No Cremation — But Should I Gift My Body to Science?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Several good follow-up questions
00:00:07.000 | on your cremation article.
00:00:08.960 | Nikki writes in, "Hello Pastor John,
00:00:10.480 | "I read your article,
00:00:11.420 | "Should Christians cremate their loved ones with interest?
00:00:14.820 | "My mom, a Christian, has made it known
00:00:16.740 | "that she wants her body to be donated to research
00:00:19.660 | "after her death since, quote,
00:00:21.500 | "she won't need it anymore," end quote.
00:00:24.240 | And Laura in St. Paul, Minnesota writes in,
00:00:26.200 | "Pastor John, thank you for your recent article
00:00:27.800 | "on cremation versus burial and the dignity
00:00:30.320 | "of the human body.
00:00:31.660 | "Having trained in biology and medicine,
00:00:33.960 | "I can attest to the necessity of having human cadavers
00:00:37.100 | "available for training.
00:00:39.100 | "What insights would you provide someone
00:00:40.580 | "who is considering donating their body to science,
00:00:43.140 | "such as an anatomy bequest program?
00:00:46.020 | "Also, if the dignity of the human body
00:00:48.440 | "could be a reason against donating one's body to science,
00:00:51.780 | "wouldn't this also be a reason
00:00:53.540 | "to not be an organ and tissue donor as well?"
00:00:57.820 | What would you say to Nikki and Laura?
00:00:59.720 | - Well, it's an incredibly good question,
00:01:03.500 | an important question, and a front burner question,
00:01:07.440 | because I just did a funeral a few weeks ago
00:01:09.660 | for one of my favorite people in all the world,
00:01:12.260 | and I didn't know at all what she had planned,
00:01:16.200 | and the body wasn't there,
00:01:17.820 | and I talked to her closest friends.
00:01:19.740 | She's in her 80s, and she said
00:01:21.580 | she'd given it to the university.
00:01:23.720 | So this is relevant and close.
00:01:26.760 | The reason that the intrinsic dignity
00:01:31.360 | of the human body, rooted in creation by God
00:01:35.040 | and destiny for resurrection,
00:01:37.280 | is morally significant in my article about cremation
00:01:41.280 | is that the choice is between burning the body
00:01:45.400 | and burying the body.
00:01:47.160 | That's the choice I was dealing with.
00:01:49.320 | That was the issue,
00:01:50.560 | and I think it's an important issue,
00:01:52.000 | but I don't want to raise its importance
00:01:53.740 | higher than we should.
00:01:55.980 | Burning bodies does not have a biblical association
00:02:00.920 | that we want to call to mind when a loved one has died.
00:02:04.800 | That's one of my big concerns.
00:02:07.040 | And burying has healing and redemptive associations,
00:02:11.520 | such as the sowing of a seed
00:02:14.880 | that will sprout and come to glorious flower
00:02:19.000 | at the resurrection.
00:02:20.880 | So there's beautiful and negative associations
00:02:24.040 | that commend burying over burning.
00:02:27.280 | Now, the question is,
00:02:28.920 | does the donation of a body for use in medical research
00:02:33.480 | or teaching of medicine bring into play
00:02:37.480 | new moral factors that I didn't deal with in that article?
00:02:42.480 | And the answer is yes.
00:02:47.680 | And the first difference is that in donating one's body
00:02:51.720 | to the study or the practice of medicine,
00:02:55.580 | the intention is not to simply burn the body to ashes.
00:03:00.580 | As in cremation,
00:03:02.440 | the cremation is simply a means of disposing of a body.
00:03:06.980 | That's what cremation is.
00:03:08.400 | It disposes of a body.
00:03:11.320 | That's not the aim in the donation of the body.
00:03:16.160 | It may be that certain parts of the body
00:03:18.880 | are in the end burned by the scientific community.
00:03:22.200 | I don't know.
00:03:23.020 | I haven't done the research,
00:03:24.800 | and I don't know the answer to what happens to cadavers
00:03:28.960 | when their usefulness is complete,
00:03:31.600 | but even if they are disposed of in that way,
00:03:34.840 | which I would, by the way, discourage
00:03:37.080 | if I were involved in that kind of thing
00:03:39.760 | in the scientific community,
00:03:42.040 | the aim in giving the body
00:03:44.480 | is not that that happens,
00:03:46.640 | not that the body be burned.
00:03:48.240 | That's the first big difference.
00:03:50.120 | The second difference is that the aim
00:03:55.120 | in donating the body to medical science
00:03:58.000 | is precisely to honor the preciousness of the body.
00:04:03.000 | Now, there's this kind of irony here, I know,
00:04:06.440 | that we all understand.
00:04:08.000 | Giving yourself to one seeming indignity,
00:04:12.560 | which I think dissection in front of a lot of people
00:04:15.680 | is a kind of seeming indignity,
00:04:19.280 | serves paradoxically to elevate the dignity
00:04:24.280 | of what you have just given to indignity.
