From Revd Amy Brown, recipient of the John Hull MA Dissertation Prize 2025 for her thesis: ‘What are the pastoral implications of direct cremations? How might the Church of England respond?‘
On telling people that my research was about direct cremations, I received one of two responses; either, “Oh my goodness! That’s so interesting and very timely!” or a strange look accompanied with words along the lines of, “Why on earth do you want to think about that?!”
Well, 20% of all funerals in 2024 were direct cremations.[1] That’s 1 in 5! It’s such a high percentage, yet no one in the Church seemed to be talking about it. That’s why I wanted to think about it. From the outset, I firmly believed that as people of hope, the Church has the language to speak powerfully to those left behind after a direct cremation and so set about finding out as much about them as I could.
Using a literature review and interviews with funeral directors, I gained insight into the societal factors contributing in different ways to the increasing and sustained trend for direct cremations. These included post-materialism, secularisation, the cost-of-living crisis, sequestration of death and the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying Ariès and Jacobson’s respective “forbidden death”[2] and “spectacular death”[3] mentalities, I also found that direct cremations appeal in different ways to those whose death mentality was developed during the latter half of the twentieth century (forbidden death) and those whose death mentality was developed during the first quarter of the twenty-first century (spectacular death), therefore giving direct cremations a very broad appeal.
I then surveyed ministers to understand the challenges of ministering to the bereaved after a direct cremation had taken place. Nearly two thirds of those who took part in the online survey (19 out of 30 participants) indicated that they had ministered after a direct cremation had taken place.
Their responses fell broadly into three categories:
- unresolved loss stemming from lack of ritual and an incomplete rite of passage
- the gap in the wishes of the deceased and those of friends and family who are left behind
- the negative perception of Church funerals and the idea that people are not given the full picture when buying a direct cremation package.
While the first feels like an obvious challenge, the research highlighted points two and three to be more deeply rooted and further reaching pastoral implications of direct cremation
The final part of the thesis offered some suggestion in response to the findings. In order to address the presenting issue, the first suggestion centred around changing the liturgy to produce something which could be used after a direct cremation has taken place. Offering three differing scenarios, I suggested ways in which existing liturgy could be used and adapted for the context. Secondly, to begin to address the two underlying issues I suggested that the Church needs to be a part of changing, and, in many cases initiating, the conversations which take place around death, dying and funerals. Again, this suggestion grew out of materials which already exist applied differently. Finally, I suggested how the Church might work to change perceptions of funerals among the general public and funeral directions as well as internally.
During the research and writing of this thesis, I spent lots of time immersed in those ubiquitous adverts you see on daytime television and capturing anecdotes of ministers encountering families and friends who feel betrayal, guilt, confusion and hopeless. Often the relatives have not chosen this way of saying goodbye, the deceased has chosen it for themselves and I was saddened that such weight was being felt by those remaining after a direct cremation had taken place.
However, I was also gladdened by the responses to this research because it highlights that people are still looking to the Church for consolation in their grief and that ministers are offering them pastoral care in a variety of ways. This shows me that the Church is still relevant and has something powerful and comforting with which to bless those who mourn.
Ultimately, the increased and sustained trend for direct cremation should raise the following question for the Church of England, and the Church of God more broadly: How can we, as people of Christian hope, speak God’s hope into this situation which, to those left behind, can seem hopeless? My prayer is that this research, while small in scope and imperfect in its methodology, will be the beginnings of answering that question.
I am deeply grateful to all those who participated in the research, my supervisor, Mark Earey, for his wisdom and insights, and to everyone who listened to me verbally process my research and challenged my thinking. I am also very grateful to The Queen’s Foundation for the award. I hope that this research might be a useful resource to people in parishes and circuits across the country.
Amy recently completed her studies at Queen’s as part of her formation for ordination in the Church of England. Studying on the Queen’s residential pathway, her dissertation research constitutes the final component of her Master’s degree in Theology, Ministry and Mission, validated by Durham University.
[1] SunLife, SunLife Cost of Dying 2025 Report (SunLife, 2025), p. 17 <https://www.sunlife.co.uk/siteassets/documents/cost-of-dying/sunlife-cost-of-dying-report-2025.pdf/> [accessed 17 January 2025].
[2] Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. by Particia M. Ranum (Marion Boyars, 1974), pp. 85–107.
[3] Michael Hviid Jacobsen, ‘“Spectacular Death” – Proposing a New Fifth Phase to Philippe Ariès’s Admirable History of Death’, Humanities, 5.2 (2016), pp. 1–20.
