Jews and Posthumous Baptism
In 1995 the Church reached an agreement with prominent genealogists and activists in the Jewish community to remove the genealogical records of many Jews from the ordinance indices of the church. The Church announced as policy that members should not do ordinance work for Jews other than their direct descendants. The problem is that Holocaust victims and prominent Jews (e.g., Einstein) keep popping up in the records. Among the many issues that this raises, there are two that I find interesting: 1) does removing the names from the records negate the ordinances and 2) is this a matter of doctrine or public relations?
I stumbled across this article at JewishGen. It chronicles the decade old conflict between the Mormon Church and Prominent Jewish genealogists and activists over the Mormon baptizing of Jewish dead. The article summarizes the concerns of the Jewish community and reprints many news articles over the past 10 years.
There is some attempt at understanding the Mormon perspective, however the article is in no way sympathetic to the practice. To summarize, these activists are concerned that Mormon posthumous baptism is an attempt to obfuscate history. They also draw parallels to the Catholic history of forced baptisms:
In 1995 the LDS Church and representatives of the Jewish community signed the agreement described at the beginning of this article. Jews have objected to the continuing Mormon practice of baptism of the Jewish dead, especially in the case of Holocaust victims, claiming that the practice mirrored the forced baptism of Jews in the middle ages.
A decade later this misguided practice, which demonstrates a disrespect for Jews and Jewish feelings, has not ended. Because of public objections, the Church did remove names of thousands of Jewish holocaust victims from the IGI. However, they continue the baptismal ritual that hijacks Jewish forebears. Names of thousands of baptized Jews have not yet been expunged from within the growing Church records while new victims continue to be added. Their practice of turning dead Jews into Mormons is a brazen act that may obscure the historical record for future generations. One hundred years from now, will anyone know who you were?
The article goes on to explain who to contact to have names removed, explaining that many are patrolling the indexes for infractions.
So, to reiterate, Mormons can’t seem to help themselves from baptizing themselves for great Jewish heroes (and heroines). When this practice was brought to the attention of the Church pulled all the records and affirmed a position that such activity was not to take place. Two questions: 1) is this a matter of Church doctrine and 2) when the records are pulled are the ordinances negated?
My Jewish professor is always pointing out a delicious irony here. The same kinds of magazines (e.g. JewishGen) that denounce Mormon posthumous baptisms also carry adverts for tour groups who organise trips to the Family History Library in SLC!
The answers:
1. No.
2. No.
I think the Church should allow only posthumous baptisms of direct relatives; it’s very depressing to see Adolf Hitler on the IGI–there are some sadly misguided people out there.
To imagine how Jews feel on this issue, pretend that Hare Krishna’s were initiating your ancestors into their faith. How would you feel?
Comment by Ronan — 2/21/2005 @ 4:41 am
To imagine how Jews feel on this issue, pretend that Hare Krishna’s were initiating your ancestors into their faith. How would you feel?
While I can empathize with how they feel on the subject, I personally wouldn’t care.
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/21/2005 @ 8:53 am
…and sorry that your comment was held up. I’m still working on my spam filtering.
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/21/2005 @ 8:56 am
Speaking of big rumors regarding famous people being baptized, can anyone confirm or deny the rumor that Elvis is the most baptized man on the planet?
Regarding the Jewish baptism thing, I am reminded of something an elder elder told me once. He was serving a stake mission in California and he was asked to attend some meeting regarding Mormons done by a local non-LDS church. A black minister got up and began to harangue the elder and his companion for the racism in the church (this was pre-1978; so, blacks and the priesthood). He didn’t know what to do but when the minister stopped to take a breath the companion asked if he could ask a couple questions. The minister said “sure”.
“Do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God?”
“No”
“Do you believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the true priesthood of God?”
“No”
“Then why do you care who we ordain?”
The minister had no answer for that.
Comment by John C. — 2/21/2005 @ 1:23 pm
There are plenty of other dead people to do work for who don’t have descendents who will object. Sounds like a non-issue to me. Stop doing work for those folks until the Second Coming. Those who were in line and get bumped (yet wanted the ordinances performed) can yell at their descendents for pushing them farther back in line when they see them!
Comment by Geoff Johnston — 2/21/2005 @ 3:42 pm
OK, if people think the Church is bunk then it shouldn’t matter if we baptise their ancestors. But the Jews are a special case, don’t you think, having been the victim of forced baptisms and all kinds of crap in the past? It’s in really poor taste.
