The original thread in General Questions got shut down and I still had some unresolved questions of an ethical nature. Perhaps Great Debates is not the best place for this thread but I could see how it could expand as it goes along.
When we last left off the helpful AbbySthrnAccent was trying to answer my question about why when the Mormons believe that a soul can be redeemed after death (where they have heard the full gospel and presumably lamented not taking action in life) they are not attempting to redeem the souls of every single person who has ever lived.
The requirements that I have gathered from the thread (so please correct me if I am wrong) are that a full member of the church makes a particular prayer within a temple for someone they are related to. There isn’t any kind of medieval catholic church style purchasing of indulgences. And if I understand things correctly there is a certain ammount of posthumous baptisms of anyone they can already.
So what I was curious about (and may put this back in General Questions territory) is why Mormons aren’t spending as much time as possible saving every single person who died. Everyone is related on some level so that restriction can be ignored unless of course there’s some spiritual reason that God will only let you pray for intervention on behalf of people you can trace the blood relation to. In short I’m wondering why massive assembly line baptisms haven’t been set up to baptize everyone.
From AbbySthrnAccent reply I can tell that the resources are fairly limitted (I mean, it’s not like they’re scientologists ) so some of my answers lie there, but I would think that a belief that a soul can be redeemed after death sets up an ethical obligation on behalf of the believer to save as many of those souls as they could.
Is there more to the requirements that I’m missing? A belief that some souls shouldn’t be redeemed? I’m not trying to attack the tenets of the Mormon faith, I’m just really curious about the ethical consequences of a belief that I hadn’t encountered before.
While it’s not essential to be related, LDS emphasizes one getting baptized on behalf on one’s departed family- thus the time & effort on geneological research. However, the LDS Church has also taught that the Millenium will be spent in even greater works to reach out to the dead- so what doesn’t get done now will in that thousand years.
Btw, the LDS does not teach that all the dead can be saved, but that some will reject the Gospel offer even in death, and those who reject the Gospel full in this life (such as apostate LDS members) may not get any more opportunity in the Afterlife.
Souls dont exist. They are just made up to make our pointless little lives seem to have a point: make it to heaven. Once you die, your dead. No ands, ifs or buts about it.
Just to make something clear: we are in fact attempting to do the baptismal ordinance for every person who has lived. If a person really had the opportunity to accept the Gospel in life and rejected it, they won’t change in the afterlife. The difficulty is figuring out whether the person actually had the opportunity or not, hence we do the work of all, starting with our own ancestors first (there’s plenty of work to do there to start).
The ordinance of baptism is comprised of a worthy person with authority pronouncing the prayer, and then submerging the recipient in water. When this is done in the temple by proxy, the proxy is the one submerged.
Again, we really are trying to do the work for everyone. Note that performing the proxy ordinances (there are others aside from baptism, including marriage, sealing to parents/children where appropriate). The restriction of working on your own family first is (in my opinion only–there has never been AFAIK an official statement on this) to fulfil the prophecy in Malachi, to nicely partition the work, and to avoid claims of others criticizing us (or legally barring us) from doing the work.
Sincere questions are always welcome. Indeed, they’re a welcome relief.
Okay, the following is going to be put into my will:
“Ye who attempt to baptize this soul postmortem shall thereafter be cursed to the end of your days.”
I really don’t see the attraction of being sealed for eternity with loved ones. I love them, but eternity with them would most likely make that love go sour. Personally, I think I would prefer not to have an afterlife. I think I would just get bored of eternity…
I realize that this has little to do with the OP, and I’m rambling. I apologize.
Keep in mind that even we believe that the ordinances are only effectual if the individual accepts them. People do not lose their agency upon death. They only lose the physical body which is required for the ordinance. So nahtanoj it’s not necessary to leave it in your will. If you don’t want it, it won’t compel you.
I’m remembering that there was an outcry because baptisms were performed for people such as Anne Frank, Hitler, and various others-including a Jesuit priest who was martyred.
Also, I’ve heard of people being wed in the afterlife by proxy. Is this true? (I wish I still had that article!)
Look, I don’t necessarily agree that it’s a horrid, awful thing. But at the very least, I find it unsettleing. Some of these Catholic saints were murdered for their beliefs, and to actually attempt to list them as married is something of a slap in the face to their beliefs. If they were wrong, GOD could correct them.
Note-I’m not criticising those here who are LDS, or the LDS in general. However, I will say I find this practice somewhat distasteful.
I think we had this whole conversation fairly recently, and will try to dig up the thread. But I just want to question the article that claims the various Catholic saints are sealed/married. Usually, a person is sealed to the person they were married to in life (so yes, Guin, we do seal married couples). The term ‘sealing,’ however, also refers to a parent/child relationship; I am sealed to my parents, and my children are sealed to my husband and to me. I would expect that if Francis Xavier were sealed to anyone, it would be his parents, not a wife he never had in life.
LDS terms and practices can be so confusing to non-Mormons that mix-ups are very common. So I would want a little more confirmation here.
Now, the Church does in fact do its best to educate members that they should only do the work for their own ancestors, and not Holocaust victims, or royalty, or whoever. However, some people still won’t listen. And try to imagine the amount of work it would be to double-check every single name submitted to make sure that it really is legit–it simply can’t be done, and has to run on an honor system.
No. Though if you believe that it has no effect, I don’t see much need.
Yes, there has been outcry in the past. After Jewish leaders objected to holocaust victims being baptized by proxy, the LDS church removed those records from the central records, and reminded individual members that they are supposed to be working on their own families.
This Helen Radkey sounds like she has an axe to grind. I hadn’t heard of her by name before. In the linked article (nice title by the way) we find:
I would have respected her outcry a bit more if she weren’t trying to profit from it.
