# (Non-Mormon) Christians converting to Mormonism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 14, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310 "2011-02-14T16:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/141 "2011-02-21T16:38:17Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > \ > Edward Abbey was right. > > \ Yes. Yes, he was. About a lot of things. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/142 "2011-02-21T16:43:15Z")
Dog, Interesting comments, thanks. Success does seem to be an integral part of LDS philosophy. BTW: Have you ever read Edward Abbey? His novel “The Monkey Wrench Gang” has Mormon heros and villains. Bishop Love is a kind of Wiley Coyote character to George Washington Heyduke’s Roadrunner. Seldom-Seen-Smith is the much admired fundamentalist who’s numerous wives create family wealth by skillfully managing their farms. Fiction but fun. Crane oops - I posted this while you were writing the above. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/143 "2011-02-21T16:43:35Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I’m trying to figure out if I can put something in my will that will allow the executors of my estate to sue the everlovin’ shit outta the church if they try to make me a member again after my death. Sorry, but not only is there a Free Speech issue involved, but your relatives would have a hell of a time trying to sue someone for wishing you well. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/144 "2011-02-21T16:43:47Z")
Notes on the Law of Consecration and the United Order: No investigating prospect would ever be told of any of this. Most devout mormons don’t even know about a lot of the church history and occult connections that JS had. The discussions tend to focus on a Christ-centered gospel until one gets baptized, at which point, some people start digging deeper into the doctrine and discover that it’s not really a church so much as it’s the Cult of Joseph Smith. Many people, sadly, never dig that deeply for many different reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/145 "2011-02-21T16:45:42Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Dog, > > Interesting comments, thanks. Success does seem to be an integral part of LDS philosophy. > > BTW: Have you ever read Edward Abbey? > > His novel “The Monkey Wrench Gang” has Mormon heros and villains. Bishop Love is a kind of Wiley Coyote character to George Washington Heyduke’s Roadrunner. Seldom-Seen-Smith is the much admired fundamentalist who’s numerous wives create family wealth by skillfully managing their farms. Fiction but fun. > > Crane Yes, and in fact, I am friends with a guy who used to run around with Abbey and on whom Hayduke’s character was based. I’m a huge fan of both! Loved, loved, loved The Monkey Wrench gang. Abbey’s friend and I have had many discussions about mormonism in that context. ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/146 "2011-02-21T16:45:57Z")
And proxy baptism/confirmation is only the beginning. After that, each name in the geneological record gets a proxy priesthood ordination (if male), washing-and-annointing, Endowment (in which the deceased learns his new name and the passwords and Masonic handshakes that will get him past the pearly gates a.k.a. the veil), and eternal sealing to spouses. People talk a lot about baptism for the dead. But baptism, confirmation, washing-and-annointing, and sealing take less than a minute each. Faithful LDS spend the vast majority of their temple time in the 90-min Endowment. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/147 "2011-02-21T18:28:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Sorry, but not only is there a Free Speech issue involved, but your relatives would have a hell of a time trying to sue someone for wishing you well. So it’s to be haunting then? :dubious: That’s fine. I will haunt any mormon who baptizes me by proxy after my death, until I get to square up with 'em face to face in the afterlife. And then, quite literally, there will be hell to pay. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/148 "2011-02-21T18:52:03Z")
To my knowledge they’re still baptizing [Holocaust victims](http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.html) and it appears to be 100% legal. To illegalize it would be to prove it works or that it hurts somebody. It’s become funny when I do genealogy research and find out that a relative who died before the Revolution was baptized into the Mormon church in 1989 or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/149 "2011-02-21T19:06:15Z")
