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.
Where?
The LDS might disagree with doctrine, yet respects others religions!
Just thinking about it now, I think she never really felt loved and appreciated by her husband and boys. She was always having missionaries over for Sunday dinner and things like that. They seemed to take for granted everything she did for them. I wish I had tried to do more for her in a nonreligious context.
I wish I felt more of a sense of peace about her. I think it is mostly the circumstances in which she died so unexpectedly.
And whatever religion is right or wrong, when you love someone, you want them to share in the promise of eternal life.
I just told you what I think about it.
(Bangs head in frustration) How many newbies are there around here who haven't learned that I'm a Noachide?
I John 14
6. Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
For the zillionth time, quoting a book whose religious authority I don't recognize in the first place accomplishes absolutely nothing. And for the zillion and first time, I'm not a Jew but a former chr*stian who once believed all this stuff. There is not a single argument any chr*stian can make to me that I have not already heard (in fact, used to believe myself), and rejected.
Instead of wasting your time with me, I suggest you combat the chr*stians on this site who endorse evolution, the documentary hypothesis, "Genesis is a myth," etc. Unfortunately, most of the chr*stians of the world believe these blasphemous things (not every chr*stian is a Fundamentalist Protestant, unfortunately).
If one's word isn't one's bond, there's all manner of bad things that fall out from that.
If I (lehavdil) believed as the mormons do I could not have made such an agreement. And it is cruel to ask people to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs without converting them to something else.
Unfortunately, too many Jews (even some Orthodox) are so hopped up on the single issue of "tolerance" that they support the most liberal chr*stians of every denomination, despite the fact that the ancient Biblical Jews are the very apotheosis of everything the liberals hate.
I am a Noachide. If Jews would stop playing the broken "tolerance" record and educate non-Jews in their true duties before HaShem, the True G-d, then there would be fewer followers of false "gxds" and false religions in the world, and fewer rituals such as this one.
The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.
The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue--to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?....If you can understand that, that is a key to it.
Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Nauvoo, Illinois, recorded July 12, 1843, relating to the new and everlasting covenant, including the eternity of the marriage covenant, as also plurality of wives. HC 5: 501--507. Although the revelation was recorded in 1843, it is evident from the historical records that the doctrines and principles involved in this revelation had been known by the Prophet since 1831.
1-6, Exaltation is gained through the new and everlasting covenant; 7-14, The terms and conditions of that covenant are set forth; 15-20, Celestial marriage and a continuation of the family unit enable men to become gods;
Something about EVERLASTING manages to escape me, for some reason...............
Oh, just doing it is a harmless little play act with no significance whatsoever. It's the recording of the act in some database that I object to.
I don't want my name associated with this sham religion for any reason whatsoever, and after I'm dead, I'll have no say in the matter. And that's a big deal to me.
Here's a cut-and-paste you can share with her from my post #452. She may not respect your wishes, but at least she'll have no doubt as to what they are.
I want to go on record right now and say that I completely, utterly, and without reservation reject the LDS version of Christianity, and would consider it a most unwelcome desecration of my memory to ever have this sham post-mortem baptism performed in my name.
I guess you're right. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, or condone it, or pretend that it doesn't matter to me.
Is the above true or not?
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