid death and to separate ourselves from death. Continuing to offer the practical implications of their theology, the authors end this chapter with a call to live as those who die with hope by facing mortality squarely, by living this life fully and without despair, and by practicing “virtues that lead us to a holy and peaceful death,” upon which they elaborate. (Death, Heaven, pp. 112, 139)

In chapter 5, “Recasting Heaven: The New Creation,” the authors begin building their understanding of New Creation and offer a biblical view of heaven which they assert is more hopeful than current cultural understandings. (Death, Heaven, p. 145) Admitting the mysterious nature of heaven, the authors discuss biblical metaphors and provide passages that give insight into what heaven is and is not. Ultimately, as the chapter title suggests, they recast heaven as the new creation, inviting the reader to consider the biblical image of God’s eternal kingdom, the rule and reign of God come fully on earth, as analogous to heaven and a present-day reality in Jesus. (Death, Heaven, p. 163) Elaborating on Colossians 3:1–3 and Paul’s understanding that, dying and rising in baptism, our life is hidden in Christ, they offer the idea that heaven is hidden in the very world around us but also waiting to be made new with Christ’s second coming. (Death, Heaven, pp. 149–151) 

Practically, they caution the reader to stay focused on Jesus, for where Jesus is, there is the reality of heaven, and in his second coming this earth we inhabit will be freed of sin and perfected as part of the new creation in Christ. As such, we are called to remember that “earth matters, our bodies matter, all of creation matters” because all will be a part of heaven, God’s redeemed and renewed creation. Additionally, given the present-day reality of God’s kingdom and the invitation to begin living eternal life—life with Christ—today, the authors insist that it is our responsibility to learn from Jesus’ life and parables now to prepare ourselves for heaven’s present and future reality. (Death, Heaven, pp. 166, 151, 157)

Chapter 6, “Bodily Life in God’s Heavenly Creation,” gives the fullest sense of their understanding of the biblical view of resurrection and its meaning for human beings. In that vision, all believers in Christ will live in perfect communion with God and one another in God’s kingdom on the new earth. We will relate to God, one another, and to all creation with resurrected bodies. As such we will participate in God’s rule and will be able to work with God to perfectly manage creation. The love that is from God, which also conforms to Jesus himself, will pervade all our interactions with creation and one another. Because that love conforms to Jesus himself, it is a cross-shaped love, a self-giving love. (Death, Heaven, pp. 169–173) Everything we know in this life, every thought, every action, every human system, and every cultural form will be “re-created and renewed to function in love,” reflecting Christ’s own self-emptying love. In light of this understanding, the authors conclude their discussion of death, stating that “[Christian] longing is not just to conquer death but rather to live forever in communion with the Source of life . . . with the One who is life itself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” (Death, Heaven, 175, 178) This hopeful vision offers meaning and direction for this life and joyful anticipation for resurrection life in the new creation. 

Having developed their theological understanding of death and resurrection in the Christian story, the authors turn to thinking about burial practices that tell that story best, offering Lay Me in God’s Good Earth: A Christian Approach to Death and Burial for Christians and non-Christians alike. This book begins with a brief overview of the Christian story told in detail in the first book. The authors then make the connection between the Christian story and natural burial, proclaiming:

When we place our bodies into the ground at death in natural ways—in ways that respect the honor accorded to our bodies as God created them and that reflect their origins from the earth that belongs to God—we confess this story of God’s Kingdom. We confess that God created our bodies from the earth. We confess that he is the creator of all things, even of our lives. We proclaim that his story is one of re-creating all things through the life, death, resurrection, and second coming of his Son in the power of the Spirit. (Lay Me, p. 12)

Because God created all things and will redeem and restore all things, including our bodies and the earth, we naturally entrust our bodies to God and God’s good earth in death, affirming our faith and caring for creation. 

Throughout, the authors make their case convincingly. Detailing many possible burial practices and places, Christian funeral practices, practices for accompanying the dying, and practices of caring for dead bodies, they continually describe how specific practices connect, or don’t connect, to the Christian story and how they support, or don’t support, stewardship of the environment. In addition to green practices, they invite the reader to consider natural burial broadly, considering at-home care for the dying and the dead to be part of natural burial. The authors hope that a revitalization of these practices will enable us to become a society that once again faces death in wholistic ways. The book is encouraging, filled with valuable insight regarding different practices, and includes many references from other books and national organizations devoted to natural burial.

