Human composting has become a subject of popular discussion, and I see a lot of religiously-minded people acting upset about it. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the problem is supposed to be. How is this different from burying people in a blanket or wooden coffin, which is what Christians have done for literally thousands of years?
Embalming only really became a thing after the Civil War, it isn't required in any state in the union, and a lot of faiths (e.g., Judaism and Islam) completely forbid embalming. Actually, Christianity is weird for allowing it. Embalming poisons the soil. The embalmers are required to wear full hazmat suits, including respirator, when they do it. Embalming fluid used to contain arsenic, and 19th-century cemeteries are almost all toxic waste sites as a result, leaching arsenic into the ground water.
"Human composting" is pretty much how family cemeteries stay small. Individual family members are serially buried in the same 18 square feet of dirt over the centuries. Monasteries would commonly bury monks one on top of another, and most of their remains would decompose in the ground seamlessly over the centuries so each plot could be re-used.
What is being described in the article is not much different than how human beings have been buried for almost all of human history. What is the big deal?
Genesis says Adam was formed from the clay, the word "adam" means "red" and is related to the Hebrew "adamah" which means land or soil. St. Paul talks of men as clay vessels (2 Cor 4:7). The Anglican Book of Common Prayer implicitly endorses composting: "we therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life."
The Catholic liturgy does the same. On Ash Wednesday, the priest inscribes the cross on your forehead with the words, "Remember, man, thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return."
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