Although I was baptized and raised as Greek Orthodox Christian, for some reason I have always felt more closely connected to the religious beliefs on my fathers side of the family, which are that of the episcopal church. So I decided to do some research on episcopalian beliefs. Like all Christian faiths, Episcopalians believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and the one who was, "sent by God to free us from the power of sin, so that with the help of God we may live in harmony with God, within ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation" (An Outline of Faith). In this faith, eternal life means a new existence after death where all the people of God are together either in Heaven or Hell. "By heaven, we mean eternal life in our enjoyment of God; by hell, we mean eternal death in our rejection of God" (An Outline of Faith). Episcopalians also clarify what form the body will go into heaven with after a person passes away. Apparently, God will raise the spirit, in the form of the human body that it used to be confined to in life, into the heavens. "Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (An Outline of Faith) It appears that the Episcopalians believe in a strict afterlife that consists of Heaven and Hell, but whichever one you go to you will still be in the shape of your body on earth.
(information found at http://www.episcopalspringfield.org/faith_outline.html)
I was not aware of any Episcopalian church's anywhere near my area, so I decided to call the person in my family with the most experience in this particular faith that I could think of, which is my oldest aunt. When I asked her how she felt about death in relationship to her religious beliefs, she told me that she believes in a Heaven, but is not quite sure what to make of the idea of Hell. "It doesn't seem right, having someone suffer for all of eternity because of sins they committed in their short time on earth. No matter how bad of a person someone is, nobody deserves that. It seems like the atheist idea of oblivion after death would be bad enough." I then asked her how she felt about the religious affiliations with the way that bodies were cared for after the person has died. "Well, personally I think that I would want to be cremated like my mother did. For some reason, it feels more spiritual, like the soul would rise up with the smoke to heaven."
To first analyze what my aunt was saying, I think it is interesting that she feels that her soul will be freed more easily if she is cremated because I used to (and sort of still do) feel the same way. However, that is because of the only cremation I had ever seen before, which was actually in the first new Star Wars movie that came out. In the end, everyone was gathering around the man who had been killed, while is body was burned outdoors and completely exposed to the rest of the world. In my opinion, this is sort of a peaceful image, and is probably the reason why I initially was leaning towards cremation. However, after doing research by reading the assigned book and listening to guest speakers, I have learned that cremation is nothing like the image I saw in my childhood. As far as the episcopalian faith in general, I was surprised to receive an answer as to what form the spirit would enter heaven as. It seems that the fundamental beliefs between episcopal Christians and other Christians is that Episcopalians seem to be very progressive with their ideas in life, (such as gay marriage) but their take on the afterlife is pretty much the same.
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