To reflect on our funeral practices and how the funeral service tells not only the story of the deceased but more importantly God’s story, the reader can turn to chapters 3 and 4, “Remembering the Dead in Hope” and “Knowing the Way Home.” In these, the authors share the history of burial practices in the United States and how we arrived at this time when the dead bodies of our loved ones are almost exclusively turned over to professionals for care. They discuss funeral practices and the significance of having the body of the deceased present at the service. (Lay Me, pp. 52, 68, 59) In doing so, they encourage “living by the imagination of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed,” which affirms “the communion of the living and the dead” and invites the church to remember “its own identity as those who live with those who have died and who will live again.” (Lay Me, p. 62) Contrary to popular sentiment that funerals are for the living, the authors insist funerals are “for the dead” because without the dead, there would be no occasion for gathering. When we affirm that funerals are for the dead, and when the dead are present at their funerals, we can “recognize the judgment of death . . . [and] tell the gospel of God that is our only deliverance from the jaws of death.” (Lay Me, p. 76)

 In chapter 5 and 6, “Caring for the Body of our Dead” and “Dying with Hope,” the authors reflect on caring for the dying and the bodies of our deceased loved ones. Firmly rooted in their theology of hope, they encourage a return to carrying out both these tasks at home rather than entrusting them to the caregiving and funeral industries. Acknowledging the challenge of caring for the dying, the authors look at available options to aid in accompanying our loved ones in death. These include hospice care, palliative care, death doulas and midwives, home funeral plans, and guidance for deciding when to forgo medical treatment rather than fight to the end. They speak to the dying by offering insight about how to live one’s final days and to caregivers by offering information about what to expect from those who are dying at different stages of the dying process. (Lay Me, pp. 90, 117–124, 126–132)

Once death has occurred, they encourage graciously caring for the bodies of the dead ourselves to begin the grieving process and contribute to our witness of hope in the resurrection of the body. (Lay Me, pp. 90–92) To assist in doing so, the authors detail the aspects of care needed. They teach how to close the eyes permanently, how to wash and dress (or shroud) the body properly, and how to preserve the body at home until a service and burial. They offer suggestions for anointing and for generally making this final time with our loved ones meaningful and holy. Always with an eye toward burial in the most natural way possible, they talk about materials that can be used in green cemeteries and detail the significant impact of the embalming process on the environment. (Lay Me, pp. 96–113)

The authors close the book with a chapter entitled “The Particularities of Death,” sharing advice for making conversation about death and dying more commonplace. They discuss how our fear, denial, lack of vulnerability and interdependence, and our many euphemisms for death make it harder to discuss death and dying. Echoing portions of their first book, they offer insight into the art of dying well and the spirituality of death, concluding that death is “a spiritual process of letting go of this world and looking forward to the world to come . . . [and that] the deathbed is a culmination of Christian life.” (Lay Me, pp. 137–148, 151) Appendices at the end include a comprehensive burial planning guide, a list of state boards and funeral licensing agencies, and further reading.

Each of these books stands well alone. Taken together, they offer a full account of the biblical promise of resurrection made by God through Jesus Christ and of the ways we can, as good stewards of God’s earth, tell the Christian story through our death and burial. 

I offer two considerations for readers in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other Reformed traditions. Burreson and Hoeltke are part of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), and Reformed readers will recognize some theological differences. First, our Book of Order offers that “[while both] Lutherans and Reformed claim the saving power of God’s grace as the center of their faith and life [and] believe that salvation depends on God’s grace alone and not on human cooperation . . . the doctrine of predestination has been one of the issues separating the two traditions.”³ In other words, while both Lutheran and Reformed perspectives recognize salvation by grace through faith, these authors emphasize the role of faith from Luther’s doctrine, while Reformed Christians typically emphasize the role of grace, following John Calvin. The authors’ strong emphasis on faith, signified by baptism, as a factor in salvation permeates their theology and is especially prevalent in Death, Heaven, Resurrection, and the New Creation. 

