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.
I believe that quote is "As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ" Am I wrong on that?
Are your dead relatives in your possession? Or are they God's property?
If they are God's then let God deal with them. Nothing the LDS can do will change their eternal destiny and no baptism that the LDS perform by proxy will have any effect on them. But it will make the LDS feel better and the LDS believe that God has commanded them to do this. If they want to pretend to baptize me into their fold and it makes them feel better about themselves to do it, then why should I complain? It certainly has no effect on me, unless they put me on a mailing list or call me while I'm eating dinner.
Frankly if you believe that the LDS proxy baptism is so powerful that it can affect the eternal destiny of your relatives, then you should join the LDS church as they must have a direct line to God. If you don't believe that the LDS baptism will affect your relatives standing before God, then I'd suggest you just find something a little more important to be offended about. And grow yourself a thicker skin.
Exactly. It's not a matter for a court of law. No material harm is done and you don't have a right to prevent someone from offending your sensibilities.
Yup.
If I remember it right their belief is that a Jewish family fled from ancient Israel for some reason. Traveled across North Africa then sailed to America where they started a great civilization which became corrupt.
The religion is a tad goofy but every individual Mormon I met I've liked.
Maybe, like telemarketers, you could get the government to set up a "do not baptise" registry so you and your loved ones can be opted out from their lists.
I guarantee it wouldn't be the most ridiculous thing on which our tax dollars were ever spent. But it would be close.
I am too. We have a legally enforceable right to be left alone after we pass on?
I see a whole new venue for the tort vulture industry.
Why? Baptism doesn't save, even when you're alive.
I don't have my scriptures memorized so I can't remember an exact reference.
Phillippians 2:11 is close, but not exact.
In the early church, they thought that you had to be baptized to be "saved". So they baptized people after they had died. The idea of a proxy baptism is rather odd though.
After one dies, one will be judged. No question about that. How long it takes for my turn in line, I don't know.
We don't believe in the addition of the 'immediately' interpretation should be included though.
Actually thats not entirely how it is viewed.
We do not, nor have not, ever in the past, and won't in the future believe that everything every different church teaches is wrong. Thats what you are making it sound like, and thats incorrect.
We believe many have lots of good things, and Eternal Truths in them. We believe because of the divisions in the churches, some have this, other might have that, and some have something else thats all good.
None have the whole picture though, which is what Joseph Smith did. He had it all put together for him by God.
God is not in heaven by himself.
We believe that we can become heirs with Him and part of His heavenly kingdom and be crowned with glory. It would make us gods in a sense, small g.
No one believes they will ever be a replacement for THE God.
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