What do Mormons here think of the LDS practice of baptizing the dead of other religions? Just a couple days ago, the LDS Church promised (for a second time - the first one didn’t stick, apparently) to stop baptizing Jewish dead. I was awfully pissed to hear that they had baptized Anne Frank.
Gah, that still makes me pissed.
Anyway, do you think it’s okay, because, as pepperlandgirl states above, they have the choice to accept it or not? Do you feel sad/angry/disappointed that the Church has promised not to do it any more, because it makes it impossible for those people to attain the highest level of heaven?
Your using Mormons as a term for the folks, and LDS as the name of the church.
I’m leaning towards interpretation 2, is such the case? Seems a silly question to ask, but the whole reason the leaders of the Church asked members to self-identify as LDS not Mormon is because it was causing confusion, people were thinking they were two different things.
FTR, I’m very familiar with Mormonism/LDS, probably much more so than most non-Mormons. I had several good friends in high school that were Mormon, and because I’m terribly interested in religion in general, I did the discussions with our local missionaries, so that I could better understand my friends’ beliefs. I’ve been to church services, and to a few temples (SLC, Provo, and Oakland).
Note that the phrase is not baptising the dead, but baptising for the dead. We LDS perform baptisms for the dead so that those who did not have the opportunity in life to accept the fulness of the Gospel can do so in the time between death and resurrection.
Now, a fundamental principle behind every vicarious work is that the recipient can always refuse. The best example of this is Jesus’ Atonement. His sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemene and on the cross was for everyone, but it is up to each individual to accept or reject that work. Similarly, baptism for the dead is performed on behalf of an individual, and we believe the individual can accept or reject it.
When the revelation concerning vicarious baptism was received, people started performing baptisms willy-nilly, and Joseph Smith had to explain that there had to be records kept, that there had to be order, etc. Since then, people have still fallen into the behavior sometimes of trying to perform baptisms for famous or infamous people. That of course is silly, and the LDS leadership has had to remind people that they’re supposed to be focused on their own family.
Some confusion has arisen from the process of “name extraction”–collecting names and vital statistics from many different sources and putting them in one big database. That process makes genealogical research much easier but it also makes it easier for people to perform vicarious ordinances for people who aren’t related to them. The recent complaints appear to come from someone who is monitoring the database of names and is complaining that people with Jewish names are still getting into the system. Personally I find it silly that one person would claim to speak for an entire ethnic group–especially when there’s no way for the deceased to say whether they identify with that group or not. At least in our beliefs the deceased can reject our offering.
Kyla, we see the vicarious baptisms as vital a work as sending out missionaries and talking to non-LDS about our beliefs. Any mistakes we make here (either by getting names wrong, or by excluding some, or by including others) will be worked out in their own due time, so I’m not worried about any agreements the LDS leadership make (like about not putting Jewish names in the system).
What?! How utterly repugnant. Sounds a lot like spiritual rape, forcing their religion onto someone who can’t fight back. Oh, but you get to “choose” in Heaven? Well, then for all the Mormon church knows its wasting everyone time with this terrible ritual.
And just think, it could happen to you.
Yes, but how does the Mormon church know if people accept their baptism or not? Do they keep a list of these people they’ve dunked after death?
Do they consider them Mormons? They better not.
I suppose I could earn enough money in this life and make my will ironclad that any of my descendents who does this to me would lose whatever share of my estate they eventually recieve, forever. There should be a law preventing the Mormon church from baptizing those in death who set down in life that they didn’t want that to happen.
However, my main question is this – while from what you have said, it appears that those who perform baptisms for the dead should focus on their own families, is this a requirement? Can people baptize the deceased outside of their own families? If not, how closely related to that person does somebody have to be to baptize a deceased person?
The person cannot decline, they are dead. They’re already wherever they are going to go. They chose their religion in life, and their choice should be honored and not spit upon by their descendents. They did not consent to being dunked into a religion they may have rejected, or even hated, in life, and no one has a right to even pretend to drag them into it. It’s a desecration of the deceased’s wishes.
The only way we would know if the vicarious ordinances were accepted is through direct communication, right? Many people claim that they felt that the ordinance was accepted, but that’s between them (the person performing the ordinance as well as the intended recipient) and God, really. Yes, a record is kept of the ordinances performed. In addition to being an orderly way to do things, it helps prevent errors, duplications, etc.
I have to wonder, what does this question even mean? And why do you object to the idea so strongly? Additionally, what is the antecedent for “them” in the first sentence?
It’s weird–this comes up in just about every Mormon realted thread. I’m thinking of starting a separate thread on the topic. In any case, no, we don’t consider them “Mormons.” As noted above, we typically have no way of knowing concretely that anyone has accepted an ordinance.
What if you change your mind after you die? Shouldn’t any descendent who cares about your eternal well-being be willing to sacrifice any monetary reward for your benefit?
Why? What does the law have to do with anything about someone after his or her death? Indeed, after you die, why should you care what anyone does?
I’m assuming you’re missing a word there. You seem to be saying that a person receives final judgement the instant they die. However, that’s not the case in Christian belief. Final judgement comes after the resurrection.
