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.
Actually you pointed me to a link that discussed references to books not found in the Bible but you can't demonstrate those books were anything other than extra biblical references. Just because the Bible references some text doesn't mean the reference should be included as God's word. That's the misdirection that you don't understand.
Mormonism teaches some biblical manuscripts were at times edited/deleted to conform to a specific theology, yet Mormonism has no physical evidence the text in question existed in the first place. That's where we differ. The missing text isn't a referenced work, it's the same text that's been altered. Where's the evidence the text existed in the first place? Maybe you just didn't understand what I was saying, maybe I could have made it more clear, but your post was misdirection, intentional or not.
As I see it, it's incredible you want to believe that. Anybody can fall for anything with that kind of thinking.
When you dismiss my honest answer and call it misdirection, you reveal the true nature of your position.
I called your post misdirection because that's what it was and for no other reason. It's never because of you. It's because of what Mormonism teaches.
As am I. Unfortunately Mormonism has redefined God into something the Bible doesn't teach - A god who has his own heavenly father.
Here might be some of it:
especially Holocaust victims.
Mormons are excellent at keeping geneaological records. In the unlikely event that all other records are somehow lost, it could easily be shown through Mormon records that no Jews were killed in the Holocaust, only Mormons. Nice skew on things, eh? I know that it is unlikely (Thank G-d),but sadly there are too many people out there looking for ways to deny the Holocaust.
Now that you mention it I remember that's exactly what happened on some of the threads. I can't believe (or I have a difficult time believing) they knowingly pull those stunts, so I have to believe they do it without realizing what they're doing.
I guess when someone pokes some major holes in your belief system it's a normal reaction... so what works (besides God) to get their attention? Is there anything we can do different?
I like it. Indeed we do.
As a matter of fact, God did reveal with will to Joe Smith, the same way he reveals it to everyone else, Scripture. Joe Smith chose to ignore that will and become a false prophet.
(Your argument, BTW, is pretty much the same as one I've heard from a Muslim.)
Well I am not surprised, there is no such thing as pregnate.
Wait! You mean pregnant, don't you?
Perhaps you are sterile?
In the interest of common decency, I must ask that you refrain from making fun of someone who's clearly not in her right mind.
Sorry TW. Only a simpleton would settle for those choices. You're saying that if you believe that God could reveal His will in modern times, then you must believe the Smith myth. Here's my take:
God could, if He so chooses, reveal His will to anyone at any time. Based on many factors, I don't believe that He revealed His will to Joseph Smith through supernatural encounters.
Please clarify?
***
BTW I don't even know you I have not been rude to you and I did answer a couple of your questions inspite of your sarcasm.
Why can't you discuss this with out getting personal and insulting, trying to undermind me because you did agree? and that goes for Gamecock as well!
If You left the LDS Church, you did so to sin.
If You left the LDS Church, you did so because you are lazy.
If you left the LDS Church, you did not pray properly (never did get this one).
If You left the LDS Church, you did so because somebody offended you!
Did I miss any lines? :)
OK. I believe all things are possible through God. I also believe that worldly men do what they can to exploit well meaning people by using their hopes against them.
I believe that Joseph Smith was one of those who took advantage of the hopes and dreams of well-intentioned souls. I don't think he did this from some sort of delusion. I think he did it intentionally and with malice. I think those that follow him are following a false prophet, engaged in a cult founded by the greatest con artist of his generation.
I hope I cleared that up for you. You may not like the response, but I haven't sugar-coated it, nor have I hidden my meaning through use of out-of-context scriptural cut-and-paste references and links to nonsensical websites.
I did answer a couple of your questions inspite of your sarcasm.
Bull. Please see my paragraph immediately preceding the excerpt of your post above.
And, for the record, I wasn't being sarcastic. Your rambling posts and convoluted logic led me to believe that you truly are "not right" as we used to say in my neck of the woods.
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