Mormons, Posthumous baptism, and why it matters

The post (and comments) that inspired this one.

Once again, to get it on the table, I'm an avowed agnostic- the only thing I know about God is that I can't know much about him, and as a corollary, neither can you. Got that?

Now, usually, I'm a pretty big live-and-let-live guy when it comes to religious stuff. Privacy of your own home or church, fine. But the LDS church's policy of baptizing (and re-baptizing) dead people really grates on me.

Why? There's a few reasons. First of all, I think it's disrespectful. I think all proselytizing is disrespectful, but doing it after the person's dead seems even worse- and the idea of someone "standing in" for my dead great-grandparents as they were dunked (yes, the Mormons got 'em) makes me feel kind of ill.

Some people counter that, on a theological level, it shouldn't matter- the Mormons think they're helping, and unless you think that the baptism really does anything, there's nothing to object over. I think this is skewing the issue. It's disrespectful to the dead, but specifically from the perspective of the living- which is how all this crap works, anyway. From a secular perspective, nothing that happens to us after death really "affects" us; we're gone. The people it does affect are those who love us and see abuses against our bodies or spirits or wishes or memories as offensive. (I say this watching morons on Fox News give Lawrence Eagleburger an open forum to bitch out the NYT and others for ripping on Ford on the day of his funeral. Guess what guys? Ford doesn't care! Not only that, Ford didn't care about all the nice things you said about him the day before. Cause he's gone.)

As a comparison, let's take peeing on a grave. No, seriously. What harm is being caused? Objectively, you can't even say that the stone or ground is being damaged (ok, fine, maybe you kill some plants, but that's really hair-splitting). The issue with pissing on someone's grave is that it's interpreted as being incredibly disrespectful- and if anyone who cared about that person saw you do it, they'd probably break your jaw.

For people who see THIS as offensive, I would argue that this is an analogous situation. Saying, "they're dead, what do they care" is beyond the point. Living people DO CARE. Some have called it "raping the soul" of the departed, which I think is both a little too strong and, again, allows for an easy deflection because it puts the onus on the dead, who can't talk. But at least that gives you an idea of the emotions involved.

Now, that doesn't mean the Mormons should be prevented from practicing their religion- legally, they aren't doing anything wrong. However, I find it very upsetting that the LDS Church's position has been to basically ignore the complaints made by various groups, including Jews, Catholics and Armenian Orthodox Christians. Even worse are the many obfuscations and lame excuses the Church has attempted to make as a defense. Saying things like, "We can't control what our members do", and rejecting any suggestions offered for ways in which the baptism of certain groups, particularly Jews, could be avoided. The posthumous baptism system is deeply flawed- among other things, there does not seem to be any control over who gets baptized or re-baptized. This seems particularly odd given the supposedly utilitarian theology behind the baptisms- to OFFER the departed the OPTION of becoming Mormon "beyond the grave". Instead, a brief perusal of the LDS' baptism rolls shows that famous personalities, particularly Americans, have been baptized dozens of times. Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Thomas Paine have over sixty records between them. At what point does this cease being a religious service and simply become a farce, an attempt to "one-up" people or somehow gain cosmological brownie points?

As far as the Jewish issue specifically, Jewish groups, particularly those representing Holocaust victims and survivors, have been very vocal about their issues with the LDS' baptisms. Pick a famous Jew and the Mormons have baptized them, possibly several times. Rashi, Rambam, the Maharal, the Brisker, several of the Gerer rebbes, the Sanzer rebbe, Samuel Bronfman, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Sholem Aleichem, Chaim Weizmann... And let's not forget Jews that specifically fought, suffered, or die because of their Jewishness; men like Alfred Dreyfus or Mordechai Anielewicz.

Entire extended families have also been baptized, which is particularly interesting given the Church's new strategy of selectively removing Jews from the rolls, per the requests of Jewish organizations (who have requested as many as possible be removed). The Church has done this but only in a few cases; Einstein and Freud are gone but their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are all there. Ditto for Menachem Begin's family. Like the fact that more Jewish names keep popping up in the rolls year after year, this selective removal indicates that the Church really couldn't care less about the Jews' or any other offended group's issues- but that won't stop them from lying to them repeatedly if it will shut them up.

Personally, I think that men like Mr. Mokotoff are mistaken when they say that the Church should remove Jews' names from the rolls. I think it would be preferable instead to leave them there, so everyone can know what the Mormon church has and continues to do. I have found family in the IGI and I want them to stay there so that years from now the Mormons will not be able to claim they were never baptized. I want the evidence to stay put and would strongly urge Jewish leaders to instead fight to get the Mormons to standardize their system, to further computerize their records and thus improve efficiency (don't need to baptize Washington anymore!), which would also enable them, over time, to greatly increase their "do not baptize" list, as well as educate their members on tell-tale signs that the person they're about to baptize was probably Jewish.

If they can't or won't stop the process, at least they can improve it. Or they could tell us to shove it. Anything would be better than the present mealy-mouthed crap.

More links:

1995
2005
2006 and another

Yes, there are tons of more important issues in the world- but if the news is allowed to spin its wheels for a week and a half on Donald Trump, I think this is at least worth a discussion.