BZZZT. Wrong. Most Christians believe that upon death we receive our particular judgement, which places us either in Heaven or Hell immediately thereafter. The General Judgement of the Resurrection takes place later. This is the belief of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as those of many Protestant bodies. Since the Catholic and Orthodox churches alone constitute over 60% of the world’s Christians, you cannot proclaim as unquestioned “christian belief” that which directly contradicts the teachings of these, the world’s two largest Christian bodies.
Because I, and only I, will choose my religion, will choose what faith my name is connected to, will choose what I believe. For someone to come along later and dunk me into even pseudo-Mormonism is to spit on my choices in life, to attempt to rewrite one of the core facets of my existence. It’d be like going in and changing the ending of Shakesepeare’s plays, or turning his comedies into tragedies. It is wrong.
The right of one to select their own religion should be eternal. No one should have the ability to slink along later and drag the dead into their church.
Those who have had post-mortem Mormonism thrust upon them.
Because it is an absolutely repugnant and vile practice, to those of us who don’t simply not want to be Mormon, but who actively reject Mormonism.
You don’t get to. You’re… get this… DEAD. Your fate is sealed. You are where you are. There’s no going back, no changing horses now.
Any descendent of mine who cares enough about me to actually know me should know that I would want to be left how and who I was. I make conscious choices in my life. One of them is to not be Mormon, or at all connected with Mormonism (or any religion similar to it). That should be respected, in perpetuity.
The law protects people from libel of slander after they have died. Their estate lives on after them, in perpetuity, you know. I would consider being dunked into Mormonism a great slander against my character (not just Mormonism, mind you, any religion aside from the one I am in at the time I die… the reason Mormonism is the issue here is because you all actually do this vulgar thing), and it should be an actionable offense.
It really actually has more variation than “most Christians” and “the few smaller sects” of Christianity… a good example would be the different types of apocalyptic Christianity, LDS/Mormonism and certain parts of the Roman Catholic church falling under that category. As far as Judeo-Christian belief goes, the basic thought about the soul is that it doesn’t exist without the body, and IIRC, the LDS Church believes that the final judgement in the resurrection is the only judgement after death. (Pardon me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I’ve studied Mormonism as part of the apocalyptic religion segment of world religions.) The belief that the soul is separate and independent of the body is more of a Classical thought, which was believed by groups such as ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Many congregations have a tendency to confuse the two ideas, using scripture that believes in the first belief, but then preaching a bit about the second belief in relation to existence after death. In the Apostle’s Creed, there are the following lines**:
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,*
and life everlasting.
[sub]*Catholic referring to the universal church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
**This creed probably doesn’t apply to Mormons, but I’m using it as a reference point. Note: this is an excerpt, and not the creed in its full entirety. Here is where you can read the whole creed if you wish.[/sub]
“Resurrection of the body” refers to the fact that the soul will be resurrected in either a new body or the original body refurbished in the event of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Anyway, now that I’ve hijacked the thread on this thought, you may now return to the discussion at present.
-Indigo-
I have to take issue with this statement. Not only do mormons baptize for the dead, they also do all other temple work for the dead as well - initiatory work, the endowment, and sealing the dead to the spouse they were married to in life. Now, for the living, these ordinances are only given to MEMBERS, and members in good standing. Thus, I would say that it’s fair to say that mormons DO consider the dead they baptise as members, otherwise they wouldn’t give them the work that only members in life receive.
Not for Catholics or Orthodox Christians. The Catholic and Orthodox churches teach that those who have died are, right now, either in Heaven or Hell (with a side issue of Purgatory for Catholics, but those folks are Heaven-bound).
They don’t have their bodies, but they are there. Otherwise, petitions to Saints would be meaningless.
it sounds like you’re describing soul sleep*, that the souls of the dead sleep from death to the Resurrection, a belief that is totally incompatible with the teachings of historical Christian churches like the Catholics and the Orthodox. Thus that notion is rejected by “most” Christians.
I think that’s what you’re saying. I found your post to be murky and unclear.
Says who? Not the LDS. And thus the crux of it all, free will does not end once the heart stops beating, and it is not a binary Greatest Glory of Heaven or Greatest Depths of Hell situation after death.
Apparently the free will of those who WEREN’T MORMON IN THEIR LIVES doesn’t matter a whit to the Mormon church.
If a person stipulates in their will that they did not want to ever, under any circumstances, be dunked into Mormonism after their death, would the Mormon Chuch honor thier wishes and keep their ecclesial hands the hell away from them? It’s a question of basic respect for the beliefs of others, a question of basic decency.
The Mormon church doesn’t give a half a damn for the wishes of those they are associating with their church after the person has died. The Mormons should leave the dead alone. If people wanted to join the Mormon Church, they would have. The Mormons aren’t satisfied with bugging you at the doorstep while you’re alive, now you can’t even escape when you’re dead.
Baptism of the dead is disrespectful, it spits all over the beliefs and wishes of the deceased. It is slander. It should be illegal. The dead have rights.
Really? And just how do the Mormons show their respect for the beliefs of those who were not Mormon in their natural lives when they’re baptizing these people without their consent?