Baptizing deceased Jews against Mormon policy: spokesperson

Canadian Jewish News ^ | July 2010 | Janice Arnold

[Colofornian]

MONTREAL — The “handful” of Mormons who continue to baptize Jews posthumously are violating church policy, says a senior member of the Utah-based religious movement.

Rabbi Schachar Orenstein, centre, spoke at a Mormon temple along with Mormon leader Mark Paredes of Los Angeles, left. At right is George Eric Jarvis, president of the Mormon church’s Mount Royal Stake, or Montreal branch.

Mark Paredes, who sits on the Mormons’ High Council in Santa Monica, Calif., and speaks for the church on Mormon-Jewish relations, was guest speaker along with Rabbi Schachar Orenstein of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue at what is described as the first ever formal dialogue between Quebec Jewish Congress (QJC) and the Mormon church in this province. The June 27 event was held before close to 400 people at the Mormon temple in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

There are about 9,000 Mormons in Quebec.

Paredes said there is “99.99 per cent” compliance today with the 1995 memorandum of understanding that was signed between the Mormons, formally the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Jewish leaders.

A few years earlier, it had come to light that some Mormons – Paredes says it was only eight – had submitted the names of tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims for what Mormons call “proxy immersions” for the dead.

The former U.S. foreign service officer made the comments as part of his lengthy address on Mormons’ strong support for Judaism and Israel, titled “The Common Threads of Judaism and Mormonism, or Mormons and Jews in the Last Days: A Zion Relationship.”

Paredes, who until recently was the executive director of the Zionist Organization of America’s western region, said, “No one thinks that more than a handful of Mormons, out of nearly 14 million [worldwide] continue to defy the church’s policy [on proxy immersions].”

The only instance where the church sanctions such activity is if a Jew was an ancestor of a Mormon, he added. Paredes explained that Mormons are required to research their own ancestors and, if they had not accepted the Mormon faith, perform “temple ordinances” for them that will allow them to do so in the after-life. However, these ordinances do not confer church membership, he said.

They were never permitted to do this for anyone else’s ancestors, he stressed.

However, Paredes continued, it is “highly inaccurate to refer to proxy immersions as ‘posthumous conversions,’ ‘making Mormons of the dead, etc.’”

“Mormons agree with Jews that Holocaust victims should not have temple ordinances performed for them, except in rare cases where a victim is the direct ancestor of a living Mormon,” he said. “Jews who are concerned about this issue are entitled to an explanation and, having visited Auschwitz last fall, I am very much of this opinion, and we do our best to provide one.”

Paredes, who was also the American Jewish Congress’s national director of Hispanic community outreach and a press attaché at the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, said he doesn’t believe that the strong historic ties between Mormons and Jews has been harmed by this issue.

He also reassured Jews that the Mormons are not seeking to convert Jews. Although proselytizing is a central aspect of the religion and all young men serve as missionaries, they are not targeting Jews, or members of other religions, for conversion, he said. “If our missionaries knock on a Jew’s door, they’ll also knock on the doors of his Catholic neighbour, Baptist friend and atheist cousin.”

Rabbi Orenstein also spoke on the commonality of the two religions, although he admitted his knowledge of Mormonism was not as great as Paredes’ of Judaism.

Paredes distanced Mormonism from Christian anti-Jewish beliefs.

“I am proud to state that our church has no history of anti-Semitism. In fact, we have a history of being pro-Semitic, philo-Semitic, of actively helping, not just tolerating, Jews in our midst.”

Mormons believe they are members of the House of Israel, feel a strong affinity with the Jewish people, and their theology and ritual have parallels with ancient Judaism. “Latter-day Saints are modern-day Israelites who build temples, have the priesthood, and receive revelation from prophets,” he said.

Mormons, like Jews, have known persecution throughout their history, since being founded in the United States in 1830, he went on.

The church is Zionist and has called for the gathering of the Jews in Palestine with their own political state since its founding.

In Los Angeles, Mormon-Jewish relations are especially strong, he said. Paredes recently took five rabbis to Utah and, for the past three years a Mormon has hosted the annual Israel Festival, for example.

Paredes’ employment in the Jewish community or Israeli-based organizations is not that unusual for Mormons in Los Angeles, home to 600,000 Jews. They work or have worked at the Jewish Federation, Magen David Adom, several synagogues and an Orthodox day school, he said.

Rabbi Orenstein touched on Mormons’ and Jews’ shared texts and vocabulary.

“We both speak of prophets and redemption and revelation. The definitions may vary, but it is a frame of reference for engagement,” he said.

Abby Shawn, chair of QJC’s human rights committee, said the meeting was at the initiative of the Mormon community and she welcomed the overture. “It went really, really well. They were receptive, inquisitive and highly sensitized,” she said. The Mormons arranged to have kosher food served afterward.

