What to Do With a Dead Body

Great Basin National Park by Elias Johnson.

When I was around six or seven, I attended the funeral of my grandfather’s brother—my first funeral. The scene is oddly clear, unlike other childhood memories where it seemed like I only experienced half of the event. The gravity of the occasion stamped a vivid and complete recollection in my mind, though I couldn’t fully understand. Perhaps I still don’t.

I was woken up early on a cold fall Saturday. We drove for what felt like an hour and ended up at a typical LDS meetinghouse somewhere in the Salt Lake Valley. It must have been near where my grandfather’s brother lived. I didn’t know my grandpa to be particularly religious in the organized sense, so it was strange to see him in such a setting. I remember walking into a room that looked like the Primary room at my church. It was painted beige and had some old-timey purple carpet on the floor and halfway up the walls. A somber feeling consumed the room, which seemed to place everyone in a state of despair—but not me. I didn’t feel it. I saw my aunts and uncles, cousins, and many other people that I didn’t know but was likely related to. I remember my grandpa spoke and cried. It was sad, but I wasn’t sure why. I saw my father sit there emotionless, which also puzzled me. My mother teared up, but didn’t cry.

I then remember my dad grabbed me by the hand and said, “Let’s go look at him.” Before I knew what was even going on, I was face-to-face with my grandpa’s brother. I was the same height as the open casket, so I was quite literally face-to-face. I stared at him, motionless, both of us without feeling. It was the first time I had ever seen a dead person. My dad told me that this was just his body and that his spirit was somewhere else. He then told me something that really shocked me. My dad said that he had been treated so that he would be preserved for a while so people like us could look at him. I remember having this distinct, simple thought: Why would people like us want to look at him? Hundreds of questions flooded my mind. I was confused about why there was a dead person in the room with us. I knew we were there to remember him, but why all this? I didn’t ask any questions because it didn’t seem like the right place or time. We drove home about a half hour later and never talked about the experience again.

I now understand much more of what went on that crisp Saturday morning. I have been to many funerals since, including my grandpa’s. My mother, my father, and I all cried that time. I see the importance of mourning together and celebrating a life. But the feelings and questions about the dead bodies of these individuals have not left me. I feel jaded and disconnected when I see them—their waxy faces, the slight smiles they all have, even the unworn suits that lay on them perfectly. To me they seem out of place. Why do we do what we do with dead bodies? Is there a gap in our theological understanding that makes things so complicated? I hope to answer these questions somewhat selfishly in the hope that it will calm my uneasiness when I see them.

I was raised in a religious household by what I sometimes refer to as overly educated parents. My father is an evolutionary biology professor, and my mother is a speech and language pathologist. We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was taught to make decisions based on reason, logic, and data. I was also taught to read, learn, and understand the teachings of Jesus Christ. Both ways of knowing have shaped the way I view the world, and both worldviews offer possible explanations for death. Death is central to the theory of evolution, but the explanation offered does not make sense of human emotions about dying. My hope was that my own theology may offer insight into the emotion and purpose of death.

I want to begin with a family story about my great-great-aunt Helen. Like many others in my extended family, she struggled with type 2 diabetes. She was diagnosed at a fairly young age. Her financial situation and an incomplete medical understanding of the illness made it a significant burden in her life, so much so that she had to have one of her legs amputated. Aunt Helen, as I’m told, also had quite the personality. She was always up for a joke, and nothing was off limits, including her physical disability. She was an active and devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was taught and believed that after she died, someday she was going to be resurrected, which for her meant that the body and spirit would be reunited and perfected, as taught by the Book of Mormon in Alma 11:43: “The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form.” Alma 40:23 later teaches that “all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.” This doctrine seems to put significant importance on the body itself. However, it’s not clear how the process of this rejoining will occur.

The Church of Jesus Christ does not have any explicit statements on the mechanism of resurrection. But that isn’t to say there hasn’t been some speculation. It is said that Brigham Young, the second prophet of the Church, was approached one day by a woman with a serious physical disability. She was missing her right leg. This lady wasn’t Aunt Helen, but stay patient—I promise we’ll get back to her. This woman had come to Brigham Young with the hopes of receiving a miracle, one that seemed too difficult to fathom no matter one’s faith.

With the most sincere heart and earnest intent, she asked prophet Brigham Young to restore—or generate—her right leg. Brigham Young, in his typical fashion, shot back at her with a very unserious response. The story goes that he said, “I would, but then we would have a bigger issue. When you get resurrected you would have three legs instead of two, and we can’t have that, now can we?” Prophet Joseph Smith offered a more sincere response when questioned about the Resurrection. While preaching in the temple, he taught, “It would be a great blessing to be buried with the Saints,” and that when the Resurrection happens, we will join hands as we return to our Lord. Both these responses seem to leave space for personal judgement.

Now, time for Aunt Helen. She believed the reunification of the body and the spirit was going to be a physical, temporal experience that would occur sometime after death. To her, this theology requires the original physical body to be present in some form. But Aunt Helen’s physical body was not complete. She was missing her leg. When she lost her leg and had it amputated, it wasn’t disposed of. Instead, she had her leg placed in her future coffin and buried in the cemetery.