Understand that when we perform the baptisms, we know that we can’t (and don’t wish to!) contravene free will. I would like to think that deceased popes who don’t want to receive the ordinance would have the class and tact to thank the LDS for their good intentions, but no thanks. I think some LDS do the work for the famous out of infatuation, and for the infamous out of a sense of virulent impartiality (as noted in the linked article). People who perform the ordinance for religious figures likely do so with the idea that such devout individuals should be at the front of the list to be offered what LDS see as a precious gift.
When the work for someone is done, the records don’t show that they are members of the LDS church, only that the work was done for them. It is not very different then having hyper-accurate missionary records showing who the missionaries have talked to (and frankly, I would bet good money that there are a number of people who wish that LDS missionaries kept such good records). I really don’t see what the big deal is. I know that if another religion did the same for me, I would decline it, but I would not be offended. Neither am I offended if anyone attempts to share their religious beliefs with me, even though I am quite convinced of the veracity of Mormonism.
It appears that some people would rather not have this ceremony/prayer performed upon them at all. But, since there appears that there is no way to communicate that wish after a physical demise (unless psychics and mediums aren’t full of it), perhaps I ought to put it there anyway. If my descendants do their geneological research thoroughly, then they would be able to realize my strong desire not to be baptised postmortem.
Besides, I find the thought that people can have an affect upon the deceased rather pretentious. Perhaps if we can affect the dead, then the dead can affect us. <gasp!> So, if the stipulation is there, then it lets my descendants know that I will , if possible, come after them. <insert evil cackle here>
Just Some Guy I wasn’t ignoring your op. I didn’t see it until a friend IM’d and asked why I hadn’t replied. I apologize for the delay.
I think FriarTed’s remarks are accurate. However, it’s my understanding we shouldn’t be submitting names for temple ordinances unless they are progenitors. I will verify my understanding.
I don’t understand you here. Can you ask again? Perhaps I’ll understand your question if worded a little differently.
emarkp Did a better job than I would addressing this. Bottom line is that is the goal, that is why we (some of us) are so anxiously engaged in the work. I’m not sure what you mean by massive assembly line baptisms, in this post I thought I was addressing your question. There are baptisms being done in 114 temples around the world Tuesday through Saturday. The work is limited by the genealogical documentation, temple availability, and member commitment and time invested in researching the documentation and doing the actual work. As I think I said in the linked posts a dozen or so youth and seven or eight adults can do 20-30 baptisms each in a couple of hours. Remember, not only the ministry is lay (volunteer), but so is the operation of the templesm, including the ordinance workers, the laundry, the cafeteria, and much of the maintenance and groundskeeping also. It is a tremendous undertaking.
You are correct the goal is to do the work for everyone, knowing that some will elect not to accept it.
Not sure what you mean here. Ask again and I’ll try to understand what you want to know.
We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He was the Creator, that He is our Savior, and He will be our Judge. It is not for us to decide if someone was so heinously wicked we should withhold the work. We are to do the work, and He will judge.
This post is quite long and cumbersome, I’m going to go ahead and post it. If I failed to adequately answer something, please bring it to my attention and I will try again.
I’m not sure what I said that lead you to believe we are not attempting to provide proxy baptisms for every single person who ever lived. That is in fact what we are doing. Again, we do not presume to know whether the recipient accepts or declines the opportunity we are attempting to provide. We believe that God our Father in Heaven wants us all to come home, not unlike us as mortal parents who want all our children to come home at the end of the day.
I’m very curious about how it actually works. I have been shown quite a bit on how Baptismal Fonts look, and such. But, how does this work if you are doing it by proxy?
If this is the work done by some members in many churches, then does one member go through the Immersion over and over for the day? What do the lay people do for each proxy Baptism?
Does it take long to do for each individual proxy Baptism? What does the person wear?
When an indivdual is baptized, (for themselves or by proxy), the person with the proper priesthood authority goes down into the water and raises his right arm to an L postion. He calls the person by the full legal name, and says, “Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen,” (D&C 20:73) and then dips them backwards, totally submerges (immerses) the person/proxy in the water and then lifting them back upright immersion.
One member might be baptised for 10, 20 or 30 progenitors at a time. It depends on the number of names prepared and submitted. The baptistry in the Dallas and Houston temples are fairly small and only have room for about 7 or 8 ordinance workers (the wardrobe personnel who pass out white jumpers, the record keeper, the ladies and gentlemen standing by with towels for their respective genders, the witnesses, the priesthood administering the ordinance, and so on) and seating for about two dozen proxies. Generally a group will arrive together, change in dressing rooms, and watch reverently and quietly as each proxy takes a turn doing a series of baptisms. Once you are the proxy, when you come out of the water, you are handed a towel immediately and you go dry and change into modest sunday attire and return quietly to the baptistry to watch the others.
The temple is a very quiet peaceful place. You’d be surprised how quiet and reverent two dozen teenagers can be when serving their ancestors and the Lord in such sacred manner.
Well, it doesn’t matter what they do to me when I’m dead, I’m dead, and nothing they do will actually do anything…so I don’t care.
It’s all very silly. Lots of christians believe the majority of people on earth (since most are other religions) are going to hell because they don’t believe in the christian god…even if they never ever heard of him because they live in the jungle.
Yeah, that sounds fair!
And in the mormon religion…I read “Secret Cermonies” by Deborah Laake. Once you marry a man you are still married to him in heaven,even if you get divorced and he remarries.
There’s some ceremony now, I think, to divorce them completely…
It’s funny if he remarries a divorcee…is the second woman still married to her first husband? If she isn’t a divorcee…the guy gets two wives in heaven
) so some of my answers lie there, but I would think that a belief that a soul can be redeemed after death sets up an ethical obligation on behalf of the believer to save as many of those souls as they could.
