Posted on 12/21/2003 4:41:40 AM PST by Pharmboy
Jewish group says it is considering legal action in an effort to stop the Mormon Church from posthumously baptizing many Jews, especially Holocaust victims.
Under the practice, known by Mormons as vicarious baptism — a significant rite of the church — the dead are baptized by living church members who stand in as proxies.
But in 1995, after evidence emerged that at least 380,000 names of Jewish Holocaust victims were on baptismal lists in the church's extensive archives in Salt Lake City, the church agreed to end vicarious baptism without consent from the descendants of the dead. Church officials also said the church would remove the names of Holocaust victims placed on the lists before 1995.
"For the last seven years, we've had entirely cordial relations with the Mormons," said Ernest Michel, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, which is based in New York and claims 180,000 members. "But the agreement is clear and they have not held up their end."
Last year, Helen Radkey, an independent researcher in Salt Lake City, gave Mr. Michel evidence that the Mormon lists still included the names of at least 20,000 Jews, many of them Holocaust victims and prominent figures like the philosopher Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. Ms. Radkey also provided Mr. Michel with evidence that many of these Jews had been baptized after the 1995 agreement.
But Mormon officials say they remain in full compliance with the 1995 agreement.
"We have actually gone above and beyond," said D. Todd Christofferson, a church official involved with the negotiations. The church removed the names of Holocaust victims listed before 1995 and continues to instruct its members to avoid baptizing Jews who are not directly related to living Mormons or whose immediate family has not given written consent, Mr. Christofferson said.
But he said it was not the church's responsibility to monitor the archives to ensure that no new Jewish names appear. "We never had in mind that we would, on a continual basis, go in and ferret out the Jewish names," Mr. Christofferson said, adding that the labor involved in constantly sifting through an ever-expanding archive, which contains more than 400 million names, would represent an "intolerable burden."
"When the church is made aware of documented concerns, action is taken in compliance with the agreement," he said.
Some Jewish genealogists agree with the Mormon interpretation of the agreement. "I have a copy of the agreement," said Gary Mokotoff, the publisher of Avotaynu, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy. "The wording is vague in some places, but it definitely does not obligate the Mormons to scour their own archives on an ongoing basis."
But Mr. Michel, who said he became involved in the issue after reading about posthumous baptisms in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, contends that the agreement obliges the Mormon Church to monitor the post-1995 lists and remove the names of Jews that appear.
"They put the names in there, they should have to take them out, and the agreement says as much," he said. "Why should we have to do their job for them?" He said the group was considering legal action but would not provide details.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Mr. Michel contacted, said she planned to take up the matter with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican and a Mormon. "Senator Hatch was immensely helpful in brokering the 1995 agreement, so we're hoping he can get involved again now," she said in a telephone interview.
With approximately 11 million members worldwide, the Mormon Church, known formally as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is one of the fastest-growing in the world, partly because of a strong missionary effort. The importance of the family structure is central to church doctrine and is a reason for the extensive archives kept by the International Genealogical Index in Salt Lake City. The archives include detailed biographical information of 400 million people going back centuries. The names of those to be posthumously baptized are drawn from the archives.
According to Mormon theology, all people, living or dead, possess "free agency," and posthumous baptisms provide only an option, not an obligation, to join the religion in the afterlife. Church membership numbers do not include those baptized after death, Mr. Christofferson said.
Originally, the practice was reserved for ancestors of church members, but over the years many other people have been baptized posthumously. "There is no way to prevent overzealous members doing mission work from submitting names that don't belong," Mr. Christofferson said.
Ms. Radkey, an Australian-born Christian, said she began researching the Mormon practice in 1999 after discovering that the teenage diarist Anne Frank had been posthumously baptized.
How selfish of us! We spend millions of hours per year researching our ancestors and bringing their names to the Temple. We build Temples around the world to provide for the saving ordinances for ourselves and posthumously for our ancestors. We spend millions of hours per year participating in proxy ordinances to redeem our dead ancestors. How utterly selfish, shallow, thoughtless, and offensive we are!! No, we should instead be watching more football, drinking more beer, spending our money on fancy cars, etc.
How silly, there's no way we're going to get through all of the billions and billions of people who have ever existed on this earth. Well, actually there is - one ancestor at a time. Next week, I'll travel 3.5 hours up and 3.5 hours back to the Temple to do the work for one more person as I've done for dozens before.
