Mormon Baptism of the Dead Is Fatally Flawed Salvation Strategy

As if the bad PR related to its direct support of California's Proposition 8 isn't enough trouble, the Mormon Church has also found itself defending its actions with regard to deceased Holocaust victims. It seems that church members have been posthumously baptizing non-Mormons by proxy, including victims of the Nazi Holocaust. This in spite of the fact that the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) signed an agreement with a consortium of Jewish groups in May 1995 agreeing to cease this practice with regard to Holocaust victims unless the surviving family members provided consent.

In publicly denouncing this betrayal of what was thought to be a good-faith agreement, Ernest Michel, honorary chair of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors stated, "We ask you (Church of LDS) to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion, We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough." In response, Church of LDS elder Lance B. Wickman casually brushed aside Jewish concerns, ignored his own Church's violation of an agreement that it had signed, and stated, "We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines. If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."

Well, chutzpah may be a Jewish (specifically Yiddish) term for audacity, but it more than certainly applies to Mr. Wickman and his fellow Church of LDS adherents. First of all, no one from Mr. Michel's organization is asking the Church of LDS to "changes its doctrines." As Mr. Wickman's grasp of English appears to be as shaky as his ability to honor signed agreements, let me kindly point out to him that a "doctrine" is something that is taught, whereas a "practice" is an act that is carried out customarily. It is the PRACTICE of Baptism of the Dead that is offending Jews and others.

As for Wickman's comment that Jews who are offended by this practice are at fault for not receiving it in the generous spirit in which it is offered, well, that is just bullshit. The intention clearly doesn't matter here. Various Jewish groups made it clear to the Church of LDS thirteen years ago that they do not wish for the Church to continue the practice of baptizing deceased Jews, and the Church of LDS signed an agreement stating that the practice would indeed cease. Who cares what the intention is when LDS is in clear violation of this agreement?

The Church of LDS has been furtively baptizing deceased Jews, among other deceased non-Mormons, for years. This practice is grounded in a selective reading of Paul (1 Corinthians, Ch. 15, v. 29), a passage that the Mormon Church is apparently exploiting to swell its numbers. Why? Because the constellation of Christian churches do not view Mormonism as a legitimate expression of Christianity. It's possible that the increased numbers gained through proxy baptisms for the dead are a way of demonstrating that there is wider acceptance of Mormon theology than actually exists.

In reading about this topic, I found one Jewish writer whose family has been directly affected by this very issue. Manya Brachear writes a religion blog for the Chicago Tribune called "The Seeker", and in her November 11 entry she describes how her Jewish great-uncle had converted to Mormonism and had arranged for her great-grandfather, a devout and observant Jew, to be posthumously baptized in the Mormon faith. She reflects upon how religion had served as an agent of separation and division in her family's past, and decides to accept this gesture in the spirit in which it was intended.

"We have the freedom to choose whether religion will unite us or divide us. In the past, my family chose to let it divide. Faced with this revelation, I now realize how torn they must have been. Still, I choose to learn from that mistake and appreciate my cousins' gesture."

I'm of two minds on this one. One the one hand, I applaud her reaction from an interfaith perspective. As a member of an interfaith marriage, I have great appreciation for any attempts made to maintain family ties and allowing room for different expression of religious faith. Further, I appreciate the particular difficulties inherent in such a choice for a member of the Jewish faith.

On the other hand, she is speaking in the context of her own family, where certain members actually belong to the Mormon Church and who did not hide their actions. This is not the case with regard to thousands of other Holocaust victims whom Church of LDS baptized in secret without the permission of their surviving family members.

From almost any perspective, and certainly from the perspective of constructive interfaith dialogue and relations, the Mormon practice of Baptism of the Dead is insensitive, invasive, and quite plainly, odd. The recent response on the part of Church leaders to the protests of Jewish leaders has been arrogant and condescending. This practice blithely disregards the painful history of the forced conversion of Jews by Christians throughout the centuries. It also perverts the doctrine of free will, which presumes that each person is free to make his or her own choices on the condition that they must also live with the consequences. It is preposterous to even suggest that someone who is deceased can still concern himself or herself with the question of whether or not to be baptized here on earth. Whatever choices we make in this life having to do with our religious faith is a deeply personal matter that is between each individual, his or her God, and any other people that this decision is shared with. Under this formulation, the Mormon Church is the missing participant for any such deliberation that does not involve someone's embracing the Mormon faith.

My message to the members of the Mormon Church: keep your hands off the dead, and concern yourselves with the living. Oh, wait. On second thought...

- Doug L.

Yad Vashem: The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Shoah group halts talks with Mormons on posthumous baptisms of Jews, by Ben Harris (The Jewish Journal, November 19, 2008)

Mormons, Jews Contend for Souls of Dead, by David Waters (WashingtonPost.com, On Faith, November 11, 2008)

Holocaust survivors to Mormons: Stop baptisms of dead Jews (CNN.com, November 11, 2008)

Vatican Warns of Mormon 'Baptism of the Dead' (Catholic.org, May 3, 2008)