According to family lore, years later, after her death, her casket was retrieved, and the rest of her body was placed inside. While she was still alive, Aunt Helen was proud that her leg was in a casket. It made for good jokes. As she aged and her health continually worsened, it became apparent to her and everyone else that her time of death was quickly approaching. Instead of being sad or distraught about reality, she would always say, “I don’t mind dying; I already have one foot in the grave.” Many found this joke to be uncomfortable and eerie, but she found it completely hysterical. This joke, however, was rooted in her understanding of death. For her, death was a temporary moment, a probation of sorts. And she was confident her real former body would get its spirit back sometime following her death. So, if you were to ask Aunt Helen, “What should I do with a dead body?” she would likely say to keep it all together in one spot. I am not sure if that answer suffices, nor am I sure if it is doctrinally correct.

How would Jesus Christ have responded to a question about what to do with a dead body? One of the most influential and important stories of Christian theology is the story of Jesus and his tomb. In the Gospel of Luke, the account of Jesus’s Resurrection emphasizes its theological significance as the cornerstone of Christian faith, focusing on overcoming death and the promise of eternal life. The treatment of his body prior to burial—though respectfully prepared with rare spices and linen—serves primarily as a backdrop to the transformative power of the resurrection event, not the focus. There is no way of knowing if it was Jesus’s wish to be buried in this way or if it was simply the cultural standard. Whatever the case, it was done with respect and honor, and those two words are central to Christian theology.

Saint Augustine, in his work The City of God, seemed to express this same attitude and respect for dead bodies: “The bodies of the dead, are not to be despised or cast aside, least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful.” He explained, “If a father’s garment, or anything he wore in his lifetime, be dear to his bereaved children, how much more should the bodies be, which are far more intimately and closely united to us than any garment?” I believe Augustine is teaching us how integral and connected the body is to our souls. With this understanding, he suggests that to truly honor the dead, we must honor the body—the home of the soul. But again, Augustine seems not to be too concerned with how the body is physically treated but rather that it is given personal and spiritual respect.

I am not sure about the doctrinal reliability of Aunt Helen, but if we are to take Jesus as an example, and combine his teachings with the attitude of Saint Augustine, then it seems our practices of burying our dead are largely subject to our own preferences. However, it doesn’t always feel like that is the case. For instance, Church policy used to prohibit members to practice cremation of the dead. Is it because we thought the Resurrection would be more difficult if our bodies were ashes instead of compost? I am not sure of the intent of such prior policy, but it does highlight the gap that we find within our gospel understanding: that the functioning of the resurrection is not fully understood. Whatever mechanism will one day reunite our bodies and spirits, the Resurrection is and will be sufficiently powerful. If matter is neither created nor destroyed—which is true—then the molecules that make up your body were once part of people in the past and will be reused in people in the future. This seems like a far bigger challenge to resolve than reuniting Aunt Helen with her leg. But again, we have failed to answer the simple question: What are we to do with a dead body?

What does Christian theology tell us about dead bodies? I no longer see the questions as merely a theological issue but rather a deeply personal issue. Just as people don’t see themselves as mere carriers of discrete thoughts and ideas, we also shouldn’t view death as just a philosophical abstraction. But what then are the implications of this holistic synthesis of death—both physical and spiritual? I posit that what we do with a body is largely a function of what we understand the body to be. Our acts reflect our understanding of death. Our acts also reflect the combined effects of each of our personal values, meaning that what one does with a dead body will likely be determined by all the values and ideologies that person possesses, even those unrelated to death. This holistic perspective might lead to some values being in conflict within yourself and almost certainly with the values of others. This makes the question all the more difficult—realizing that the question of what to do with a dead body is not completely a personal decision but a cultural one as well.

Death will remain compelling and its meaning elusive for as long as humans persist. My own personal experiences would likely lead me to handle a dead body differently than how my grandpa’s brother was handled—I likely wouldn’t include an open-casket viewing. But is one way more correct than the other? Before I began this piece, my response would have been the most affordable option, cremation, followed by the disposal of ashes. Now, as I conclude and think over all that I have learned about myself and death, I am far more uncertain. My first request would be that people would not view my body as my whole self. I would prefer it to be viewed as the previous house of my consciousness, but no longer the current one. Given this, I would hope that it is prepared in the most environmentally friendly manner, whatever that may be. If I were to be made into compost or fertilizer, I would appreciate it being spread over my favorite flower, Calochortus nuttallii, a sego lily.

I still feel uncomfortable with the way we treat dead bodies, and that is likely due to my personal views regarding death, along with other things. In fact, I don’t really enjoy any type of funeral service. But I better understand now that as humans, we are multidimensional creatures that struggle to reconcile all of our values and experiences. They bleed into every aspect of our lives, even the way we handle a dead person. Even now, I don’t feel satisfied with my answer to the question: What should you do with a dead body? I suppose further introspection is required. This process will likely never be complete because I don’t assume I will ever fully know myself. But for now, I feel content knowing that the practices around dead people are simply another expression of self. This may not fully satisfy you; it doesn’t seem to quite satisfy me either. But I know one thing: I won’t be around to decide what gets done with my own dead body.

Elias Johnson is an ecologist writing at the intersection of science, ethics, and culture, whose work engages primarily with biodiversity, ecology, theology, and the human relationship with nature—but no topic is off-limits.