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.
Mainline is what those that believe in the Trinity which is of the Creed that Constantine came to the conclusion when debating the Godhead being Father, Son, Holy Ghot!,p> Now called the Nincene Creed!
Please excuse for at times I do struggle with penning my thoughts my dyslexic at times are more undercontrol than others!
Which scripter is aware of!
Same to you refute it with documents NOT an opinion!:)
Man has Mortal form for he is of Flesh and Blood!
God has an Immortal form of Flesh and Bone
1 Tim. 3
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
By common confession, great is (1) the mystery of godliness:
He who was (2) revealed in the flesh,
Was (3) vindicated in the Spirit,
(4) Seen by angels,
(5) Proclaimed among the nations,
(6) Believed on in the world,
(7) Taken up in glory.
Cross-references
1. Rom 16:25
2. John 1:14; 1 Pet 1:20; 1 John 3:5, 8
3. Rom 3:4
4. Luke 2:13; 24:4; 1 Pet 1:12
5. Rom 16:26; 2 Cor 1:19; Col 1:23
6. 2 Thess 1:10
7. Mark 16:19; Acts 1:9
Scripter you reveal christian charity of THIS world!
Luke 1:35 states the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and you know this.
It also says that it is of the HIGHTEST!
read the verse!
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
May I remind you the Holy Spirit is the 3rd memeber of the Godhead who is NOT God the Father!
BTW This all started over- "From what I understand of Mormonism, they state God the Father has flesh and bones but cannot support that belief with specific quotes from Bible.~ Scripter
I just showed you in POST # 578
Luke 34
39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
Now the Trinity folks say that Jesus is God the Fahter incarnate; the LDS say Jesus is the Son of God!
Here in verse 39 Jesus says he has a body of Flesh and Bone now if we were to take the Trinity literal on their claim that Jesus is God the Father incarnate in Verse 39 of Luke 34 he says of himself that HE HAS A BODY of FLESH & BONE! So which is it Scripter?
either the Trinity still thinks Jesus is the incarnate of the God the Father or he is the Son of God!
Either way this resurrected Jesus has a body of FLESH & BONE!!!!
it would be nice if for once my question/answered was also acknowldege instead of going on to a distraction!
I recommend Berkhof's systematic theology to better understand the issues.
I don't need a continuation of the Constantine world explaination!
What does will overshadow you mean in this context?
I'm reminded of something recently posted here:
The after-effect of 9-11 has been a general decline in the credibility of what's called "post-modernism," the belief there are no such things as moral truths. You have your moral truths, I have mine and no version whatever can claim to be really true. This means that the people who deliberately murdered 3,000 innocent civilians had just as good a claim to be right as those who thought otherwise. Nobody, apart perhaps from professors of "ethics," can swallow that line any more, and this has thrown the whole post-modern phenomenon into doubt.
that those you have quoted from don't have an ax to grind, or an agenda!
They are purely objective?
BTW the Holy Ghost has come upon me many times and I never got pregnate!
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