Comment by Ronan — 2/21/2005 @ 4:22 pm
I agree with Geoff in practice. There is no reason to seek out names for baptism that their descendants will find objectionable.
Regarding the Jews as a special case, I don’t know. I wonder about the reasons the Church agreed to the ban. Is it a matter of taste or a matter of political expiediency? I suppose that even if it is matter of the first, it is ultimately a matter of the second.
Comment by John C. — 2/21/2005 @ 4:47 pm
I’m curious – are there any Holocaust victims who have descendents in the church? Do Jewish groups complain about those names as well?
When the church “purged” the roles, did it purge it of all the Holocaust victims, or just those who had no ancestors in the Church?
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — 2/21/2005 @ 5:35 pm
When the church “purged” the roles, did it purge it of all the Holocaust victims, or just those who had no ancestors in the Church?
I don’t know, though their committment was to only allow those baptisms to go forward. The thing is that proxy ordinances are not policed (right?). So as long as there are overzealous people who don’t know the policy, there will be insensative outcomes.
I wonder if we only did ordinance work for relatives, how long it would take to run out of names?
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/21/2005 @ 9:10 pm
J.
I hate to break it to you, mate, but we do more proxy work than we have names, which is why Temple file names are recirculated.
Comment by Ronan — 2/22/2005 @ 4:37 am
Temple file names are recirculated
I had no idea…I haven’t ever really been interested in geneology or that function of the church. This really is fascinating.
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/22/2005 @ 8:16 am
That is an interesting factoid, Ronan. How could that be? I suspect more people die every day than the total number of proxy ordinances performed. Combine that with all the deaths of the past and it seems strange that we would run out of dead folks to do work for… What is your source of that info?
Comment by Geoff Johnston — 2/22/2005 @ 8:25 am
I guess running out of ordinances would depend on how many of us were doing our family history. If there are 11 million members, and say we could get 3 million of them as interested in family history as they really should be, and they each found 4 or 5 names/year, that should easily be more than the number of ordinances that get done, right?
My father-in-law was once very heavily involvedin church history work for the church, doing a lot of negotiation and microfilming. My wife, who lived with this for a good while, informs me that she’s pretty sure the church stopped extraction work a while back. I’m not sure, but I’ll check with her dad. As far as I know, that would leave just family names being used at this point. I think the names we do at the temple most of the time are other people’s family history work that they knew they wouldn’t have time to do.
That said, there isn’t a high degree of accuracy in family history work at this point, and you can pretty much submit anyone if you do it the right way. You don’t have to have them linked to you directly, as I know it. Thus, when the church says, hey only do this work for Jews that are your ancestors, they are recgnising that I could go out tomorrow and submit the names of thousands of jews that are not directly related to me, which, as I understnad it, is not somethign we shoudl do with anyone. We are responsible for our own ancestors. It never says that the hearts of the children will be turned to other peoples’ fathers because they really think they are cool folks.
As far as Jews that join the church, and I know some that are very good people, the church hasn’t restricted them from doing the work, so I can’t see why they would purge those names that don’t look like they were mass-submitted as holocaust victims. I’ll ask my father-in-law about that one as well. It seems to me that saying we shouldn’t baptise any Jews, something the church hasn’t said, would seem to buy into a sort of argument for cultural authenticity that allows a certain group of Jews, however large they might be, to co-opt Jewish identity and say to Jews that do join the church, “hey, you aren’t real Jews,” something they may actually believe. I had a Jewish professor whose take on the issue was that if you are a Jew, you are always a Jew . . . unless you decide to believe Jesus was the son of God, an argument that seems designed to protect Jewish cultural “puriity.” I very much respect the Jewish people. I do, however, believe that they have been one of the most successful people in the world at getting people outside their cultural group to buy into their ideal of cultural purity.
the Jews are a special case, don’t you think, having been the victim of forced baptisms and all kinds of crap in the past? It’s in really poor taste.
As we don’t really submit names for anyone but our ancestors in any case, I don’t see the Jews as a special case. In fact, if one has ancestors that endured these things, then giving them the option to accept the gospel would seem to me the charitable thing to do, offering them something we see as bright and promising after so much difficulty.
