Go Gentle Into that Green Night: Ecospirituality in Western Christian Burial Practices?

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s

head, and to listen to silence.” (Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost”) This connection with nature

that we may find through death and burial expresses the core sentiments of ecospirituality.

Ecospirituality as it is understood in the West refers to the practise of reconnecting with the spiritual

connection between humanity and nature, in addition to providing a critique of Western

consumerism. Becoming united as one body within the earth, to give nourishment to new life

springing from one’s own death, that is truly a spiritual experience. This essay explores firstly, how

ecospirituality engages with the Christian view of the afterlife, and subsequently considers

ecospirituality as a tool for the alleviation of eco grief, and concludes with an examination of

Christian funeral practices in the West as compared to the native Indonesian community, to

demonstrate how adoption of a green burial ritual is necessary for Christian ecospirituality.

Moema Miranda offers a view of an indigenous Brazilian experience of ecospirituality:

"This spiritual presence ... doesn't fit into the framework of the rational, the theological…it’s much

more. We increasingly transform into an ecospiritual community, because ecospirituality develops

in community.”1 Ecospirituality acknowledges and works in tandem with science to promote

ecologically sustainable action, and proposes an attitude towards corpses as a sacred part of nature,

interpreting death as a unifier which “exposes our inherent oneness as a human family”.2 In

contrast, although the concept of an afterlife provides consolation for many experiencing grief, the

Christian over-subscription to the concept of heaven as ‘wish-fulfilment’ at the expense of eco

spiritual engagement is a source of criticism for many eco theologians.3 To illustrate this point,

1 Barbara Fraser, ’Ecospirituality is more than ecology and theology. It calls us to

reconnect,’ (2022) EarthBeat.
2Shadi Touloui-Wallace, ‘Eco-Caskets: The Spiritual How – and Why – of Green Burials’ (2021)
bahaieachings.org.
3 Anne Primavesi, Gaia’s Gift: Earth, Ourselves and God After Copernicus (Routledge 2003), 88.
Bawker observes the tradition of Western burial as a transient stage between life and afterlife, and

the function of religion itself as a tool for grappling with the natural phenomena of death.4 Taking a

step further, Stewart laments “the disappearance of the earth and the body of the deceased from the

Christian funeral".5 The processional tradition of Christian funerals enforces the view of the

deceased body as merely a vessel to the afterlife, as missing a vital opportunity for ecospiritual

connection by perpetuating a Western detachment from the reality of death.6 In this regard,

Primavesi identifies “a common criticism of the religious concept of heaven: that it encourages us

to shirk taking effective action to bring about a better world in the present by offering an irrational

and illusory escape into a future fantasy one.”7 Consequently, the earth is deprived of its perceived

value, undermining ecospirituality by asserting that life on earth is merely transitory. The

significance of death and burial and its ecological impact is disregarded in favour of an idealistic

impatience for what comes next, as per Primavesi: “Christianity has exhaled heaven at earth’s

expense, literally, figuratively and symbolically. …Consistently…eternal life is made the goal of

life on earth.”8 Yet, somewhat paradoxically, “the fear of death that drives us to make this ultimate

claim of [human exceptionalism] is itself evidence of a fundamental biological bond between us and

all sentient beings.”9

The current state of ecological degradation forces us to engage with a new, more pervasive

experience of grief and loss; a loss which results directly from our abuses of power, yet increasingly

spirals out of control, rendering us powerless. In his paper, ‘The Night Office: Loss, Darkness, and

the Practice of Solidarity,’ Christie discusses this pervasive sense of ending, of eco grief, that

4 John Bowker, The Meanings Of Death (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1-42.
5Benjamin M Stewart, ‘Committed to the Earth: Ecotheological Dimensions of Christian Burial
Practices’ (2012) Liturgy, 27:2, 62.
6 Stewart, 66.
7 Primavesi.
8 Primavesi, 89.
9 Primavesi, 103.
underpins ecological awareness, the sense that “the world is coming undone.”10 This is exacerbated

further by an increasing loss of space to mourn within Christianity, causing “an unravelling of the

ties of kinship that bind us to the lives of other beings.”11 Christie further contemplates how an

increased “consciousness of the end, especially of one’s mortality, could help create the conditions

for paying more careful attention to every aspect of one’s existence, and for living with a greater

sense of purpose,” a sentiment which is supported by Christian monastic literature.12 It is becoming

increasingly apparent from these literary discussions that an engagement with ecospirituality can

serve to alleviate eco grief. In this regard, Camorinno writes on how the reductionist, Christian

mind-body divide views the body as a cage and prevents an earthly immortality of the soul, thus

creating an obstacle for any deep engagement with ecospirituality.13 It is evident, therefore, that to

fully engage with ecospirituality for the good of the planet, the Christian view of the body in

relation to the Earth must be healed. This is supported by the ideologies of the “green nuns”

movement, who promote reinterpreting the natural world as a sacred space of worship through

ecologically sustainable living, but also the equal importance of ecologically sustainable dying.14

Accordingly, in the practise of accepting experiences of loss and grief as natural, and granting

permission to mourn, it is helpful to reimagine Western death practices through extending our view

of Christianity outside of the West.

