Interpreting Death: Christian Theology and Pastoral Practice

Looking at the meaning of death, and at cremation and funeral rites, this book seeks to empower the Christian Church as it develops its resources in response to contemporary needs in bereavement. What is death? Is it, as one writer put it "nothing at all"? Or is it a mystery so deep as to be as valuable as life? What, if anything, is Heaven? Are funerals intended to serve the dead or the living? Have secularism, the consumer society, the widespread use of cremation as a means of dispposal, and the growth of ecological awareness, made a difference to our attitudes to death? The contributors, who are all involved with the spiritual, practical, pastoral and theological aspects of death, attempt to answer these and other questions.