Man, those “pre-existing spirits” sound an awful lot like body thetans. You sure that dude Elohim wans’t really Xenu ©?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/150 "2011-02-21T19:23:40Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > To my knowledge they’re still baptizing [Holocaust victims](http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.html) and it appears to be 100% legal. To illegalize it would be to prove it works or that it hurts somebody. > > It’s become funny when I do genealogy research and find out that a relative who died before the Revolution was baptized into the Mormon church in 1989 or whatever. This is why I must remain vigilant posthumously. I will be taking my haunting duties very seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/151 "2011-02-21T19:28:10Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > This is why I must remain vigilant posthumously. I will be taking my haunting duties very seriously. Watch it or you’ll find yourself posthumously sealed to Joseph Smith and spend your afterlife teaching Emma to pole dance. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/152 "2011-02-21T19:38:17Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Watch it or you’ll find yourself posthumously sealed to Joseph Smith and spend your afterlife teaching Emma to pole dance. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TravisFromOR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@TravisFromOR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TravisFromOR)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/153 "2011-02-21T20:42:14Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > You do not have to show any connection at all. > > Step 1: Research your geneology. > > Step 2: Mine any names of your ancestors who were not mormon. > > Step 3: Rat them out to the church. Submit their names to the temple for proxy ordinances. > > Step 4: Go to the temple yourself. Put on weird white clothing. Step into baptismal font. Baptiser dude reads off a list of names you’ve never heard before. Ever. > > Step 5: While still soaking wet and now in see-through white clothing, go sit in a chair while some other dude puts his hands on your head and confirms that baptism for the list of names of people you just dunked yourself for. > > Step 6: Lather, rinse, repeat. That’s what I like about the LDS Church. If they’re right, I’m essentially in the clear, without ever having to do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/154 "2011-02-21T23:04:51Z")
> [@TravisFromOR](#): > > That’s what I like about the LDS Church. If they’re right, I’m essentially in the clear, without ever having to do anything. Not quite. After you’re dead and sitting in prison in the great hereafter (I’ve always imagined it as the prison in the original Tron movie), you have to let in the same damn Mormon missionaries and accept their message. Presumably they won’t have bicycles as you’ll all be disembodied spirits. > [@Dogzilla](#): > > That’s fine. I will haunt any mormon who baptizes me by proxy after my death, until I get to square up with 'em face to face in the afterlife. And then, quite literally, there will be hell to pay. 🆒 Ex-Mormons cannot be baptized posthumously without approval from the First Presidency. As I doubt you are on Tommy M’s radar, you’re probably safe. Of course, they also aren’t supposed to baptize holocaust victims either, and we all know how well that’s worked out. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/155 "2011-02-22T17:43:18Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If so, this is certainly not a phenomenon exclusive to Mormon proselytizers. Plenty of other Christian denominations actively attempt to “convert” people who are Christian already. > > Pentecostal groups, for example, maintain [substantial mission efforts in Latin America](http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=139), where the vast majority of their converts and potential converts are Catholic. This fits in with my point, I think: Pentecostals aren’t trying to have it both ways, because they’re quite open about thinking they’ve got something the rest of us Christians don’t: the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by the gift of tongues. That’s why the phrase “Full Gospel” is in so many of their church names and so forth. Can’t speak to your other examples, though. Sounds like denominations may be willing to try to poach off each other in their overseas missions in ways that they wouldn’t be willing to do overtly on the home front. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/156 "2011-02-22T17:58:42Z")
Or perhaps they are trying to change people from nominally Christian to actively Christian. I imagine that would be more common in a country with an official or semi-official church, where one is considered a member of the state church by default. That wouldn’t be the case in the US, which has no state church. “Converting” someone who doesn’t go to mass, for instance, to someone who does go to temple (or mosque or etc.) is not that much of a loss to the RC church, ISTM. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/157 "2011-02-22T20:03:57Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Or perhaps they are trying to change people from nominally Christian to actively Christian. I imagine that would be more common in a country with an official or semi-official church, where one is considered a member of the state church by default. That wouldn’t be the case in the US, which has no state church. > > “Converting” someone who doesn’t go to mass, for instance, to someone who does go to temple (or mosque or etc.) is not that much of a loss to the RC church, ISTM. > > Regards, > Shodan Also is the case of the lifelong church-goer who has never felt or no longer feels a relationship with God or really understands their faith but has always gone as a matter of tradition, and then they either attend a different church or hear someone’s witness to faith & it all becomes real to them. More evangelistic groups are full of people who have this sort of experience. And it is more liturgical or ritualistic churches which usually take the loss. (Altho I sometime tease my fellow Pentecostals by telling them that someday their grandchildren may have to switch to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy to renew their Christian faith.) ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/158 "2011-02-23T04:57:57Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > Ex-Mormons cannot be baptized posthumously without approval from the First Presidency. As I doubt you are on Tommy M’s radar, you’re probably safe. Of course, they also aren’t supposed to baptize holocaust victims either, and we all know how well that’s worked out. Well the problem is there are (or at least were) absolutely no safeguards. Back when I used to do this, you basically handed a stack of paper to the temple (probably now an electronic file transfer) and they popped it onto the stack for baptisms. Absolutely no error (or blacklist) checking. And I’ve not heard of any since I left the church. I was personally pissed off when my Grandma was sealed to my Grandpa. They had converted in life, but she refused to go to the temple when he was alive. She wasn’t willing to divorce him, but she “would rather go to hell then spend eternity with the bastard.” After his death she finally got her endowments, but made all of her kids and grandkids promise not to ever get them sealed. So instead some distant relative, to whom she was nothing more than a line on a piece of paper, went and had them sealed. That is when I understood what the relatives of the holocaust victims were feeling. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/159 "2011-02-23T07:51:26Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > Well the problem is there are (or at least were) absolutely no safeguards. Back when I used to do this, you basically handed a stack of paper to the temple (probably now an electronic file transfer) and they popped it onto the stack for baptisms. Absolutely no error (or blacklist) checking. And I’ve not heard of any since I left the church. > > I was personally pissed off when my Grandma was sealed to my Grandpa. They had converted in life, but she refused to go to the temple when he was alive. She wasn’t willing to divorce him, but she “would rather go to hell then spend eternity with the bastard.” After his death she finally got her endowments, but made all of her kids and grandkids promise not to ever get them sealed. So instead some distant relative, to whom she was nothing more than a line on a piece of paper, went and had them sealed. That is when I understood what the relatives of the holocaust victims were feeling. Why would it bother you if some lunatic performs some weird ceremony that has no effect upon anything? It’s like being prayed for-who cares if somebody prays for you? If you don’t believe in its efficacy, what is the point of worrying about it? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310/160 "2011-02-23T13:37:49Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Why would it bother you if some lunatic performs some weird ceremony that has no effect upon anything? > It’s like being prayed for-who cares if somebody prays for you? If you don’t believe in its efficacy, what is the point of worrying about it? It bothers the shit out of me because I made a concerted effort to walk away and disassociate myself with the organization. To them, it’s much more than just a prayer or well wishes. I can understand how you cannot comprehend the white hot livid rage that comes from the knowledge that, despite your best efforts, you will not be able to leave the mormon church, even in death. If you’ve never fought tooth and nail to get away from a toxic organization, I don’t see how you can understand how rage-inducing and hurtful it is to know you will be sucked right back in against what would have been your will while alive on this earth. Just like Holocaust victims have been posthumously baptized, as well as Adolf Hitler, it’s a slap in the face to what your life stood for. I don’t even believe in an afterlife, really. But because the mormons do and the mormons believe they can do what they think is right for me with no concern whatsoever to what I thought was right for myself, the idea pisses me off. Tell you what. Go down to your local Scientology center and have your thetans read. (or whatever it is they do) Drink the Scientology Kool-Aid. Give them your money, your time, your best efforts, cut off all ties to non-Scientologist friends and family. Then wake up one morning and decide you don’t believe anymore. Try to walk away. Endure the pressure of your former associates trying to rope you back in with guilt and shame and manipulation. Do a bunch of boundary work and self-esteem work with a therapist. And then, one day, when you tell me that Scientology still considers you a member in good standing, tell me how you feel about that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-mormon-christians-converting-to-mormonism/571310.md?page=9)