Funeral Right
There once [14th century] was an Oxford philosophy professor named John Wycliffe. He was a Scholastic and wrote a lot about religion and religious dogma. He felt that the Bible was the ultimate authority on such things. Wycliffe decided the best way to have good Christians was to have the Bible widely available in the common language, so he put together a team and translated the official Vulgate Bible into English. The Church was not happy about this and many of the options that Wycliffe had expressed. Those who followed Wycliffe were called Lollards, a disparaging term, and were considered uneducated, ignorant people.
Despite the fact that Wycliffe died of a stroke at the of 1384, the Church charged and tried him for heresy decades later, the ultimate form of an in absentia trial. He was convicted and his remains were dug up and burned in 1428 with the ashes spread. That totally pointless act resulted in Professor Wycliffe being listed as a saint and martyr by the Anglican Church.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is no more affected by the actions of protestors concerning his burial, than John Wycliffe was. They are both dead.
Badtux, Charlie Pierce, and Echidne are all, in their way, wondering what the point is in the protests against burying the dead? This is the sort of tasteless thing the Westboro Baptist Church gets up to. Why are these people emulating the Phelps clan?
Muslims, like Orthodox Jews, need to be buried, and buried quickly for public health reasons, as well as religious reasons. Let’s not make Tamerlan a martyr over his burial.
May 8, 2013 2 Comments