00:04:27.040 | Now, consider a couple of analogies,
00:04:29.400 | the analogy of a organ donation.
00:04:32.280 | When you allow yourself to be cut open
00:04:35.600 | and an organ, kidney, say, taken out of your body,
00:04:40.760 | this is highly unnatural,
00:04:43.040 | and in some cultures and situations
00:04:45.480 | would be viewed as a kind of disemboweling torture, yuck.
00:04:50.400 | But your motive is to donate your kidney
00:04:54.260 | to your sister to save the life of her body,
00:04:58.480 | and that changes everything about the way you view
00:05:01.720 | the cutting of your own body
00:05:04.200 | and the gutting of an organ from your bowels.
00:05:08.640 | So the same thing is true of subjecting a dead body
00:05:13.440 | to the indignities of dissection.
00:05:17.360 | One could imagine, it's easy to imagine,
00:05:20.200 | it has always been viewed this way by and large in history,
00:05:23.480 | that one could imagine such indignities
00:05:26.600 | being debased and disgusting and evil,
00:05:30.520 | some sinister motivation to dig up a body and carve on it,
00:05:35.400 | yuck, that could be viewed that way.
00:05:38.040 | But when one considers that the aim is the discovery
00:05:43.040 | or the improvement of some healing procedure for the body
00:05:48.560 | or training of doctors in the healing arts for the body,
00:05:53.120 | then those very so-called indignities to the body
00:05:58.120 | take on a kind of beauty
00:06:01.140 | that in fact serves the dignity of the body.
00:06:05.200 | And here's the other analogy I was talking about.
00:06:07.240 | This one moves me most deeply.
00:06:10.240 | One could even think of the analogy
00:06:13.280 | of Christ's body at this point.
00:06:16.400 | Surely the human body that Christ took on
00:06:20.240 | was not designed to be tortured and whipped and lacerated
00:06:25.240 | and speared and nailed to a cross like a piece of meat.
00:06:32.240 | But all of those indignities were embraced by Christ.
00:06:37.240 | He chose them.
00:06:40.120 | He submitted himself to them.
00:06:42.200 | He gave himself to them,
00:06:45.080 | not only that our souls might be saved,
00:06:49.580 | but precisely so that our bodies
00:06:52.380 | would be raised from the dead
00:06:54.480 | and all the indignities of disease and death and torture
00:06:58.880 | would be overcome precisely because he gave his body to them.
00:07:03.880 | So I would not, here's the conclusion,
00:07:08.400 | I would not put donation motivated in these ways
00:07:13.400 | in the same category with cremation,
00:07:18.040 | which leads me to one last, for me, pressing question,
00:07:22.480 | which Nikki didn't ask, but I must.
00:07:25.760 | Well then, should all of us donate our bodies
00:07:28.600 | to medical science?
00:07:29.560 | And my short answer is no.
00:07:34.080 | And here's my thinking.
00:07:35.980 | There are many family issues
00:07:38.640 | that need to be taken into account among others.
00:07:41.760 | For example, are there young children involved
00:07:44.960 | who just lost a mommy or a daddy
00:07:47.080 | who need to process the death of a parent differently
00:07:50.400 | than thinking they're being carved up at the university?
00:07:53.280 | A grave to visit may be very, very important.
00:07:58.120 | I think the principle that might guide us would be this.
00:08:03.480 | Is there such a manifest shortage of cadavers
00:08:08.480 | that the promised good that comes from their use
00:08:13.400 | is seriously in jeopardy because of my refusal to donate?
00:08:17.880 | I don't think that's the case.
00:08:20.800 | The closer, here's the principle,
00:08:22.720 | the closer the connection between the greatness of the need
00:08:27.440 | in medicine, say, and the immediacy of my decision
00:08:31.840 | to give or not to give, the closer that connection,
00:08:35.080 | the greater the obligation to give.
00:08:37.740 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:39.680 | And for that article on cremation,
00:08:41.600 | you can find it at Zaringod.org.
00:08:43.760 | It's titled, "Should Christians Cremate Their Loved Ones?"
00:08:46.900 | A modest proposal published on April 26th.
00:08:50.560 | I can imagine this episode here
00:08:52.000 | raises stem cell research questions,
00:08:54.040 | but that will have to wait until later
00:08:55.760 | because tomorrow we talk about weddings,
00:08:57.360 | simple weddings, joyful weddings,
00:08:59.680 | and why we need young people with backbone
00:09:01.700 | and radical Christian courage in order to show
00:09:04.280 | what truth and beauty and joy can look like
00:09:06.960 | in an inexpensive wedding.
00:09:09.680 | The joyful, simple wedding, that's tomorrow.
00:09:11.800 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:12.920 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:09:14.960 | with author and longtime pastor, John Piper.
00:09:18.100 | (upbeat music)
00:09:20.680 | (upbeat music)
00:09:23.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]