Why? Baptism doesn't save, even when you're alive.
Since there was the word, "Fault" in this thread, I firstly thought it might just be about; "Magnitude 6.5 Quake near San Simeon".
Oye Vey.
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.
Russians fume as Mormons "buy souls"
From the Guardian, November 23, 2003:
"The Russian Orthodox Church has expressed its outrage at what it claims is a Mormon scheme to buy up the names of dead Russians in order to baptise 'dead souls' in their faith. In one archive, in the town of Nizhni Novgorod, east of Moscow, the Church of the Latter Day Saints has paid ten US cents for each page of thousands of names of dead people dating mainly from the late eighteenth century to be put on a microfilm.
"The idea, the last-ditch attempt of a cash-strapped archive to fund urgent preservation work, has caused fury among the predominantly Orthodox nation. The Mormon Church is angry at what it sees as an obstruction to its religious practices.
"Father Igor Pchelintsov, spokesman for the local Orthodox Church, said: 'The teaching of the Mormons about the conversion of the dead contradicts reason and naturally causes concern among the faithful and creates a tense situation.'
"The work in the archive has been temporarily called off while a local government commission studies it.
"Nikolai Cheromin, a local official, said: 'Their work is not prohibited. It is suspended and a group comprising officials and prosecutors from the four traditional Russian religions - Christian Orthodox, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims - are studying it.' He said the Mormons had been present in the town for 100 years, albeit clandestinely during the Soviet era.
"Viktor Kharlanmov, head of the Nizhni Novgorod regional archive, said the project was the result of an agreement between the Mormon-linked Genealogical Society of the state of Utah and the Russian Society of Historians and Archivists in Moscow. He said it was 'vital to save an important part of our archives'. Seventy per cent of the Mormon cash goes to the Moscow society, while 30 went to the local archives.
"Orthodox experts and officials have expressed their severe concern over the offence the project might cause locals. Professor Alexei Dvorkin, head of the Sectology Department of the Moscow St Tikhon Institute, said: 'The Mormon practice of proxy baptism or 'baptising the dead' is a well known ritual described in a lot of books. At the beginning of this practice they were looking for their ancestors with the aim of baptising them, but later they began to baptise everyone - Catholics, Muslims, Jewish, or Orthodox.
"'Any Christian will tell you that these rituals do not harm the soul of the dead. But it hurts the feelings of the believers who see these rituals with the names of the deceased as equal to the desecration of graves by Satanists.'
"But Yevgeny Smirnov, from the Nizhni Novgorod Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and adviser to the Moscow Mormon region, said: 'Our church aims to create a database permitting people to look for their ancestors. Our ceremony is not rebaptism; it only gives the soul of the deceased person the freedom of choice to accept our belief or to reject it."