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.
But it isn't "Mormon-sanctioned" and you know it.
Assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you are not completely ignorant of the facts of this matter, one is left only to conclude that you could only be bigotted, dishonest, envious, or all of the above.
But, by all means, carry on. You clearly enjoy being deservedly slapped around in public while standing in the way of the disputation of the bearing of false witness......
Baloney. The Bible says nothing about being necro-missionaries. As I said, if this practice had ANY Biblical validity then no one on this earth now, in the future or in history would be required to do anything beyond waiting for Salt Lake City to pull their chess nuts out of the fire after they died. I would ask the Mormons to explain their process for "baptism out of hell"? Who is or is not eligible? If some are not then the entire process falls under its own weight of hypocrisy.
The way I see God is that there is only One. Not everyone going up there saying "Jesus Jesus" will be in favor. But that judgement is reserved only for Him to make.
There is One God, and one day all the disputations about Him, and regarding Him are going to end.
Only one of Joseph Smith's many frauds.
Just one more reason to be humble and truly be Christlike from the inside, rather than from ones mouth.
One thing Mormons also believe in is Eternal Truth. Which means there are some rules and laws that even God himself cannot break. If we are to live in heaven for eternity, we will have to abide by those rules.
If you were able or inclined to read beyond a barbecue menu, you would be well aware that the leadership of the "Mormon" Church has stated publicly on a number of occasions of late that it does not condone polygamy; that those who practice it today have sinned and broken the laws of the land; that such have been and will continue to be excommunicated from the "Mormon" Church.
It also has expressed both recently and publicly its grave concerns that the ludicrous same-sex law enacted by the legislature of Massachusetts (which, BTW, almost certainly will be vetoed by the recently-elected Republican -- and "Mormon" -- governor of that state) could open the door to the legality of the practice of polygamy and the marriage of presently under-age females being affirmed by Federal Courts of Appeal and possibly by the US Supreme Court.
You clearly are in over your Stetson here, Tex, so why not do yourself and all of us a favor by signing off for as many years as it will take for you to become literate, informed, fair-minded, honest, and up to the task of contributing to the discourse that takes place here?
Until then, please continue to read and listen here and elsewhere so that someday you will be able to contribute in a positive and useful manner -- as opposed to disrupting and making an ass of yourself by continually spewing forth one of the major above-ground crops produced in your neck of the woods.......
Your reference to your having been "raised by one of the ten liberal Democrat families in the state of Utah--LOL). By the Grace of God became a baptized Christian nine years ago" speaks volumes as to your objectivity concerning the "Mormon" Church, however.
Just tell me the names of the purported polygamists to which you refer and those of the ward and stake wherein they reside and they likely will join you in a heartbeat among those numbered among the ex-"Mormons" dotting the globe.....
Probably a good idea... I would would comfortably wager that you don't have a clue what Roman Catholics believe. If you did, you wouldn't put the original and most orthodox of christian churches into a list with non-christian groups like Mormons and JWs.
Matthew 21:5-7: Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, 7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
So complain to Matthew, then.
And, "yep," as you so quaintly say, at least be able to spell the word "Christian" -- and also spell it correctly in its plural form -- before trying to play with the grown-ups.....
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