It has been said that the only thing certain in life are death and taxes.  If that is the case, then Dr. Sarah Bond — assistant professor of history at Marquette University — has discovered a very interesting topic for research.  Prof. Bond examines the changes to the funeral industry that occured in the Late Antiquity portion of the Roman Empire resulting from Constantine’s Edict of Milan.  Through the course of this interview, we find out that workers in the “death industry” received some pretty sweet tax exemptions for their service.  And this wasn’t the only noteworthy item about the lives of what Sarah refers to as “disreputable workers.”

We begin with a discussion of Sarah’s general work on “disreputable professions” in ancient times, and she defines what this term means — careers in occupations that most people find distasteful and whose workers tend to remain “invisible,” yet critically important, to society.  Funeral workers are the classic example of such a profession given that their contact with the deceased (who often die in violent or vile ways) conveys a sense of “death pollution” on them.  Sarah notes that in pagan times, funeral workers were required to live outside of the city walls and would only be allowed into the city under the cover of dark to retrieve bodies.  We discuss several of the other traditions associated with death at the time, including the preference for cremation over inhumation (i.e., burial).

With the rise of Emperor Constantine (and his co-Emperor Licinius in the East), things begin to change.  The Edict of Milan puts Christianity on an equal footing as pagan religions, and soon thereafter the Church begins to see a flood of state financial support.  Being a bishop now conveys more political and economic power in the Empire, and with it come changes in how the funeral industry operates.  Sarah discusses how stronger patron-client relationships between bishops and funeral workers emerge, and how these funeral workers were often employed as personal “gangs” or “para-militaries” for the Church hierarchs.  Some of the stories are incredible!  Along the way, we also are given a sense for who is all involved in the funeral process, including paid mourners.  Sarah teaches Tony a number of very cool Latin words.  Prof. Bond also talks about the Cult of the Saints, and how the desire by wealthy people to be buried near a Christian saint, and the general lack of burial space (a scarce commodity), led to a great deal of corruption.  Tony, ever the political economists, points out that this is an excellent example of rent-seeking behavior wherein a small group with coercive power controls access to a scarce resource and can extract all sorts of additional income and favors in exchange for that access.

Dr. Bond concludes our podcast with her reflections on what the study of the death industry and other “disreputable professions” in Late Antiquity can teach us about our current conditions.  While the institutions of funeral services have changed over time, she notes that we still have certain cultural visions about people who provide these valuable services to society.  Tell your friends about this truly fascinating discussion as it has valuted upwards to become one of Tony’s favorite podcasts over the course of 170 other interviews.  Please connect with us via our Facebook Fan Page for regular updates.  Recorded: October 3, 2013.

RELATED LINKS

Sarah Bond’s webpage at Marquette University.

RELATED PODCASTS

Gary Laderman on Resting in Peace: The Death Industry in American History.

Jim Papandrea on the Church Fathers and Patristic Exegisis.

Rodney Stark on the Triumph of Christianity, Part I.

Brian O’Neel on Saint Who?

As we typically do, the interview starts with a bit of background to Prof. Laderman.  He indicates some of his favorite horror films and then discusses how he came to study the topic of funerals in American history, first examining death in the 19th century in his first book The Sacred Remains and then the sequel to this work, Rest in Peace.  The discussion of how death and funerals have been conceived of in American history begins with an examination of George Washington’s passing.  Prof. Laderman contrasts the pageantry and reverence given to our first president with what became of a man who committed suicide around the same time.  The latter’s body was used for dissection, which at the time was not something that was widely discussed.  We also cover the typical process of funerals in America at this time, which often occurred at home, particularly in rural areas.

The next pivotal moment in the death industry came following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  While this event was momentous for the nation in many other aspects (cf. Sean Scott’s podcast on religious rhetoric in the Civil War), the drawn out funeral and viewing of Lincoln’s body brought attention to a rather new technology that was set to change the death industry in the U.S. — embalming.  With the rise of embalming, we see the creation of professional specialties such as the undertaker (or mortician).  And much like ancient guilds, this funeral business industry begins to develop professional societies, codes of ethics, and training schools.  While it begins as mostly a family business, with undertakers often using their own abodes as “funeral homes,” eventually it develops into the form that we know it today, taking the practice away from an individual’s home.  Gary points out later in the interview that over the past century dying tends to occur in hospitals and is segregated from the land of the living.

