Good point, thanks for the clarification.
Many, many non-LDS people submit records to the databases, and only some of the names have been baptized by proxy. You’re supposed to be a descendant in order to do it.
I should think the only way to ensure that it does not happen to you is to tell your children not to baptize you by proxy, should they decide to become Mormon. Pass it on. My best friend converted to the LDS Church as a teenager, and her dad pretty much told her that. I don’t think she’s done it.
While doing genealogical research in Salt Lake City about 20 years ago I did find my parents on a list of people who were baptized after death. No descendent could have done it. I was shocked at first (we are all Catholic), but now I just smile when I think about it.
It is a lot broader than that.[ul]
[li]Immediate family members[/li][li]Direct-line ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, and their families).[/li][li]Biological, adoptive, and foster family lines connected to your family.[/li][li]Collateral family lines (uncles, aunts, cousins, and their families).[/li][li]Your own descendants.[/li][li]Possible ancestors, meaning individuals who have a probable family relationship that cannot be verified because the records are inadequate, such as those who have the same last name and resided in the same area as your known ancestors.[/li][/ul] They only have to be a relative along some sort of collateral line. And there is little rigorous error checking, no requirement of proof of descent. So really you don’t even need to be a relative.
My grandmother, a faithful LDS wife, made all of her children and grandchildren promise to not seal her to grandpa. Evidently he was a violent, abusive jerk. Not that I knew that. To me he was the nice old man who bought me ice cream twice a month at JB’s Big Boy. But as she put it, one lifetime was more than enough time to put up with him. We all took her at her word. Not that it mattered. Once she was eligible, one year after her death a descendant of a distant relative no one in the family knew performed her sealing for her. Which seemed more that a little creepy to all of us. We evidently had some relative watching for our deaths to swoop in at the first possible moment to complete any ordinances we missed in our lives. I understand that several other dead relatives have received similar treatment. Presumably this distant cousin has died though, as more recent deaths have not prompted any ordnance work.
Getting a promise from your direct relatives is insufficient when far more distant relatives can also perform the work. If your friend had a distant cousin convert, they could also do the work for your friend’s dad, his wishes be damned.
I wonder if you could do it by becoming a Mormon and then resigning, or even getting yourself excommunicated (which works differently than it does in Catholicism – a Mormon excommunication does [reportedly, anyway] get your name removed from the roles of the LDS church, and does require you to be re-baptized if you want to join again later).
Do they re-baptize people who resigned or were ex’d? I’ve heard of some excommunicated leaders being rebaptized posthumously, but they were all excommunicated unwillingly for adultery, not because they wanted to leave.
I don’t believe that most Mormons (or other religions, either) think that way – they tend to feel that the most ‘unsavory’ humans are the ones most in need of religious intervention. Thus Mormons would tend to baptize them posthumously, catholics & other christians would pray for the soul suffering in purgatory/hell, Buddhists & hindus would pray that you reincarnate as a better being, etc.
I’m pretty sure that some Mormons have done posthumous baptisms on Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.
I am Mormon, have performed a lot of family genealogical research, and have performed baptisms for the dead for many deceased family members.
The answer to the original post’s question is that there is no “do not baptize” list. There are, however, several important facts which should put at ease the mind of anyone who is worried that a baptism for the dead might be performed on their behalf after they die.
First, and most importantly, a baptism for the dead does no more than provide an opportunity, an “invitation” so to speak, to the deceased person. The deceased person is perfectly free to either accept or decline that invitation. If a pair of Mormon missionaries knocked on your door today, and you said “no thanks” and they left, have you been hurt? Remember, unlike Catholicism or Protestantism, no one has ever been converted to Mormonism at the point of a sword or a gun.
Second, you have never been dead. Perhaps you have no idea what it will be like when you are dead. Or perhaps you do have an idea, but it turns out to be incorrect. As they said on South Park, “what if the Mormons are right?” Suppose it turns out that the Mormons are right and, once you are dead, you can hardly bear to wait for someone to perform a baptism for the dead for you? At worst, baptism for the dead is hedging your bet for you. (You might even want to find out about getting baptized while you are still alive. I did. www.mormon.org )
Lastly, Mormons are not free to perform baptisms for the dead for whomever they wish. The best known restriction is with respect to victims of the Holocaust. An agreement made by the Church on the subject, many years ago, could not be fully enforced due to limitations of the Church’s family history IT system. A much more recent agreement, on the same subject, has been made and this new agreement is fully enforced. It was a matter of the Church’s software being extensively improved. There are other restrictions as well, which I will explain below. Today, if you try to obtain permission to baptize someone that you are not supposed to, you get a yellow background on the computer screen and a “no authorization” message.