Shawn and Rabbi Orenstein appreciated Parades’s candour in addressing the baptism and missionizing issues.

“I see this as the first step to building a bridge. I hope there will be a follow-up in the future,” Shawn said.

[Colofornian]

From the article: Paredes said there is “99.99 per cent” compliance today with the 1995 memorandum of understanding that was signed between the Mormons, formally the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Jewish leaders. A few years earlier, it had come to light that some Mormons – Paredes says it was only eight – had submitted the names of tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims for what Mormons call “proxy immersions” for the dead. Paredes, who until recently was the executive director of the Zionist Organization of America’s western region, said, “No one thinks that more than a handful of Mormons, out of nearly 14 million [worldwide] continue to defy the church’s policy [on proxy immersions].”

If the Mormons didn’t think all of their following could obey them, then why offer such an agreement to begin with?

The article also says Mormons aren’t “targeting” Jews. (Well, I have waiting for the first Mormon Jews for Jesus group to crop up)

[TheBattman]

I’m not sure what the problem is - baptizing FOR the dead is an incredible fabrication of the Mormons that has no basis in God’s Word.

[Colofornian]

From the article: The only instance where the church sanctions such activity is if a Jew was an ancestor of a Mormon, he added. Paredes explained that Mormons are required to research their own ancestors and, if they had not accepted the Mormon faith, perform “temple ordinances” for them that will allow them to do so in the after-life. However, these ordinances do not confer church membership, he said. They were NEVER permitted to do this for anyone else’s ancestors, he stressed.

Say what? This Mormon leader claims that Mormons have “never” been permitted to “baptize” the dead beyond their own ancestors? Why, even Lds “presidents” of the church have done that!!! Even Woodruff baptized 100 different people from John Wesley to all but 3 U.S. presidents and 56 Declaration of Independence signers.

“The dead will be after you, they will seek after you as they have after us in St. George. They called upon us, knowing that we held the keys and power to redeem them. I will here say, before losing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, ‘You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized for it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.’ These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights…I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them.” (Wilford Woodruff, Sept. 16, 1877, JoD 19:229)

Note how Mormons continually talk about the dead seeking after them. Demons, masquerading as ghosts, wanting them to zero in on the graveyard. In fact, Lds “prophet” Joseph F. Smith (a relative of original Mormon “prophet” Joseph Smith) claimed a vision of the dead to the degree that later Mormons put into Mormon “scripture” (D&C 138).

Also, in chapter 34 of the recently published Teachings of the Presidents: Joseph F. Smith, Smith said:

Not a soul that has ever lived and died from off the face of this earth shall escape a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. If they receive it and obey it, the ordinances of the gospel will be performed for and in their behalf, by their kindred, or their posterity in some generation of time after them, so that every law and every requirement of the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be carried out, and the promises and requirements fulfilled for the salvation of the living and also for the salvation of the dead. (Original citation: “Latter-day Saints Follow Teachings of the Savior,” Scrap Book of Mormon Literature, 2 vols. (n.d.), 2:561–62.)

That’s why the mainstream Lds curricula book, Gospel Principles, “Jesus has provided for EVERYONE to hear the gospel, whether on earth of after death.” Gospel Principles, 1997, p. 104

Well, imagine that: Despite the fact that the vast majority of Dark Ages & before will never have their genealogical records found, how can the Lds church turn around and say this is MANDATED for EVERY spirit before they can be judged? Joseph Smith taught that "ALL those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, and being administered unto by an inspired man in the flesh, MUST have it hereafter, BEFORE they can be finally judged. (Teachings of the Presidents: Joseph Smith, p. 471)

[Colofornian]

From the article: However, Paredes continued, it is “highly inaccurate to refer to proxy immersions as ‘posthumous conversions,’ ‘making Mormons of the dead, etc.’”

Why, that’s funny. If the dead were already saved, you wouldn’t have Mormon leaders talking as if they were the new saviors, now would you?

Quote 1: “The work of saving the dead has practically been reserved for the dispensation of the fullness of times, when the Lord shall restore all things. It is, therefore, the duty of the Latter-day Saints to see that it is accomplished. WE cannot do it all at once, but will have the 1,000 years of the millennium to do it in. In that time the work must be done in behalf of the dead of the previous 6,000 years, for all who need it.” Joseph Fielding Smith (a different Joseph F. Smith than above), Doctrines of Salvation 2:166

Quote 2: ": ...we are the only people that know how to save our progenitors, how to save ourselves, and how to save our posterity in the celestial kingdom of God;...we in fact are the saviours of the world..." (Lds "prophet" John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.163)

Quote 3: "... mortals have to be saviors on Mount Zion, acting by proxy for the dead." (LDS "prophet" Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 325)

Quote 4: "We know something about our progenitors, and God has taught us how to be saviors for them by being baptized for them in the flesh, that they may live according to God in the Spirit”. (LDS "prophet" John Taylor, March 20,1870, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, 3/20/1870)

[TheBattman]

Kind of conflicts with the New Testament and the words of Jesus Christ Himself, doesn’t it..... Particularly when God’s Word says that one must have FAITH to be saved.

Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

1 Timothy 2:5&6 - “For there is aone God, and bone mediator also between God and men, the cman Christ Jesus, who agave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

[muawiyah]

It's their thing ~ not mine.

What is surprising the number of Jews who claim to be experts in whatever it is the Mormons mean by it all.

Your cross-references to various contradictory authorities is instructive in that regard ~ to wit, that Jews are not experts in anything the Mormons do, and most likely vice versa!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Just because some Mormon waves his hands and pronounces some dead person baptized doesn't mean anything has changed for the dead person.

The best way the Jews could handle this is the Saul Alinsky way; laugh them off the stage.

[LeGrande]

Just because some Mormon waves his hands and pronounces some dead person baptized doesn't mean anything has changed for the dead person.

A sane reply? On a FR religion thread? Miracles do happen!

[MEGoody]

Baptizing anyone after they die is a waste of time. If they died an unbeliever, getting someone else wet on their behalf doesn’t change their eternal destination.

[Vendome]

The problem is the insult to the grieving families who believing their loved one died in the Jewish faith.

Jews, like people of any faith, are insulted that someone would co-opt a dead person to enrich their rolls.

It injures their historical recollection and piles further insult upon their family and “Gods Chosen People”.

No should have their life history hyphenated or appended without their permission.

Of course, since they are no longer with us, they are not in a position to object?

That is just the same as stealing one’s identity for your own nefarious or self aggrandizing use.

Someone should start a company called “SpiritLock™”, to prevent this sort of thing.

[T Minus Four]

I have a question: I looked on the LDS geneology site and found my parents’ names. Their birthdays were decades off, but there they were. Does this mean these lifelong Catholics are now baptised in the LDS church? They’re not even dead!

[TheBattman]

I think you misunderstood my comments. I was trying to put a point to the fallacy of the practice of baptizing for the dead. It is an abomination in so many ways. But it is just a ritual that has no real meaning to those who are not Mormon (and never were nor will be).

It isn’t like the Mormons can undo or take away a person’s non-Mormon faith. Those deceased Jews are either in Heaven or Hell, based upon their faith, not upon what some Mormon has done posthumously.

[svcw]

The whole genealogy is to baptize for the dead. There are thirty-two listings for Jesus Christ, which means they are baptizing the Son of God.

[svcw]

Oh, I forgot they also list Mary Magdalene as spouse.

[T Minus Four]

Yeah, that’s so sick. So my folks are probably baptised? They will find that hilarious - until they get their overdue tithe bill.

[T Minus Four]

Someone should start a company called “SpiritLock™”, to prevent this sort of thing.

I like it. Can they clean indelible Catholic marks off your soul for an extra fee?

[Vendome]

We know that, in fact, I coined the term “Coffee Can” Conversions, as the vessel has been emptied.

No spirit, no person. Just an empty body, much in the same way you use all the coffee in a can.

I usually make the statement you are replying to, for the edification and illumination to others.

Personally, I couldn’t care less about their Coffee Can Conversions.

They have no effect.

If one wanted to know the Lord and walk in his spirit, the time for that has passed and a lifeless body has no agency or a scintilla of sentience.

One only need become a Christian while living and your faith isn’t going to be the determinant to God. Doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian(Oh no!), etc.

God’s only concern is your intent.

Everything else violates the prime directive and no one messes with God.

LDS will tell you “Don’t you think everyone should have the opportunity to know the Lord?, to which I say “That time has passed and your prayers have no effect except for assuaging the pain of the living.

For the Dead Cannot Cross the Great Divide(Luke 16:19-31)

[Colofornian]

Yeah, that’s so sick. So my folks are probably baptised? They will find that hilarious - until they get their overdue tithe bill.

LOL

Well, hey, Lds profit [purposeful sic] Joseph F. Smith did say: If they receive it and obey it, the ordinances of the gospel will be performed for and in their behalf, by their kindred, or their posterity in some generation of time after them, so that EVERY law and EVERY requirement of the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be carried out, and the promises and requirements fulfilled for the salvation of the living and also for the salvation of the dead. (Original citation: “Latter-day Saints Follow Teachings of the Savior,” Scrap Book of Mormon Literature, 2 vols. (n.d.), 2:561–62.)

The Christian God recognized only His Son could carry out EVERY law and EVERY requirement on our behalf; whereas the Mormon god thinks people can do it -- if not the already deceased person, then somebody doing it by proxy.

[Vendome]

???

Thought we were talking about Baptism for the Dead, a uniquely Mormon practice?

[Vendome]

I agree with what you are saying but, let me reiterate what I said:

It is an insult to the living and no one has the right the append your life history.