Tony asks about whether or not the 20th century experience with wartime mass casualties and the increasing visibility of these deaths via television (particularly with the Vietnam War) have any impact.  Gary doesn’t believe that had a significant impact noting that these were still individuals dying on the battlefield and their funerals were still a personal matter for families.  However, he does note that in 1963 the publication of Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death, an exposé of the death industry, impacted the national conscience.  As a New York Times bestseller, we see how this book shifts attention away from the casket burial and towards cremation over the next several decades.  He also notes regional variation with the West and urban areas relying on cremation much sooner, whereas the South tended to lag behind in this trend.  He also notes a few other recent developments in the 21st century including the popular YouTube series “Ask a Mortician.”

We finish with some of Gary’s thoughts on what he has learned over the course of his study of this topic, as well as how his views have changed as he grows older.  Recorded: October 17,2014.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Gary Laderman’s bio at Emory University.

The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883, by Gary Laderman.

Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America, by Gary Laderman.

Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States, by Gary Laderman.

American Civil Religion, an e-book by Gary Laderman.

Sacred Matters, Prof. Laderman’s new online journal project.

Religion Dispatches, an online journal founded by Prof. Laderman.

The King’s Two Bodies, by Ernst Kantorowicz (mentioned in podcast).

The American Way of Death, by Jessica Mitford (mentioned in podcast).

“Ask a Mortician,” a YouTube Series (mentioned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Sarah Bond on the Church and Funerals in Late Antiquity.

Scott Poole on Monsters.

Chris White on Debunking Ancient Aliens.

Chris Bader on Ghosts, UFOs, and the Paranormal.

Sean Scott on Religious Rhetoric in the US Civil War.

We begin with a discussion of Sarah’s general work on “disreputable professions” in ancient times, and she defines what this term means — careers in occupations that most people find distasteful and whose workers tend to remain “invisible,” yet critically important, to society.  Funeral workers are the classic example of such a profession given that their contact with the deceased (who often die in violent or vile ways) conveys a sense of “death pollution” on them.  Sarah notes that in pagan times, funeral workers were required to live outside of the city walls and would only be allowed into the city under the cover of dark to retrieve bodies.  We discuss several of the other traditions associated with death at the time, including the preference for cremation over inhumation (i.e., burial).

With the rise of Emperor Constantine (and his co-Emperor Licinius in the East), things begin to change.  The Edict of Milan puts Christianity on an equal footing as pagan religions, and soon thereafter the Church begins to see a flood of state financial support.  Being a bishop now conveys more political and economic power in the Empire, and with it come changes in how the funeral industry operates.  Sarah discusses how stronger patron-client relationships between bishops and funeral workers emerge, and how these funeral workers were often employed as personal “gangs” or “para-militaries” for the Church hierarchs.  Some of the stories are incredible!  Along the way, we also are given a sense for who is all involved in the funeral process, including paid mourners.  Sarah teaches Tony a number of very cool Latin words.  Prof. Bond also talks about the Cult of the Saints, and how the desire by wealthy people to be buried near a Christian saint, and the general lack of burial space (a scarce commodity), led to a great deal of corruption.  Tony, ever the political economists, points out that this is an excellent example of rent-seeking behavior wherein a small group with coercive power controls access to a scarce resource and can extract all sorts of additional income and favors in exchange for that access.

Dr. Bond concludes our podcast with her reflections on what the study of the death industry and other “disreputable professions” in Late Antiquity can teach us about our current conditions.  While the institutions of funeral services have changed over time, she notes that we still have certain cultural visions about people who provide these valuable services to society.  Tell your friends about this truly fascinating discussion as it has valuted upwards to become one of Tony’s favorite podcasts over the course of 170 other interviews.  Please connect with us via our Facebook Fan Page for regular updates.  Recorded: October 3, 2013.

RELATED LINKS

Sarah Bond’s webpage at Marquette University.

RELATED PODCASTS

Jim Papandrea on the Church Fathers and Patristic Exegisis.

Rodney Stark on the Triumph of Christianity, Part I.

Brian O’Neel on Saint Who?

