Posted on 04/02/2012 9:05:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Yesterday, Religion Dispatches contributor Max Mueller published a piece at Slate detailing posthumous marriage rites performed in LDS temples that have wed Mormon and non-Mormon slaveholders to their former slave concubines—including Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.
The article sheds light on another form of posthumous religious rites performed in LDS temples. In addition to posthumous baptisms, LDS Church members routinely perform proxy temple marriages or “sealings” for their ancestors and other deceased couples. Church doctrine teaches that marriages performed within LDS temples “seal” husband and wife together not only for mortality but for eternity.
Mormonism uniquely emphasizes eternal marriage as a rite necessary to enter the highest levels of heaven. Viewed through this theological prism (and with a generous dose of romantic idealism about the quality of most human marriages), the practice of posthumous sealings has special warmth for LDS people.
But sealing deceased slaves to their slavemasters? Thomas Jefferson to Sally Hemmings? A relationship that emblematizes slavery’s most complicated and intimate forms of exploitation?
Because such relationships entailed coerced concubinage and, often, rape, Mueller writes, “Sealing a slave master to his slave is at least as troubling as the baptism of Holocaust victims, the practice of which the LDS Church has officially condemned.”
I’m not sure how to judge which is more troubling. But I do know that Mueller’s thoughtful, well-researched, carefully composed essay not only hits hot button issues like Mormons’ historic racial discrimination and contemporary racial insensitivity and the doctrinal persistence of polygamy—after all temple sealing policies permitted a polygamous sealing of Jefferson to Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemmings—but also gestures towards profound ethical and religious questions.
For their part, Mormons have tried to answer questions about posthumous baptisms and sealings by explaining that no posthumous rite is considered binding and that the efficacy of all rites depends on acceptance by the soul of the deceased.
But one element that has consistently gone missing from conversations I’ve witnessed in LDS circles is the acknowledgment that other religious traditions also have theological views of memory, the afterlife, and the connection between the dead and the living. From these non-Mormon perspectives, Mormon posthumous rites appear as a presumptuous claim on humanity’s dead.
Can one religion claim humanity’s dead? What if humanity’s dead are a sacred collective resource—a sacred public domain? There are norms of civility and respect that govern religious conduct in public domains, conditions absolutely necessary to the free exercise of religion without the fear of encroachment or imposition. Extraction of the names of strangers from public records for religious rites, as has been historical Mormon practice, may be viewed by non-Mormons as an uneasy fit with commonly held norms of religious freedom, interfaith deference, and cooperation.
What do Mormons owe to the other human beings with whom we share custody for humanity’s dead: human beings who may have similarly strong religious feelings about their ancestors, and who would like to see those ancestors rest in peace, without their names being said by strangers in unwelcome ceremonies? Or to those who would like to see their ancestors travel on, without being summoned by name back to traumatic relationships they did not choose?
To whom do the dead belong?
LDS is a cult and these “rites” are all meaningless. The dead belong to the God Who made them, and He shall judge where and how they will spend eternity.
It’s a cult with a lot of money and influence. Its also satanic and needs to be confronted with the truth.
Pardon blunt assessment...
(you can't make this stuff up)
Another example of how mormonism still practices polygamy.
Expect more articles like this inthe mainstream meadia should mittens be given the nod.
The Liberal Rally cry will be:
“Obama 2012, cause Romney’s religion is weird....”
(and Dems can denigrate religion because they are “tolerant” )
You’d have to be insane to worry about something like this.
Nope.
It will be Obama 2012, because Romney is just like me.
Or why go with Romney when we are the same, Obama 2012.
Not disagreeing, but we do have religious freedom, those things Mormons do and teach are religion just like some other Church doctrines that are known of.
Never mind that it is not truth, the first amendment protects freedom of religion and take that away and we would be cutting our own throats as we would not be able to preach the Gospel because the Gospel has been equated with religion.
And up until the time when people wake up and realize that religion may or may not have anything to do with Jesus ( the son of God ) and his Gospel we are going to need to defend freedom of religion, because there is no such amendment that protect the freedom of truth which can only come from the gospel of Jesus.
The mormons can do what they want, who has said otherwise?
As Christians we are commanded to call out false prophets, that is what this article is doing.
mormonism was started by a false prophet, it needs to be exposed for what it is - blasphemy.
You are probably a smart man. Too bad your hate for Mormons keeps you from working for something that really counts, such as the defeat of Obama.
Hmmmmm? . . . . . . . . Let’s now . . .
Posthumous marriage rites + Slate + 1st of April = ?
If that is true I guess I'll have to convert. I was widowed, as was my current wife. If I'm still married to my late wife, I'd better change to Mormanism so I'll be allowed to have multiple wives.
You are probably a smart man, to bad you can’t tell the difference between exposing mormonism and the love of all and want none to be denied God Almighty.
Quoting from YOUR tag line: “Romney/BHO only difference - one thinks he will be god, they other one thinks he already is.”
Any fool who believes that... and admits it... needs to be back in The Home.
They are also demonstrating that they are far from Conservative, but rather a religious fanatic... and we don’t need any more Taliban here, we need fewer Obama’s in office.
Articles like this idiocy only serve to help Obama stay in office.
Whether it’s true or not, this is the garbage we will have to put up with in the fall if Romney is the nominee. How do you begin to defend against this kind of thing? This line of attacks will chop Romney down another 10 points by November. I will definitely vote for Mitt come Election Day, but I am not happy about having to defend religious weirdness.
I suppose I could argue that Mitt grew up in it, he’s a person of deep loyalty, etc., ......help!
People will go out of the way to cast dirt on the LDS church, so far as to work the system within the church to arrange smutty associations then step outside and claim the work was an honest and legitimate intention of misguided members. It’s kind of like sabotage, Those doing it are turning around and denouncing it. LDS church policy is to keep a lid on it, and excommunicate those intentionally responsible. It’s been as simple as getting a gullible person to take a dubious ordinance request to the temple and submit it.
My understanding, derived from Mormon relatives, is that it is only 'binding' IF the deceased in Paradise accept.
IOW, like "baptism for the dead", it is conditional; and it is all LDS BS, since:
Matt 22:29-30
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
KJV
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