Approaching that book, Reformed readers will want to discuss the authors’ statements regarding salvation. For instance, in chapter 4 the authors discuss God’s final judgment and assert, “Those who fail to believe in the Triune God and reject His gracious Word are separated from God and God’s kingdom and reside in that place of separation, hell.” (Death, Heaven, p. 132) In chapter 5 they state, “For those who trust in Christ, heaven will be their eternal home. For those who trust in themselves, hell will be their eternal home.” Thinking about hope in uncertain situations, particularly the death of children through miscarriage or stillbirth, the authors do hope “in the story of the resurrecting God” but also stress that “the promise of baptism can’t be spoken.” (Death, Heaven, pp. 150, 131) These statements and others like them give a glimpse of the differing theological emphases of our traditions regarding salvation. 

The authors’ view is indicative of the Athanasian Creed, which the LCMS affirms as one of the three ecumenical creeds. It opens, “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.”⁴ While other Reformed traditions accept the Athanasian Creed, the PC(USA) has never included it in its Book of Confessions. Instead, PC(USA) readers may want to turn to chapter X of The Second Helvetic Confession, which states, “God has elected us out of grace. From eternity God has freely, and of his mere grace, without any respect to men, predestinated or elected the saints whom he wills to save in Christ.” And though it also states, “Those who were outside Christ were rejected,” it encourages, based on grace, that “we are to have good hope for all . . . and not rashly judge any man to be a reprobate.”⁵ 

Other twentieth-century theologians provide possibilities for thinking about judgment, salvation, and hell differently. In A Grammar of Christian Faith, theologian Joseph R. Jones argues that “in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, God takes the judged consequences of sin upon God’s own triune Life. The righteousness and justice of God is that of redemption and renewal.”⁶ Therefore, as he wrestles with the question of “ultimate destiny,” even though he concedes many biblical passages point to dual destiny, saved and unsaved, he also asserts, “There are . . . other passages and grammars that point to a non-dualist ultimate destiny for human beings. They are embedded in passages about atonement and reconciliation, justification by grace through faith, the ultimacy of God’s free and gracious and unmerited love.” This leads Jones to posit a third alternative, “universal ultimate destiny,” in which “Christians look to an absolute future in which God brings all sinful humans and the whole creation to eternal fulfillment in God’s own eternal life. Hence, hell—as the place of absolute separation from God —is an impossible possibility and is therefore empty of occupants.”⁷

For an interesting and lively discussion, readers might turn to chapters 7 and 19 of Shirley Guthrie’s Christian Doctrine respectively titled “What Does God Want with Us? The Doctrine of Predestination” and “What’s Going to Happen to Us? The Doctrine of Christian Hope for the Future.”⁸ In discussing predestination, Guthrie holds together God’s love and judgment in part by citing section 10.5 of the Declaration of Faith, which states, “Constrained by God’s love in Christ, we have good hope for all people, not exempting the most unlikely from the promises. Judgment belongs to God and not to us. We are sure that God’s future for every person will be both merciful and just.” In the latter chapter, Guthrie states, 

The misunderstanding is that heaven is the reward for being good and hell the punishment for being bad—like an eternal lollipop or eternal spanking promised good or bad children. According to Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, the truth is just the opposite: Heaven is for sinners and hell is for ‘good’ people.⁹ 

He bases his argument on Jesus’ words of gracious invitation issued to people counted among the sinners and Jesus’ sternest warnings issued to religious leaders and the “church-going people of his day.”¹⁰ Guthrie’s work provides interesting nuance to the views of Burreson and Hoeltke and those who posit a more universal understanding of salvation like Jones. 