A key restriction, as to persons born less than 95 years ago, is prior approval of the closest living relative. The closest living relatives are, in this order: a spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings. A friend of mine cannot get the permission of his stepmother, his father’s nearest living relative, to baptize his deceased father. However, when his stepmother dies, he himself will be the closest living relative.
Mormons are obliged to see to baptisms for the dead for (a) immediate family members and (b) direct line ancestors, which means parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on.
Mormons are allowed (not required) to see to baptisms for:
Biological, adoptive, and foster family lines connected to one’s family.
Collateral family lines (uncles, aunts, cousins, and their families).
One’s own descendants.
Possible ancestors, meaning individuals who have a probable family relationship that cannot be verified because the records are inadequate, such as those who have the same last name and resided in the same area as one’s known ancestors. I think that this provision for baptism of “less than certain” relatives exists because of the unfortunate reality that, for some time periods in some places, adequate records simply do not exist.
It is forbidden to perform, or have performed, a baptism for the dead for a person to whom you are not related. There is one exception to that, which is that one may baptize a deceased friend WITH the permission of the deceased friend’s closest living relative. My impression is that this “friend” exception applies only to friends who were so close as to be the equivalent of family members. Also, I think that this “friend” exception is not often used and that most Mormons are not aware of it.
All of the above information, and a lot more, is in the Church’s “Member’s Guide to Temple and Family History Work” which can be viewed on a Church website:
http://lds.org/manual/members-guide-to-temple-and-family-history-work?lang=eng
Finally, there is in fact one fool proof way to avoid being baptized – just don’t ever die.
Thank you for the very straightforward explanation, Murdoch Jern. I’m pretty certain one branch of my family has been posthumously baptized, and I think I know the person who did it. I don’t mind, however. Most were born before Mormonism took hold.
Heck, I wouldn’t even mind if someone did it for me.
I’d have to wonder why you’d care. I know I wouldn’t, since a) I don’t believe in an afterlife at all and b) I don’t believe that a bunch of people saying words and thinking really hard about something can do anything to alter that putative afterlife. In other words, no skin off my nose if they want to pray for me. The only person who’s wasting any time in that one is them.
I couldn’t find in your link a description of what happens when someone shows up at the temple without any names, and just wants to perform ordinances in behalf of anonymous names. Isn’t that how it usually goes (i.e., a faithful LDS couple or youth group shows up at the temple and is assigned the names of deceased persons from the LDS database)? Mormons are encouraged to research and submit their genealogy to the temple. But if they have not performed the genealogy, they are still encouraged to attend as often as they can to perform endowments and other ordinances for the dead named in the database.
I have little doubt that someone will be dunked in my name within a month of my death. My closest living relative (the wife, rocknrhodes) absolutely will not be participating in any way. I can probably guess which of my brothers and in-laws will be the dunker and dunkee. It doesn’t bother me. I’m not hedging my bets - I just agree with jayjay that it’s a silly ritual that they feel obliged to do, and by then I’ll be too dead to notice.
It bothers the shit outta me because I specifically went out of my way to resign and reject the baptism I had in this lifetime. I suppose, though, because I believe it’s all nonsense, and because there isn’t fuck all I can do about it, I’ll just have to reject the gospel in the next lifetime too.
That’s probably my Karma. I’ll have to live lifetime after lifetime, over and over and over, rejecting the trendy doctrine of the time.
To jayjay:
My outrage at the potential of a posthumous Mormon baptism is the lack of respect, and the complete disregard for my decision.
I am a nevermo, and a Catholic convert. My religious belief is something intensely personal, and it is a choice I made deliberately, with much research and forethought. The very idea that someone can make a presumption for me, after I’m dead, is outrageous.
I grant you, that in my Catholic POV, the gesture is meaningless.
For me, it’s a matter of respect.
And that stuff sure is in short supply these days.
~VOW