Mormons warned <again> not to baptize by proxy for dead Jews

[ALAYMAN]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-03-05/mormons-proxy-baptism-holocaust-jews/53372816/1


While I think the practice of the Mormon church is morbid and downright bizarre, I think that for the Anti-defamation league (and others) to insist that the Mormons cease a longstanding religious practice of theirs merely because it is offensive, well, is just another case of political correctness running amock.  And it highlights the current frightening trend of eroding religious freedoms in this country.

 

[Izdaari]

I don't care if they do or if they don't. Since they have no real spiritual power, mox nix. But it kind of irks me that they'd censor their genealogy software to exclude the Jewish names of Holocaust victims. What if you just want to look up an ancestor that has one of those names, with no thought of posthumous baptism?

 

[Ransom]

I know that Mormon genealogical records are quite extensive.  To what extent would the practice of proxy baptism seem to alter the historical record?  That is, would someone reading Mormon genealogies come away with the impression that either a) more people were Mormons than actually were in life; or b) Mormon genealogy is a variety of revisionism, and not particularly reliable as a historical document?

 

[JrChurch]

If Jewish people find the religious rite of "baptism of the dead" for a deceased Jew a morally repugnant practice, then I think it would be highly offensive to do so.  Their Jewish ancestors have endured more degradations than any people should have to do.

 

[Ransom]

Never mind the Jews. I find the idea repugnant that either I, or my Baptist and Anglican ancestors, would be retroactively declared Mormons by a group of nutjobs.  From a legal perspective, they're fortunate you can't libel the dead.

 

[FSSL]

I went to one of these baptisms. Strange.

 

[JrChurch]

Here's a strange story for you.... the first I ever heard about "baptism for the dead" was when my husband's cousin and wife (married at the Temple) came to visit us.  They babbled on and on about baptism for the dead.  From our home, they flew on to Hawaii where his cousin drowned in the ocean. 

 

[ALAYMAN]

If Jewish people find the religious rite of "baptism of the dead" for a deceased Jew a morally repugnant practice, then I think it would be highly offensive to do so.  Their Jewish ancestors have endured more degradations than any people should have to do.

Should <our> religious practices be subject to the sensibilities and opinions of the prevailing culture?  For instance, should the Catholic church admit women to the priesthood due to the zeitgeist of contemporary feminist philosopy?

 

[Ransom]

Should <our> religious practices be subject to the sensibilities and opinions of the prevailing culture?

This particular religious practice denigrates the memory of the deceased, and borders upon defamation.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Should <our> religious practices be subject to the sensibilities and opinions of the prevailing culture?

This particular religious practice denigrates the memory of the deceased, and borders upon defamation.

Isn't the proxy prayers of the Mormons designed with a similar intent as the Catholic notion of purgatory, and prayers/indulgences for the deceased? 

I find such theology morally repugnant, but I ain't about to start making political calls about how offended I am about their religious ignorance.

 

[Izdaari]

If Jewish people find the religious rite of "baptism of the dead" for a deceased Jew a morally repugnant practice, then I think it would be highly offensive to do so.  Their Jewish ancestors have endured more degradations than any people should have to do.

Should <our> religious practices be subject to the sensibilities and opinions of the prevailing culture?  For instance, should the Catholic church admit women to the priesthood due to the zeitgeist of contemporary feminist philosopy?

They should, but not just for that reason. It would have been the right thing to do hundreds of years ago, before contemporary feminism was ever thought of.

 

[Ransom]

Isn't the proxy prayers of the Mormons designed with a similar intent as the Catholic notion of purgatory, and prayers/indulgences for the deceased? 

The Romanists aren't saying that your dead grandmother was baptized into the Mormon religion twenty years after she died as a prerequisite to her entry into the kingdom of heaven.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Isn't the proxy prayers of the Mormons designed with a similar intent as the Catholic notion of purgatory, and prayers/indulgences for the deceased? 

The Romanists aren't saying that your dead grandmother was baptized into the Mormon religion twenty years after she died as a prerequisite to her entry into the kingdom of heaven.

It wouldn't matter to me who it was that was trying to practice their voodoo or occult necromancy on behalf of my grandmother.  It's not offensive to those who know the true Christ.  What I take exception to is the coercive nature of movements and politics to curb religious expression, no matter how wacky.