]]> http://www.researchonreligion.org/historical-topics/sarah-bond-on-the-church-and-funerals-in-late-antiquity/feed 2 http://www.researchonreligion.org/christianity/melissa-matthes-on-sermons-after-tragedies http://www.researchonreligion.org/christianity/melissa-matthes-on-sermons-after-tragedies#comments Sun, 08 Sep 2013 08:00:22 +0000 http://www.researchonreligion.org/?p=2804 With the 12th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks upon us, we examine how clergy respond to national tragedies in their sermons.  What does a priest or pastor say to a congregation looking for answers to an unimaginable and shocking event?  Are there any common themes that emerge among clergy when confronted with national tragedy, or are their responses conditioned by the specific context.  To address these questions, we invited Prof. Melissa Matthes – associate professor of government and the humanities at the US Coast Guard Academy – to talk about her research project examining sermons following such momentous events.  She has been reading sermons that were delivered in the weeks following the attack on Pearl Harbor (1941), the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (1963) and Martin Luther King (1968), the Los Angeles riots of 1992, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (1995), and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (2001).

We begin with Dr. Matthes’s account of how she came to undertake this study, which was prompted by her personal experience with the events of 9/11 given that her husband was working in NYC at the time and that she knew several victims of the tragedy.  Melissa attended services at her local parish within 48 hours of 9/11 and talked with a number of other colleagues who did as well.  The fact that people all around the country flocked to houses of worship almost immediately is an indication of how important religious denominations remain as part of our civic education.  Melissa notes that people turn towards the clergy in times of crisis for answers on how to make sense of what seems unimaginable.

Interestingly, Melissa noted her disappointment with the relative lack of mourning for the victims of 9/11 in many of the sermons at that time.  This prompts an interesting discussion about the role of public mourning and grief in times of tragedy.  Prof. Matthes references the famous Greek play Antigone and notes how Adolph Hitler not only banned that piece of literature but also prohibited German citizens from attending large scale public funerals for fear that they would be a rallying point for political opposition.  Tony notes how important funerals have been in recent years with the publicly expressed grief surrounding death of a Tunisian street vendor setting off what we today call the “Arab Spring.”

Dr. Matthes then details the nature of her study, explaining the choice of crises she examined, how she selected the sermons, and the questions she set out to examine.  Primarily, Melissa wanted to investigate the nature of public mourning, how church-state relations were viewed by the clergy during moments of crisis, and how the clergy conceived of patriotism.  Tony then asks a series of questions about whether many of these sermons – dating back to Pearl Harbor and ending with 9/11 – contain common theological themes or references to biblical passages.  He also inquires whether she noted denominational differences in the nature of the sermons or whether or not there was a call to be find more ecumenical common ground in our nation’s responses.

We then walk through several of Dr. Matthes’s case studies, with particular emphasis on Pearl Harbor, the JFK and MLK assassinations, and September 11.  Interestingly, we discover that the sermons immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor do not contain “rally around the flag” messages, but instead emphasize the need to promote a peaceful response.  In part, Melissa argues that this emphasis is due to clergy feeling somewhat betrayed by their close association with the US government during World War I and a desire to stand back from the government at the time, much to the dismay of President Franklin Roosevelt.  With respect to the two assassinations occurring in the 1960s, Melissa notes that John Kennedy’s death was conceived as an act of martyrdom and in Christ-like terms, a surprising response given that Kennedy was not necessarily all that popular just prior to his death.  Moreover, she observed that many clergy tended to blame society for “pulling the trigger,” and use JFK’s death as a moment of national reflection.  The response to Martin Luther King’s assassination was different.  Surprisingly, far fewer sermons were saved following that event (as compared to the Kennedy assassination where people actually sent sermons to the JFK presidential library).  Melissa notes a sense of “national resignation” amongst the clergy following the death of MLK and also notes how the response of black clergy differed from white pastors.

In terms of the response to September 11, and in much contrast to the much-analogized attack on Pearl Harbor, clergy responded with sermons that advocated “lining up with the state” to fix the problem and then to move forward.  Gone, to a significant extent, was the sense of public mourning that had accompanied earlier tragedies.  We finish with Melissa’s broad reflections on her study.  She is most impressed with the fact of how relevant churches remain in the life of the U.S. even while participation in institutional religion seems to be on the wane.  Recorded: September 8, 2011.

RELATED LINKS

Melissa Matthes’s bio at the US Coast Guard Academy.

RELATED PODCASTS

Ron Mock on Pacificism, War, and Terrorism.

RELATED LINKS

Redemption Church website.

 RELATED LINKS

Matt Boswell on Starting a Church (Really Fast!).

Matt Boswell on Building Redemption Church, Part II.

Scott Thompson on Youth Ministry.

Ryan Habig on Music Ministry (including the soon-to-be hit single “With Us” for free!).

Joe Fuiten on Clergy & Politics.

Should Christians Have Fought in the US War of Independence?

Ron Mock on Pacifism, War, and Terrorism.