Lay Me in God’s Good Earth, Kent Burreson and Beth Hoeltke. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514007600) 2024.

Summary: A Christian approach to death, care for body of the deceased, and burial, making the case for natural burial.

The height of the COVID pandemic accentuated the increasingly institutionalized and impersonal ways in which we deal with the ultimate realities of dying, death, and the bodies of our deceased. Given the deadly character of the infection, dying patients were isolated. They often spoke their final words to family on an I-Pad. They died alone, perhaps comforted by a masked and begowned caregiver. Because of public health concerns, families couldn’t gather for funeral services or bury their dead. It was an extreme version of the increasingly common American way of dying, controlled by the medical and funeral establishment, with the family and one’s faith community playing marginal parts.

Kent Burreson and Beth Hoeltke advocate a very different approach to death and burial. As Lutheran Christians, they believe our approach to dying and our burial practices ought to reflect our faith. Specifically, they focus on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as both our hope and pattern. In this, we find both the example of being lovingly laid to rest and the hope of our own bodily resurrection as part of the renewal of all things in the new heaven and earth.

They invite us to rethink things we may not want to think about at all. They begin with burial. Instead of embalming, makeup, expensive metal caskets and concrete vaults, or energy intensive cremations, they advocate natural burial in which an unembalmed body either in a shroud or wooden casket is committed to the earth. They contend this is most consonant with Christian belief and the most environmental way of burial. For this reason, another name for natural burial is “green burial.”

The authors invite us into end-of-life planning. Not only do they consider our burial practices. They also discuss how we talk about or euphemize death. Likewise, they offer resources for how we support the dying, including where we die. We learn about death doulas, who walk with families through the dying practice. They explore alternatives to the funeral home, including preparing and laying out the body at home. We learn how to treat bodies of loved ones with dignity. They discuss funeral services–not “celebrations of life” where both the reality of death, with the body present, and the hope of the resurrection are joined.

The book is both theological and practical. Some of the practice reflects the particularities of Lutheran order. While the authors discuss various alternatives, they clearly prefer death at home, family preparation of the body, church funerals, and natural burial. A group I read this with struggled to find a biblical case for this. At best, we found that these practices broadly reflect a Christian understanding of death, the dignity of the body, and our resurrection hope. But we noted both other burial practices in church history and the reality that no matter the disposition of the body, the supernatural reconstitution needed in resurrection. The strongest argument, especially for natural burial, is the ecological one.

However, the book is very practical. Some may be squeamish in reading the chapter on washing and preparing the body. Yet, this is what families do in much of the world. We didn’t embalm the dead in this country until the Civil War. The authors inform us of permits needed to transport bodies, and of states that require funeral directors to do this. They discuss where burials may take place, including church yards, where this was once common, or even on private property (check the laws in your state) as well as the growing number of “green” cemeteries.

The last third of the book is in workbook form, allowing the reader to begin their own process of planning. Additional appendices offer resources, including comparative burial costs, books, websites, and state by state funeral boards.

The reader may or may not agree with their preferred approaches. However, this book offers resources for beginning hard but important family conversations. It also offers a wealth of resources for pastors to teach on death and dying. Most of all, it stirs me to think about how we might live our hope even in our dying.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.