Flame me all you want. Flame the millions of Latter-day Saints who spend so much time doing this work for their ancestors. Those who don't understand or who were wicked killed our Prophet and his brother, drove the men, women, and children out of their beautiful city, and desecrated and destroyed our Temple there. Yet, the Church survived and grew worldwide despite Joseph's martyrdom. The Nauvoo Temple has been rebuilt on its original spot and was dedicated this year. In the last few years the number of Temples worldwide more than doubled. The work will continue despite any opposition. The stone cut without hands will continue to roll forth to fill the earth. Get over it. Don't you have some clergy to pay or something?
Oh yeah. I think that the very best source on an organization and its history is disgruntled exmembers with a grudge. So, I'm sure the best source for information on Free Republic would obviously be something the infamous Eschoir wrote or any of a number of banned posters.
Actually thats true.
One is not 'saved' merely through baptism, or posthumous baptism, or any other kind of baptism.
In LDS doctrine it is entire up to the individual to accept or not accept, and that includes any and all posthumous ordinance work.
If someone waited until you died and did a baptism on your behalf, you or anyone else, even though you're gone from here still have the personal choice to make.
Baptism in LDS theology is a contract to follow God, of which God has set the terms thereon. We either accept it and put our effort into it or we don't. We are rewarded by the faith that follows. A baptism alone without faithfulness doesn't do anything, except maybe mock God.
No one can make a covenant for someone else, but they can make it available. Baptism for the Dead is sheerly making a covenant available for one to either accept or not accept.
Its more like "everyone gets a fair first chance"...
We do that too. Ask the millions who benefited this year from the Church's welfare system, the people who received emergency food, shelter, and assistance. But that was all temporal and doesn't help our ancestors who died without having a chance to hear the Gospel or to be baptised and recieve other saving ordinances. Nor does it help those whose marriages were only until death did they part and therefore their families would not be together after this life. It is a great work - daunting in its scope - and sustained only by faith. How do you exercise your faith in your religion?
The LDS are not converting people inside Temples.
One could stand on the rooftops and shout that, but the very next thing out of these guys mouths would be "stop converting dead Jews".
First we never started converting dead Jews.
I remember going to a really cool Jewish friend's house. They had me over for dinner and taught me all about Jewish stuff and some Yiddish words and all that.
Anyway they actually prayed for me while I was there! I thought it was awesome. They prayed that I would have the faith to do what God wanted me to do and that I would be a good boy and all that stuff.
Really and truly baptism for the dead shouldn't be construed as any more than that.
In LDS theology no one can be saved in ignorance. In other words in order to be 'saved' one has to know God and who He is and what he want from us.
After every one of us is dead and gone, Mormons believe we will ALL get a crash course in who God really is. That includes Mormons too.
What baptism IS, is a covenant to follow God. God has set those terms. Because it is a Christian religion baptism is the mode by which one makes THE covenant one needs with God to proceed after we're all dead and gone. EVERYONE has a fair shot a learning and accepting. It is not forced upon anyone. Thats where the folly lies in the criticism.
Well, until the rejected the promised Messiah...
As for the authority, we got that from that very same Messiah - namely Jesus Christ.
Jews and followers of Christ can't both be right about the Messiah. Either it is Jesus Christ or the Messiah hasn't come yet. At least we don't just write them off wholesale and say they are all condemned to Hell. We tirelessly do the work and no harm is done to the rational living.
Such should say it all, even to liars who are themselves counterfeit Jews pretending to have the interest of world Jewry at heart.
And just in time for Christmas, too, it should be noted.
At least Ernie Michel should step forward and accept the freely flowing rewards of the nausea caused by a lying, counterfeit Jew's self-serving hatred of his own people.
Jews would do well to be concerned above all else by the dangers posed by the wolves within their midst who seek to and with increasing likelihood will succeed in accomplishing that which the real enemies the Jews as a people have been unable to accomplish despite millenia of trying.
If our friend Ernie were really worried about the fate of Jews, he would be carrying a rifle as a member of the JDF -- rather than blathering and lying about purported threats to the spiritual welfare of other Jews who, although dead, still must surely possess the free agency to accept or reject baptism and other saving ordinances that they perceive to be false in the first place.
With all of the dangers facing in particular Jews living in these perilous times, it is inconceivable and reprehensible that putzes of the likes of Ernie would deem it worthwhile to pi$$ away precious resources to whine about and, worse yet, to pursue "legal action" concerning a non-issue which will make him and his quixotic fellow "activists" the proud winners of a lifetime supply of whoop-ass deliciously served up in an enormous platter of crow....
Sure, seeking out names to "baptize" sounds innocent enough because they are already dead, but for one religion to claim people from other religions is tacky at the minimun, and insulting and obnoxious to the living at the worse....
This is digusting.
Sigh...
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