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.
No, fool.
The mob that literally lynched Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum blackened their faces first. I wondered aloud if the mob that virtually lynches Joseph Smith similarly blacks their faces.
Twice acquitted. Do your research better.
Your dead relatives are somebody else's dead relatives too. Who are you to presume everything for your dead relatives. Should you be the sole arbiter of what every other descendent can do for "your" dead relatives!?
Individual perpetrators found guilty and punished. Individual perpetrators found guilty and punished. Individual perpetrators found guilty and punished.
Haun's Mill. Haun's Mill. Haun's Mill. Haun's Mill. Haun's Mill.
Missouri Extermination Order. Missouri Extermination Order. Missouri Extermination Order. Missouri Extermination Order. Missouri Extermination Order.
Carthage. Carthage. Carthage. Carthage. Carthage.
Nauvoo. Nauvoo. Nauvoo. Nauvoo. Nauvoo. Nauvoo.
Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
So tell Pharmboy and these whiners to shut up about it already then.
The NERVE of you people to presume access to other people's dead relatives and changing their religion posthumously! SHEESH!
And let me reiterate what I said above in case you missed it. I have worked with and known Mormons for 20 years: there is NO QUESTION that as individuals they were among the absolute FINEST people I've ever had the pleasure to know. One, in particular from Texas, passed on about 15 years ago and his life still is an inspiration to me.
What, do you think they are robbing graves and dunking the bodies in holy water?
They are just praying for them and performing a ritual on their behalf. It may be stupid but its no different from the Catholic ritual of praying for the dead, which I think is stupid too. But would you consider that the Catholics are desecrating the dead by praying for them?
What, do you think they are robbing graves and dunking the bodies in holy water?
They are just praying for them and performing a ritual on their behalf. It may be stupid but its no different from the Catholic ritual of praying for the dead, which I think is stupid too. But would you consider that the Catholics are desecrating the dead by praying for them?
Your response is no surprise to me
Looks like you can take the boy out of the cult, but can not take the cult out of the guy
The word of God says praying for the dead or Baptizing them is useless Because they are already judged and your words mean nothing To be absent from the body is to be present to God.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Hebrews 9:26 "For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
Matthew 15:8 "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
You can not keep a foot in each world.
Choose you this day who you will serve
I of course reject mormonism (and chr*stianity as a whole), but I simply do not understand why these mistaken people engaging in this peculiar rite of theirs does any harm to Jewish souls who have already passed on and been judged by HaShem based on their loyalty to Torah. I'm certain many sincere chr*stians pray for the conversion of the Jews (G-d forbid!), but since this is contrary to G-d's will, I do not believe He is going to grant this request. I assume He looks on the good intentions of these chr*stians and will answer their prayers in some more appropriate way. But why make a fuss about the fact that some people are praying or engaging in these rituals in which no Jew is involved and which cannot possibly cause any religious defections???
However, the mormons are historically very pro-Israel, and it seems that at this time of universal isolation of Jews and Israel when chr*stian Zionists and philo-Semites are their only defenders, there is an awful lot of noise emanating from certain Jewish circles doing all they can to offend these people. The whole thing seems fishy to me. I also note that none of these troublings of the waters ever involves calls for the gentiles to eschew false religions and come to HaShem as Noachides but always seems to advance the diabolically stupid position that religion is purely subjective, no one of them being objectively true. (What a blasphemy that this very idea is often trumpeted as "the meaning of Chanukkah!")
Please note that I am not standing up for a false religion or its rituals, but only remarking that this particular practice (mormon baptisms for the dead) doesn't actually involve any Jews and cannot possibly cause deceased Jews to become mormons in the Garden of Eden (how riduculous!). At any rate, any Jew offended enough at this private, non-Jewish ritual should be offended enough to want to make Noachides of the erring people involved.
If I am offline here and deserve a rebuke, I will submit myself to Alouette.
You haven't been reading, apparently.
Their religion is not changed unless they accept the baptism.
We baptize by proxy, we do not dig up corpses or desecrate graves.
Names for work such as baptism are submitted by relatives/descendents.
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