Church graveyards

Russell Moore asks if our churches have lost something by not having graveyards anymore.

To which I reply, we certainly have.

I'd much rather be buried with the people I knew in this life, and will know in the next, than with some random people in a random corner of town I never saw before. I remember some of the saints I grew up with: I don't even know where their graves are.

The church is more than a building: it's a collection of people, living, dead, and not yet born. But our dead will live again, soul and body both. That's why Christians historically frowned on cremation: why burn that? You're going to need it again!

We've got hope. We hate death, but don't fear it. I suspect Moore is right, and a graveyard might show people we're serious in a way that snazzy playgrounds won't. If we didn't hide from our dead the way unbelievers do, they might witness for us. The tongues of the dead are ringed with fire beyond the language of the living.