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.
More's the pity. Tell me what does it say about a "religion" that can only expand its base with dead people?. It is odious in the extreme.
what, like polygamy?
I am not an expert in Jewish stuff, but yes. God did make that covenant.
According to LDS beliefs when Jesus came, he brought a new and higher covenant with Him.
In no way whatsoever is it saying the old one was wrong. It actually agrees wholly with the new one Jesus brought.
ANY covenant is accepted on a personal level. That includes baptism and baptism for the dead.
According to the new covenant one MUST be baptised, ala make the covenant that Jesus brought.
Mormons believe that everyone will have a fair chance to learn what God REALLY wants either now or later. If someone never had the chance to learn about God, they will be able to have that chance later on.
Because baptism is required thats why we do baptism for the dead. If the person who one is baptised for refuses the ordinance or covenant, there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Conversion is a spiritual thing, not a temporal thing, ala baptism only.
God has to be fair though. He is fair and completely just. Hence everyone has to have the chance to accept or reject the message.
Baptism for the dead is NOT accepting Jesus on behalf of another person.
Again, those who have died and who are then baptised have a chance to accept or reject the covenant. We are no "expanding our base." We don't count the dead in our membership rolls. We are one of the fastest growing faiths in the world anyway.
You don't get it. If a Jew or anyone else wanted baptism they would have done it while alive. Baptism is to be undertaken at the "age of reason" when the death and resurrection of Christ is acknowledged and understood. Once you leave this world your fate is with GOD NOT a bunch of people trying to play GOD. This is a sick practice and against ALL of God's teachings about free will.
What's with the polygamy thing. We don't practice it. And even if we did it certainly would be less worthy of your attention and derision than the rampant adultery, fornication, and other things that are far more widespread and destructive. It blows my mind when some idiot ignores the guy who is shacking up with some chick he knocked up or the office boy toy to come after me because he mistakenly thinks Mormons are married to multiple wives.
You are picking on Jews when thats not really the case. Its for EVERYONE to have a fair chance. Its not the Mormon church that started all that. Jesus himself said that He was the only way...
It all depends if one believes in Jesus or not. If Jesus really is who He says He is, then thats the way it is.
None the less, its completely up to the individual to decide for oneself, either here, or later. No one can chose for someone else, and no one can take away one's agency. THAT is a core principle of LDS doctrine.
Mormons don't believe as soon as you die kapoof one turns into some great being. The same person you are here, you will be there. The trick is learning to be obedient to the laws of heaven. One must know the law of heaven and abide in them.
As far as condemning goes, no one can condemn anyone else. If anything one condemns oneself.
Yep bigamy is MUCH better than adultery. Amazing.
I said we don't just say they are going to Hell. And it isn't "the Mormons" who are baptising dead Jews wholesale. No, it is individual Mormons who are being baptised for their own ancestors. Why don't you go tell someone's granddaughter that she can't do her dead grandmother's work and be sealed to her grandmother and grandfather.
None the less, its completely up to the individual to decide for oneself, either here, or later. No one can chose for someone else, and no one can take away one's agency. THAT is a core principle of LDS doctrine.
Let me give an analogy. Its not perfect, but it illustrates a point.
Lets say you want to go to university... so you go out and find the one you want and apply and go through the hassles and you get in.
Now lets say someone else does not know where to go to even apply to university. They are literally ignorant about how to get in.
Because the entrance is absolutely fair and just, everyone must have equal opportunity to enter.
If, after the second guy dies, and someone comes up to him and says "you never had a chance to go to school...You HAVE to go through the application process though. But do you want to go? Yes or no?"
If he answers yes, then they tell him, "here, we have filled out your application for you. All you have to do is sign here and turn it in..."
Did that chose for him? No.
Did that give him the same opportunity to get into school that you took? Yes.
Now the real trick is, who actually graduates, and with what GPA...
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