Accompanying them with singing: a Christian reflection on the theology and practice of funerals

Apr 24, 2024 by Jill

by Martin Davie, Christian Today:

One of the most moving places I have ever been to is a countryside churchyard in western Finland. I was in Finland for an ecumenical conference and those of us at the conference had gone to say morning prayer at the local Lutheran parish church. After the service I visited the church yard and was struck by row upon row of identical black gravestones with the names of the dead carved on them in grey. Seeing those grim black gravestones in the half light of a November morning in Finland was intensely moving.

When I asked who the dead were, I was told that they were the Finnish dead from the wars that Finland fought against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany from 1939-1945. It was also explained to me that early in these wars the principle was established that ‘the boys would be brought home.’ Wherever Finnish servicemen died every effort was made to bring them home to their parish church for a proper Christian burial.

If we ask why it was so important to bring the boys home, the answer is that it was because Finland was a Christian country and consequently accepted the ancient Christian tradition that the bodies of the dead should be treated with proper respect.

It was a similar reflection of the Christian tradition that could be seen in this country when from 2007 -2011 the streets of Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire were time and again lined with those who wished to pay respect to the bodies of the service personnel who had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and who had been brought home via a flight to RAF Lyneham. People instinctively felt that the fallen should be treated with proper respect and that this meant showing honour to their bodies when they were driven through the town.

Was it not often realised is that the Christian tradition of honouring the bodies of the dead was strongly countercultural when it first began back in the days of the Early Church. As the American theologian Thomas Long comments in his book on Christian funerals, Accompany them with singing, drawing on the earlier work of Margaret Miles, one of the most bizarre forms of early Christian activity in the eyes of their Roman neighbours was:

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