The Guardian have reported that Scotland are the first part of the UK to legalise hydrolosis, an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation or burial. They report:

Also known as water cremation or aquamation, the process is already available in many parts of the world, and regulations approved by the Scottish parliament on Monday mark the most significant change to funeral law since cremation was introduced in 1902.

Replicating the natural process of decomposition that occurs after burial, but over a much shorter period of time, hydrolysis uses a strong alkaline solution to break down the body of the deceased person.

The body is immersed in water and 5% alkaline, such as potassium chloride, for three to four hours in a pressurised metal cylinder and heated to about 150C (300F).

This dissolves the body tissue, leaving only bones, which are then dried and pulverised into white dust. This is placed in an urn and relatives can choose to keep, scatter or bury it just as they would with traditional ashes from a fire cremation.

With that, the perioidic Christian discussion concerning the appropriate means of dealing with post-mortem bodies will almost certainly reignite. That discussion typically revolves around whether burial is a biblically mandated means of dealing with dead bodies or whether cremation is a perfectly legitimate and acceptable choice for Christian funerals. Added to the mix will now be whether water cremation is in any way legitimate or if burial in a graveyard is the only acceptable means.

To that end, I thought I would repost the below article discussing the biblical grounds for preferring one means of bodily disposal over another. I think the points that it makes would all apply equally to the questions around water cremation. The only things perhaps worth adding or highlight beyond what the article below states are the following few things.

First, few address the validity of sea burials in these discussions. Partly, that is because the question is often framed as a matter concerning the legitimacy of cremation rather than the asking whether the solely acceptable means of bodily disposal is land burial. However, how we think about sea burials may also impact how we view aquamation.

Second, as has been argued many times before, cremation simply speeds up the process of decomposition that happens to the body when it is buried. Aquamation does precisely the same thing, replicating the natural process of composition after burial, but over a quicker period of time. What fundamentally happens to the body is the same.

Third, a major consideratio will be how this gets viewed culturally. There are biblical issues, such as creation care, that might be well served by choosing an environmentally friendly form of bodily disposal. At the same time, aquamation may end up being viewed as prioritising the created world over the human body, which would convey something altogether unhelpful. It may be that this is more or less of a live issue depending on your context. I am being somewat imaginative here, but if you lived in a largely animist culture I can see you might end up conveying something through this that you wouldn’t in a largely post-enlightenment Western context.

As I argue below (you will need to read it for the full case), the primary issue is what we convey culturally and contextually. The difficulty with newer approaches, like aquamation, is they are yet to gain much traction and don’t have much cultural visibility; how they are viewed, as yet, waits to be seen. But I think it is a legitimate means for a Christian based on the arguments I provide in the post below. None of them are undercut by it.

Have a read and see what you think.

Cremation or burial: why I’m not convinced it matters nearly as much as some think