Speaker: Cody J. Sanders, Ph.D., M.Div., Associate Professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Abstract: While the bodies of the living are of central focus in most ethical considerations, our relationship to the bodies of our dead also holds insightful, if not revelatory, potential. Our relationship to the bodies of our dead has shifted greatly over time, and currently vary widely across religions and cultures. Many of these shifts and variations either bring us in closer proximity to the dead body (and death) or move us further away. Relationships with the corpse also become windows into understanding ethical relationships between the living and the ecological web of life. This lecture will consider these historical, cultural, and religious variations in relationships between the living and the bodies of our dead, will educate partiicpants in emerging deathcare practices in the U.S. and their ethical significance, and will pose questions that widen ethical scopes to consider concerns of corpse care as relevant to ethical decision making.