i have to agree here with drabble when your dead, your dead so a proxy baptism isn’t hurting me any.
i think a lot of families searching for their roots are grateful to the LDS church for the extensive records they have.
I’m not familiar with the book you reference. Somehow, given your remarks I seriously doubt its accuracy.
It is possible to be divorced even if married in the temple.
(A temple divorce so to speak.)
There is no “ceremony” for divorce. It’s an interview and paperwork, not unlike meeting with a civil judge and a civil divorce decree.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Drabble *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
[quote]
Not really likely.
As has been stated before in the threads over the last few days. Agency (the right to choose for yourself, in the previous, this and the next life) is an important part of the Gospel as we understand it. As in this one, in the next life, the woman has the right to choose who to be with. Presumably she’d choose the mate she married and stayed with for the duration of her life.
Contrary to what you’ve implied, a man cannot marry and divorce repeatedly and expect that he’d then have a plethora of wives in the next life.
This part is correct.
Because he says it so much more beautifully than I, from the link above “Why These Temples?” by Gordon B. Hinckley
italics mine
The book was written in 1993. You have to remember I’m talking about mormons, not all christians.
She writes about here wedding ceremony where she gets a ‘secret name’ to whisper in her groom’s ear…
"It was the secret magic password that would identify me to Monty at death so that he could pull me through to the other side.
Without Monty, I learned in that moment, I wasn’t going to get into heaven at all. That’s how the system worked for women, although, I would never know Monty’s ‘new name’. Apparently God himself ushered in the men.
“We were told we would bear our husband’s ‘spirit children’ throughout eternity’…”
“Marriage is the backbone of the mormon society and doctrine-Mormons believe that only the married are allowed to enter the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven”
“her civil marriage “sealed” in the unique mormon ceremony that makes it binding after death”
“your father and I have been married in a temple…that means our marriage doesn’t end with death, and that your children will be part of our family in the next life…It’s awfully important that your father and I stay together.”
“As far as the church was concerned, my civil divorce counted only until death, at which time I would become monty’s wife for eternity. I could change my fate only by obtaining a “cancellation of sealing”, which is an afterlife divorce.”
“She had been ‘sealed’ to howard during their brief marriage, and she knew that she would live with him in the next life, where church law declared he would also lay claim to the three children whom Uncle Fred had actually sired (her second husband).”
" Now all at once, Howard’s dilemma didn’t seem very funny to me. I was suddenly too aware that temple ‘sealings’ not only join you to another forever, but hog tie you there-that I, too, might spend eternity with someone I didn’t love"
This makes it extremely difficult for a divorced woman to re-marry!!!
Are you even reading the links to the threads provided in the ops and replies?
I am LDS.
The author of the book you cite is wrong. I can’t say whether she doesn’t understand or whether she is deliberately misconstrueing what she has learned.
I will repeat again. Everyone (even your author) has the right to choose as they did in the past, do now, and will have in the eternities a decision made in this life is only binding in the next if you want it to be. Now obviously, someone who divorced and has unresolved ill feelings towards an ex will not want to be bound to them in the eternities.
I’m afraid that Deborah Laake is not exactly a reliable source. I’ve read the book, and I was married in the temple–trust me on this.
Abby, I’d just like to amend your description of the baptism to include a bit you forgot; in the temple doing proxy work, the baptizer says “FullName, I baptize you for and in behalf of DeadPerson, who is dead. In the name…[etc].”
Interesting stuff. I was born a Jew. Day 8 of my life was fairly traumatic. After that, it was smooth sailing till I was 13. 
At what age is an LDS baby/child Baptised, and at what age can an LDS child/teen/adult act as a proxy in the ceremonies discussed up there?
Thank you genie you are of course correct.
Cartooniverse LDS children are not baptized before the age of 8. They have to understand what faith is and be able to articulate their faith. They have to understand repentance, which means they must be old enough to understand right and wrong and feel remorse.
The baptism proxies can be no younger than 12.
Um, I should amend my own remark up there. When I said “articulate their faith”, I do not mean to imply that only people who speak and or hear can be baptized. It is understanding the significance of the covenant that is required. A person is interviewed and asked if they want to be baptized and given an opportunity to express their faith. When I say interviewed, I mean it in the gentlest sort of interview that you can imagine. It is not an interrogation or scary event at all. The person they are visiting with is someone that the young person is comfortable with and trusts.
As an example, when my son (who was and is very into sports) was asked about his desire to be baptized they ended up talking briefly, among other things, about him being on Heavenly Fathers “team” and how Jesus Christ could be likened to a referee.
What is LDS? How is that related to mormons in the Salt LaKe City region? I don’t know much about religion shrugs
From what I have seen on mormons before, I still think they believe in eternal marriage…going back to the ‘original’ mormon and his polygamist beliefs.
Then seeing what I have of actual polygamist mormons…that’s extreme…I can see them believing all that about being married in a temple for eternity…blah blah.
Then there’s the point that Laake makes about people not wanting their secrets out…she kinda blacklisted herself by writing the book.
Drabble, it’s becoming evident that you need a course in the basics of the LDS Church before you try to judge about this stuff.
The LDS Church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is informally known as the Mormons. The Mormons in Salt Lake are LDS. There are a few splinter groups, with different names, who may also be considered Mormon but not specifically LDS–but they are mostly very small sects. If you meet someone who says he’s Mormon, he’s almost certain to be LDS.
We do believe in eternal marriage. That’s partly what the temple is for. That does not, however, mean that I am eternally chained to my husband no matter what he does or how badly I want out of the relationship.