At the same time, I think we should let the Jewish people know that this is all we see ourselves as doing is offering this to their ancestors. When we perform these ordinances we are not baptising them. We are making baptism available to them, though I’m not sure that would appease all of them. Some Jews, though certainly not all, would feel that trying to offer them christianity is in itself would be an affront. I think this is part of the difficulty. The jews are not a homogenous group with the same opinions on these issues, so it is difficult to speak of what is fair to the Jews. Which Jews, and why?
I think the key is family ties. I remember being counseled that when I did my own geneology I should seek the understanding and approval of those most directly related to the people, even if I did have distant ties to them. I don’t know why. I assume just so that they didn’t see it as an affront, or even a trick, if we got information from them. I went to my grandmother, most emphatically not a member of the church, even anti-mormon until late in her life, to explain the issue. She agreed that I might have a point. I can’t help but think the Lord softened her heart. Others in my family have suggested she wasn’t herself. They basicly said she had had too many health problems and couldn’t have known what she was saying. Despite this, I have done the work. the question is, who is a real reddinger (the line I was working on), and what makes up real reddinger-ness. I know that for much of my fmaily, evangelical Christianity is part of that identity, and they feel like I am co-opting their family identity, but it’s the only fmaily identity I have, so I figure it’s as much mine as thiers.
Comment by S. Hancock — 2/22/2005 @ 10:54 am
the question is, who is a real reddinger (the line I was working on), and what makes up real reddinger-ness.
Way to drive the issue home. Excellent ellucidation of some of the dynamics that are at play. For the record, has the church come out and said no work accept for your ancestors?
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/22/2005 @ 12:33 pm
I hate to break it to you, mate, but we do more proxy work than we have names, which is why Temple file names are recirculated.
Sorry to say that flippantly. I thought it was common knowledge. Anyway, it shouldn’t be surprising that the number of names don’t keep up with members wanting to perform ordinances. We don’t just do temple work to save the dead, it’s also intended to be a sacrament for the living.
Comment by Ronan — 2/22/2005 @ 1:33 pm
Are you still convinced this is the case, Ronan, or is that just your guess?
Comment by Geoff Johnston — 2/22/2005 @ 1:56 pm
Ronan,
I would personally want to see some sort of evidence that this is the case. The church spends significant time, effort, and money (temple recorders are paid employees at the larger temples.) to ensure that all ordinances are recorded, and I know of no one, even informally having suggested this before. Those who I have talked to who are a closer to such things than I–temple workers, admittedly–I don’t spend much time talking to teple presidents–though I do have to still talk to my father-in law, a recorder, about it–have not seemed to have this idea.
I would suggest that temple work is, indeed good for the living, but as a matter of service. We are perofrming a great work for the dead. To perform it multiple times unnecessarily would be puzzling to me–Like knocking down your fence so that I could help you out by building it again. Though I’m sure that there is a reason of some sort of the policy as it stands, I would want evidence of some sort for reconsidering why we serve in the temple is such a large way.
I do know that many people have been baptised repeatedly, but this is a different matter entirely, related mostly to sloppy geneology or data entry. Temple ready can only catch discrepancies if the spellings are the same or similar in recognizable ways and the dates and places for events are similar. In addition people often let zeal take the place of dilligence in deciding to do the ordinance when Temple Ready says there may be a possible match to the name they are submitting because they don’t have time to follow up and find out if it is the same person despite date or spelling discrepancies.
I’ll wirte more when I have more information.
Comment by S. Hancock — 2/22/2005 @ 3:49 pm
Simply put, Jews generally feel that LDS baptism of dead Jews is offensive, in bad taste, a usurpation of the Jews’ (and their families’) religious prerogatives and, of most importance, denial of the legitimacy of Judaism. Baptism is particularly offensive because it is fundamentally incompatible with Judaism, and it sends a message that the LDS believes it somehow has a right to determine the religious disposition of the deceased. How arrogant! It makes no more sense than if the Pope declared that all dead LDS are no longer LDS.
Comment by Joel — 11/11/2008 @ 9:20 am
Since I don’t believe the pope has authority, I wouldn’t care what he did or didn’t declare or act on. If the Jews think we’re hogwash, what difference does it make to anyone?
Comment by annegb — 12/7/2008 @ 5:23 pm
one thing I am curious to know, does the LDS church count the baptized dead as members of their church?
Comment by MataUsi — 11/11/2009 @ 12:45 am
Nope.
Comment by J. Stapley — 11/11/2009 @ 4:19 pm