I’m Jewish, and although I find the LDS practice of baptizing the dead weird and creepy and kinda offensive, I don’t seem to have it in me to get worked over it. Meh.
I thought this thread was going to be about this article, which an old friend (who’s LDS) posted to Facebook yesterday. It reads like an Onion article, I swear.
What they’re doing doesn’t mean anything and I think the Jews who are upset should cultivate a good deep belly laugh at the Mormons involved, and engage in it publically whenever possible. It’s the only sensible response.
I can understand how the idea is upsetting but let’s face it, history is not going to be altered in this way unless the Mormons take control of Western culture as a whole. In which case we are all screwed.
So one group is imposing their oogey-boogeyman on the dead of another group, and the other group is afraid their oogey-boogeyman is going to get pissed off, errr - - ?
I understand that the idea of forced or coerced baptism of any kind is a very repugnant one to many Jews, especially given the unpleasant history of tension in Jewish-Christian relations in premodern times. So I sympathize with their distaste for it.
On the other hand, I agree with others here that this ceremony can have no possible significance to anybody except Mormons. It’s hard to see why any non-Mormon would even bother taking it seriously.
I imagine your first paragraph answers your second. Also, there’s an argument to be made that making what could be construed - even if it’s not - an attempt to posthumously change someone’s religious affiliation is kind of icky.
Personally, I think it’s fairly despicable, but I will also freely admit that I’m biased against Mormons to begin with, and even more so in light of their recent “let’s pour millions of dollars into depriving people of their rights” antics.
That’s kind of a dick move. IMO the Jews should start proxy-converting live Mormons; I’d watch a 1/2 hour of whatever happens next. (I was going to say that penis would probably ensue, but the Mormons would be watching out for that…)
I understand that the Mormons maintain one of the largest geneological databases in the world. And people from all over the world use it.
I wonder if the concern is that not only do they baptize the dead into the Mormon faith, they also alter their geneological records to indicate these people are Mormon. I don’t actually know if this is done or not, but I can see families being concerned that their gnerations-distant family might do research and suddenly discover that Great Grandpa Schlomo was a Mormon.
It’s a classic matchup, the brash newcomer (178 years, per the OP) against the wily veteran (2000 years +, + being a couple hundred or a few thousand depending on who you believe).
The Mormons are on a roll, having recently defeated the homosexuals in California, but it was obvious that the homosexuals had trouble making weight and weren’t focused on the fight. The Jews are solid strikers, but their ideological takedowns are not to be dismissed, and their ground game is world class. I don’t think the Mormons are ready for their conditioning and ability to defend in the guard, let alone their submissions.
I say that 500 years from now the Mormons are still doing what they want to do, and nobody cares, and if you can get a Rabbi to comment on it at all it will be a dismissive “Good for them” throwaway quote that makes 'em look just sad.
They don’t. Dangermom has posted quite often on this subject. The records are clear that it was a baptism by proxy and anyone who would screw up so badly that they would mix up the religion of the deceased probably shouldn’t be in charge of a pencil.
When I was living out in SLC, it was explained to me that the Mormons themselves didn’t consider this a “forced conversion” - the soul being baptized had the option to refuse the proxy ordinance. That conjures up all sorts of odd images in my head. The point is that, from the LDS point of view, they’re not imposing anything. From the Jewish or Catholic opoint of view, nothing that anyone does after your death is really going to adversely affect any afterlife you might have. So to my mind, the whole thing is irrelevant.
As I learned after commenting thus in the other thread, other people don;t see it that way at all. I’m still at a loss to see why, but people have a deep feeling that some other religion is violating their relatives somehow in presuming to perform proxy ceremonies for them. The details aren’t clear, and are probably irrelevant. People upset because their Jewish ancestors might be seen as Mormon Holocaust victimns instead of Jewish Holocaust victims? To me it seems massively unlikely and completely irrelevant, but I suspect it’s a visceral reaction rather than a logical objection.
I have this vision of some little old addled Jewish or Catholic lady in the Afterlife (which looks like a Retirement Community), being visited by some upset descendant
Descendant: Did I just see someone leaving?
Aunt: Oh, yes. Two nice young boys. So polite, and well-dressed, too. They wore ties.
D: Those were Mormons. I warned you abouyt talking to them
A: Oh. Is that what they were?
D: They were probably trying to get you to accept Proxy Baptism. Did you agree to anything?
A: I don’t think so. I didn’t go down to the Pool.
D: You wouldn’t have to. They’d have someone else being baptized. Look, just don’t let them in again, Okay?
A: But nobody else ever visits, and they like my cookies.
D: Do you want to wake up one morning and find that you’re suddenly Mormon?
A: Would I have to move to the LDS Heaven?
D: Im worried about you, that’s all. I don’t want people taking advantage of you. I’m going to see to it that they don’t bother you again.
To answer the argument that this is just a nutty Mormon practice that no one in the future will be taken in by - we could say the same about Holocaust deniers’ attempts to alter the historical record. I mean, no one could possibly ever be fooled by these wacko revisionists. Could they?
The people who should be offended most by this continuing hoo-hah are rank and file Mormons. You’d think it would be most embarassing to find out that your church cannot keep its word and repeatedly lies about what it’s doing.
But the LDS practice isn’t any sort of attempt to alter histories or to rewrite what happened. It is, if I understand it correctly, an attempt to offer a chance at LDS salvation to those who never had the opportunity in life. It doesn’t change anything about that person, or their life, and isn’t an attempt to “make them Mormon” or to make people, for whatever reason, think they were Mormon.
Whereas Holocause Deniers really do have an agenda that involves making people think that the historical facts are different than the majority think they are, and this is usually so that people will think that the Nazis weren’t so bad, or that neo_Nazis aren’t so bad, or something.
Comparing Vicarious Baptism for the Dead (and other Vicarious LDS services that don’t get the same press) to Holocaust Revisionism is so far off the mark it isn’t funny.