Polygamy was offically stopped in 1890. Splinter sects that still practice it are different. Anyone who practices polygamy these days is excommunicated. In the afterlife, we expect polygamy to exist–but not by force.
Deborah Laake broke some very important covenants when she wrote her book. I don’t approve of it, and I think she’ll have to answer for it in the next life. But that is a different issue than the fact that she has distorted or simply badly misunderstood LDS doctrine and practices. That misunderstanding is, IMO, what led to her problems in the first place. The book is inaccurate.
You need to look at www.mormon.org, which is the Church’s site for people who want to know the basics. You’re not going to have much luck understanding us if you don’t learn some accurate, basic information.
By your own admission you don’t know much, so please quit posting what you heard and what you think as if it is fact. You coming on here and claiming to know and understand our beliefs makes as much sense as someone from south Texas going to a Japanese car salesman in Japan and asking operational, manufacturing and historical details about a Ford dooley pickup truck.
In light of your insider knowledge AbbySthrnAccent, I would like to ask a few questions:
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Suppose that in life a progenitor of some LDS member provided documentation (e.g. will, diary, etc.) that they expressively wished not to be baptised post-mortem. Would the ceremony be perfomed anyway, in the hopes that the progenitor had had a change of heart in the afterlife?
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If a sibling or other family of the LDS member protested the baptisim on behalf of the progenitor, what would happen? Some mediation of some sort?
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If the answer to #1 is yes, what would it take to convince the LDS that the deceased truly does not wish to be baptised into the LDS?
Nahtanoj
Psst. Dualie. Two rear tires on the end of each axle.
What’s the deal with the marriage thing, though? I can understand… if not appreciate… the baptism part. (I think it’s just plain rude.) But I don’t understand the marriage at all.
Each end of the rear axle.
That of course depends on how the individual handles the situation. Were I the descendant in question, I would perform the ordinance anyway, confident that if my ancestor does not want to receive it, he will simply reject it. In general we don’t have a reliable way to know the current wishes of the passed-on. Hence we cannot assume that even someone who has made such preparations haven’t changed his mind. I’ve seen a few examples of people who were virulently opposed to a religion (or all religions) who have later converted–indeed, a friend of mine from high school who was just like this is now a youth minister.
Frankly, I don’t know. Again, it would be up to the individual in question.
Again, it is not a matter of the LDS church, but with individual LDS members–primarily your own descendants. The motivation of the members takes into account not just the wishes of the deceased but also the knowledge that the deceased can reject it if he doesn’t want to receive it, but that he does change his mind and wants to receive it, the descendant would be doing a big disservice by not performing the ordinance.
Once again let me point out that the individual is never “baptised into the LDS” postumously. We note that the ordinance has been done, but we do not assume that it was accepted, and they are not considered de facto members of the LDS church.
I think people who try to force conversions either in life or after death are the equivalent of a grand church of Satan coming by to defile your soul. If they didn’t want you around or ignored you in life, you should expect the same in death. I am sure that Mormons specifically wouldn’t want Joseph Smith’s body and soul defiled for Satan, they should respect the religions of others and not do the equivalent to them.
Fortunately we don’t force conversions. As mentioned several times in this thread alone.
- The short answer is yes, maybe so. However, I think the answer to this one varies by family. How sure is anyone that when they die their final wishes are honored by their family members?
I’m not sure, but I get the feeling you (and a few others) don’t understand that it’s not “The Church” that is doing these ordinances. It is being done by the descendants who submit the names for the work to be done, because of their personal beliefs and convictions based on their understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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The answer here is the same as one. It’s a family decision (or dispute sometimes apparently) so the result would depend on the family. I suppose it’s possible that some families might use a mediator.
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I don’t know. What would it take to convince your descendants to abide your wishes after your death?
A couple of examples from my family may help clarify. My mom wants to be cremated. My brother objects on religious grounds. (Ironically enough they are the same religion, but have different understandings of something relating to death and burial). My mother has left a funeral plan that allows for her cremation. My brother says he’ll convert it into a burial plan after she’s gone. When my mother called and asked me to make sure her wishes where carried out, my response was that If I got to her first I would adhere to her wishes. However, if he got to her first, I was not going to fight with him about it after her death. As it seemed absurd to me to destroy my relationship with what will likely be my only surviving childhood family member upon the death of my mother.
My grandmother was Catholic, non practicing, but Catholic who came from Catholic, it was tradition more than it was about spirituality for her. For many years, she hated the idea that part of her daughters family converted to the LDS church and only in the last year or two come to say kind things about it. I know she would never have converted in this life. Her heart did soften towards the church and the way we lived our life, but she would have never considered for herself in this life as much as she came to admire us. Her LDS ordinance work has been done, it’s there in case she wants to accept it. However, we don’t presume to know whether she would to accept it or not. Her records in the family bible and other records do not reflect a change in her religon. When sharing records with other family members (whatever their faith) it is her infant Catholic baptism that is the baptism record. As I mentioned her practice of Catholism was largely traditional and my cousins and brother that remain Catholic are all non practicing. My cousin’s feelings on the matter… “Whatever floats yer boat ASA, we’ll all find out for sure when we get there and if we’re right and you’re wrong, I’m gonna shove ya in a river. Pass the pie please.” I can live with that.
Why do we do it? Because when we were baptized we covenanted to Keep the commandments we believe we are commanded to.
WRSauron’spost in this thread does a nice job of laying the scriptural basis for our belief.
I’m still curious about the marrying saints by proxy thing. What is that?