Tuesday 6 May 2025, 14:00-16:30 BST. Online. 

How do we deal with the bodies of those who have died? The person no longer inhabits the body, but how we treat it reflects our care for creation and community as well as for the deceased. We will gather senior leaders in the Church to discuss dealing with death at the intersection of science and theology.

What happens to bodies?

How has that shaped our funeral and body disposal practices?

How do those practices impact public health and the environment?

And how do they shape the living?

Join us for a discussion of the practicalities of death, with a focus on burial, cremation, and alternatives. We will hear from experts on these practices along with environmental and theological impact. We will meet with fellow leaders from around the world dealing with these issues in a variety of economic and social contexts. And we will talk about implications for ministry and public theology.

Please note that this is a senior leadership event and attendance is by invitation.

Speakers

Douglas J. Davies, Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University’s Department of Theology and Religion, and Director of the Centre for Death and Life Studies has a background in anthropology, theology, and the sociology of religion.

He is widely known for work on death, mortality and funerals, as well as on Mormonism and Anglicanism. Monographs include, Death Ritual and Belief (2017. 3rd ed.).  Mors Britannica: Lifestyle and Death-Style in Britain Today (2015). Theology of Death (2008). Anthropology and Theology, (2002). Meaning and Salvation in Religious Studies (1984). He worked with Lewis Mates on The Encyclopedia of Cremation (2005), and Hannah Rumble on Natural Burial (2012).

He holds the Oxford higher doctorate (D.Litt.), an Honorary doctorate from Sweden’s Uppsala University (STD), and is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, The Learned Society of Wales, and The British Academy. 

Lee Webster is a writer, educator, and public speaker on funeral reform and environmental justice who has served in chief leadership positions with the National Home Funeral Alliance and the Green Burial Council, and helped found the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance and the Conservation Burial Alliance while directing NH Funeral Resources.

She is a frequent guest lecturer on college campuses, including the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College, and course designer and instructor of mortuary and cemetery certification classes. Webster is the author of several books, including Changing Landscapes, The After-Death Care Educators Handbook, and The Green Burial Masterclass Companion, and has been interviewed for articles in major U.S. media outlets, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and National Public Radio.

Leo Walton has a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and spent two decades providing technology solutions to the construction industry, before pivoting to the green funeral sector five years ago. Initially as an investor in Faunus Group Ltd, he soon saw the opportunity to help build a business that was environmentally positive but also helped people during one of life’s most tragic events.

Seeing the limited choice for how bodies are disposed of, he has spent the last three years developing a human composting technology that could revolutionise how we deal with our dead.