The second consideration worth noting concerns the LCMS reading of the Bible with a literal historical approach. Their statement on creation in the Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod (1932) is still held and states in part, “We teach that God has created heaven and earth, and that in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, especially Gen. 1 and 2, namely, by His almighty creative word, and in six days. We reject every doctrine which denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture.”¹¹ This literal historical approach affects how the authors understand creation and how they envision the new creation, flattening their interpretation regarding both. Even as they envision that the earth, like our bodies, will be perfected in the new creation, and write that the words reconcile, renew, redeem, recover, regenerate, and resurrect are all apt descriptions of what will happen with the new creation, they also insist, “each of these words begins with the prefix re-, suggesting a return to that which was originally created.” Later in the text, they describe the new creation again saying, “All believers in Christ will live on the new earth with God in Christ dwelling with us. Sound familiar? It’s the restoration of paradise (Genesis 2:8).” (Death, Heaven, pp. 163–164, 170)

Why is this troubling? A literal reading of Genesis has lent theological weight to patriarchal societies for millennia. LCMS doctrine prohibits women from serving in its highest positions, based in part on its reading of 1 Timothy 2:11–15,¹² whose author points directly to Genesis saying, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” While Burreson and Hoeltke do not say anything about the structure of relationships in this return to the paradise of Genesis beyond the affirmation that human beings, being filled with God’s love, will relate to God and to one another perfectly (Death, Heaven, p. 187), neither does their literal reading of Genesis, interspersed throughout the book, give hope for a truly new way of relating to one another in the new creation. 

But the Bible also tells us that when God does something new, it is truly new and often quite surprising to human beings. When promising the exiles in Babylon a re-turn to their home, God says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isa. 43:18–19). Since according to the authors, “God’s great endeavor is to make true humans out of His creatures” (Death, Heaven, p. 22) with Jesus the perfect pattern for both men and women, and since in our resurrected bodies, “God will dwell in us, and so will the fullness of God’s unrelenting love,” (Death, Heaven, p. 183) surely we can hope for more than acceptance of a hierarchical relationship to one another in the future? As they study this book, Reformed readers will at least want to note this literal approach to Scripture and perhaps imagine together a vision of the new creation informed by the ways Jesus saw and honored women and all humans even as he himself lived within a patriarchal hierarchical society. 

It has been a privilege to read and wrestle with these two books. Burreson and Hoeltke offer a compelling vision for natural burial, a detailed explanation of how to approach the many aspects of natural burial, and a clear understanding of how natural burial tells the Christian story. They generously share many stories of death and dying from their own lives. Those stories, which highlight the fruit of conversations about death, undergird their insistence that we, the church, must become more comfortable in having and leading those conversations. 

Notes

1. “Green Burial Defined,” Green Burial Council Website, Green Burial Council, accessed on April 21, 2025, www.greenburialcouncil.org/greenburialdefined.html.

2. Elizabeth Fournier, “Going Green: Your Last Heroic Act of Volunteerism,” TEDx Talk, Salem, NC, 2019, 15:42, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KGXyuGzmGw&t=88s/.

3. Book of Order, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part 2 (Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly, PC(USA), 2019), B-7.

4. “The Three Ecumenical or Universal Creeds,” The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, accessed on April 21, 2025, https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/three-ecumenical-creeds?_gl=1*1b0k5nt*_ga*MTE0NTE3NTM4NS4xNzQ1MDkzNzIx*_ga
   _Z0184DBP2L*MTc0NTI2Njk4MC40LjAuMTc0NTI2Njk4MC4wLjAuMA/.

5. From The Second Helvetic Confession, Book of Confessions, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part 1 (Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2017), 5.052, 91; 5.053, 91; 5.054, 91.

6. Joseph R. Jones, A Grammar of Christian Faith: Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine, vol. 2 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,  2002), 720; italics in the original.

7. Jones, A Grammar of Christian Faith, pp. 717, 711, 715.

8. Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 118, 373.

9. Guthrie, pp. 134, 396.

10. Guthrie, p. 396.

11. “Doctrinal Positions of the LCMS,” The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, accessed on April 21, 2025, https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/doctrine/brief-statement-of-lcms-doctrinal-position#:~:text=Return%20to%20topics-,Of%20Creation,creation%20as%20taught%20in%20Scripture/.

12. “FAQs about Worship & Congregational Life,” The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, accessed on April 21, 2025, https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/faqs/worship-and-congregational-life#women-ministers.