Long ago at Covenant Chapel, one Reverend Rayburn gave a talk so controversial that those present then still remember it today. This talk was not on any matter relating to contentious politics, nor was it one espousing anything terribly new. Rather, the subject that got so many Covenant students heated in the ’90s was cremation; more specifically, why Christians should not be cremated.
This is a subject that is not new to Christianity, but controversy around it is. As western Christianity has gone on, there has been a loss of coherent social teaching, hence why most Christians don't really have strong opinions on cremation. But to the early church, it was an important matter, which they spoke on due to their understanding that the body and soul are equally important and an aversion to pagan practices.
The early church's view of burial was closely tied to the understanding of the interaction between body and soul. Doctrinally, the body was equally important as the soul to the human person, hence the physical restoration in the resurrection. We see this expressed by Augustine in his defense of burial as the best option in the chapter 13 of “City of God,” Reasons for Burying the Saints. He says, “Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised and left unburied; … For the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man’s very Nature.”
Additionally, cremation was a pagan practice that the Hebrews avoided, and which the Christians continued to avoid, to avoid being marked as pagan. Such actions have precedence in scripture; it's why tattoos are banned in Leviticus, and there is still merit to the idea that cremation reflects more secular values than the Christian hope of the resurrection.
I understand why some may view advocating for a certain type of burial as superior then others as superfluous, but there is something to be learned from the early Christians’ defense of burial. Often, we tend to focus so much on the doctrines surrounding salvation that we don't realize that every decision we make in life and in death reflects our faith and hope.