Not only do fundamentalists have strict standards for a person’s body while they are alive, they also have a rather strict view of what should happen after they die as well. Mention cremation to some fundamentalists and one might very well receive the kind of reaction that would normally only be observed after suggestions for something like ritual cannibalism.
It would seem that early Christians buried their dead rather than immolating them. Whether this was because they disliked the Greek and Roman customs or because they were living in catacombs anyway making burial there a lot more convenient is unclear. Of course if the “paganism” of a practice is the main concern then embalming should definitely be forbidden lest they they be like unto the heathen Egyptians. (ed. the previous is satire and should not be taken seriously no matter how strict a fundamentalist you are. If I hear of someone preaching against embalming based on the its history in Egypt, I will devote an entire post to your silliness. You have been warned.)
Man came from dust and to dust he shall return. Apparently it’s the speed at which he gets there that has fundamentalists in such a tizzy.
Someone once said that most heresy is started by one man sitting alone in a room with a Bible. That person was not a fundamentalist. In fact, a staple of many fundamentalist sermons is this line: “I was reading this passage this week and I found something there that I’d never seen before…” What’s even more striking is that nobody else in orthodox Christianity has ever seen it there before either.