10Douglas E Christie, ‘The Night O ce: Loss, Darkness, and the Practice of Solidarity’ Anglican
Theological Review (2017), 99(2), 219.
11Douglas Burton-Christie, ‘The Gift of Tears: Loss, Mourning and the Work of Ecological
Restoration’ Worldviews (2011), 15(1), 71.
12 Ibid, 85.
13Antonio Camorinno, ’Mother Nature and the nature of motherhood: gestational surrogacy and
ecospirituality as two postmodern forms of sacralization’ (Current Sociology Monograph 2021)
69(2), 212-30.
14Sarah McFarland-Taylor, “Reinhabiting religion, green sisters, ecological renewal, and the
biogeography of religious landscape”, in eds. Roger S Cottlieb, This Sacred Earth: Religion,
Nature, Environment (2nd ed.) 613-33.
ffi
 While the Western funeral industry is intent on perpetuating the Christian dissociation from

death and loss of ritual, Doughty provides a first-hand account of an alternative experience of death

in Tana Toraja, Indonesia.15 The Torajan people are predominantly Christian, but combine their

beliefs with animism, mysticism and magic, and follow highly ritualistic death practices known as

“ma’nene”. It is customary for Torajans to grow up with mummified corpses of family members in

their houses, and these remains of the deceased are treated with a level of dignity and respect

seemingly unimaginable to the Christians of the West — they are cleaned, clothed, regularly visited

(as great importance is placed on maintaining the social connection between the living and the

dead), and the whole village attends the grand ma’nene funerary rituals. Torajan belief interprets

death as more akin to a sickness, wherein the physically deceased are only “asleep” (mamma’)” and

can still “feel everything” (nasa’dingan apa-apa).”16 In this interpretation of Christianity, we see that

embracing the significance of death head-on is possible, and, for the Torajan people, provides a

deeply healing experience of mourning and understanding of the ecospiritual nature of death. While

the vast majority of Western Christians may not be overly inspired by the idea of cohabiting with

their mummified loved ones, these Indonesian practises demonstrate the existence of a framework

for an ecospiritual death within Christianity.

In recent years, green burials have been steadily gaining traction in both scientific and

theological communities, and a broad range of alternatives to traditional burial, sometimes

accompanied by chemical embalming, or cremation, which involve great environmental destruction

through burial of caskets made from non-biodegradable materials, the absorption of harmful

embalming chemicals into the earth, or high levels of polluting gases released into the atmosphere

during cremation, are being explored. The most popular, and perhaps most appealing to the

traditional Christian ideology, green burial method is that of natural burial. Natural burial proposes

15Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (1st edn.)
(W.W. Norton & Company, 2017), 40-8.
16 Doughty, 48.
a sustainable alternative, with the vast majority of bodies not undergoing any embalming

procedures, and the burial vessel consists of simple, untreated wood or burial shrouds, enabling

rapid decomposition and avoiding any environmental damage. This natural return to the earth

accords with ancient Christian theology and burial practises, and promotes a more engaged

understanding of ecospirituality in practice within Christianity, reimagining the Christian narrative

of resurrection as embodied through ecological rebirth from human remains after death,17 and

forgoing man’s unnatural interventions in nature in attempts to fight bodily decay and chemically

preserve corpses.18

It has been demonstrated that, in focusing solely on an ideal of resurrection in the afterlife,

the Christian understanding of death neglects the vital emotional and ecospiritual

interconnectedness of the experience. Loss is natural, and should not be fought by any Christian

attempts to transcend death, nor accelerated by anthropocentric environmental destruction, but

embraced without fear, as we have seen is possible by exploring Indonesian death rituals.19 In the

words of Marcus Aurelius: “To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without

complaint. / Like an olive that ripens and falls. / Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.” It

is my hope that, like the olive that ripens and falls, a more ecospiritual Christianity can grow and

learn to praise Mother Earth, to eventually nourish with their bodily remains the soil from which

olive trees may grow anew.

17Kristen Poole, Christianity in a Time of Climate Change: To Give a Future With Hope (Wipe &
Stock 2020), 145.
18 Stewart, 62.
19 Douglas E Christie.