Mormons should leave dead Jews alone

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The bizarre practice of baptizing dead people by the Mormon Church has embarrassed church elders, again. Daniel Pearl, who was Jewish, was working as a Wall Street Journal reporter when he was kidnapped and executed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. This week a Utah researcher discovered that Daniel Pearl was posthumously baptized last year.

According to records, Pearl was baptized “by proxy” last summer in a Twin Falls, Idaho, temple – much to the surprise of his parents, who learned of the event this week.

Daniel’s father, Judea Pearl said he is considering rallying Jewish leaders to send the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a stern message:

Stop performing unauthorized posthumous baptisms of Jewish people — and nullify any that have been performed.

The practice has long stirred controversy, leading to an agreement between Jewish leaders and the Mormon Church that was supposed to prevent the baptism of Holocaust victims. The church also acknowledged that it had baptized President Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, after her death.

Why do Mormons baptize the dead?

So-called “proxy” or “posthumous” baptisms are performed by Mormons in an effort to provide non-Mormons with an opportunity for eternal salvation in accordance with the church’s beliefs about the afterlife.

On February 13, 2012, the Salt Lake City Tribune announced that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performed a posthumous baptism of Eli Wiesel’s parents. The following day, the Huffington Post announced that Wiesel’s name had been submitted by a Latter-day Saint to a genealogical database used for proposing proxy baptisms. The Huffington Post also notified Wiesel, prompting him to speak out against the practice of posthumously baptizing Jews and to call on United States presidential candidate and Latter-day Saint Mitt Romney to denounce it.

In an interview on February 15, 2012 with Lawrence O’Donnell, Wiesel called the practice “bizarre”, and said, “I am a Jew. Born a Jew. Lived as a Jew. Tried to write about the Jewish condition…the human condition all over the world, and they should do it to me?” He reported that he had worked for two years with Bobby Adams and Holocaust survivor Ernest Michel to achieve an agreement with the LDS church regarding the practice of baptizing Holocaust dead, and that LDS church apostle Quentin Cook apologized to him by telephone earlier that day for the database submission of his family’s names, and reported blocking the name of former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir from proxy baptism.

More recently, a Mormon church in the Dominican Republic reportedly baptized the most famous Holocaust victim of all, Anne Frank.

The Mormon Church says it has discontinued the “proxy” baptisms of Jews, just like it says polygamy is outlawed. Both practices still happen and the Elders have no control over it.

The most famous Mormon in the country, republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney was asked byNewsweek if he had ever participated in any proxy baptisms? He said: “I have in my life, but I haven’t recently.”

<img src="Mitt-romney-baptizing-dead-jews.jpg" alt="Mormons baptizing dead people">

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Jimmy James

Jimmy James dislikes politicians and thinks they should be ridiculed at every opportunity.
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12 years ago

What does it matter who they baptize by proxy, since God believes in free choice. If the person being baptized after they’re dead did chose to do so, it doesn’t count in God’s eyes anyway. I personally think it’s a joke and a waste of time and money to be baptizing people who don’t want it… (Hmmm, any Catholics on this site? LOL)

Reply to  Telephone Lineman in Utah
12 years ago

I’m a Jew by birth, but an Atheist by choice. In my mind, it doesn’t matter what people do to my corpse – the damn thing ain’t worth any more than a nickel’s worth of future petroleum, anyway.

I think the issue here, is the disrespect for the families. If a person were raised Jewish, Catholic or whatever, I don’t think his family would appreciate someone performing a posthumous religious rite on them. Furthermore, the dead can’t protest the rite.

If I’m walking down the street, and a Gawdie walks up and asks me if I’ve “heard the good news,” I can tell him to go pound sand. If I’m dead, he can convert me into an Evangelical – against my will.

Rue
12 years ago

This is so bizarre. And disrespectful. I’m not religious and I can’t deny that I often question the sanity of those who are, but if someone lived and died by a certain religion, what gives a member of different religion any right to try to change that? And to baptize someone after they’re dead…? Does it really even count if the person is dead and can’t give consent to the ritual?
So right now this is one of those moments when I’m questioning the sanity of the religious, namely the Mormons.

Reply to  Rue
12 years ago

Doggone, Jimmy, I guess I’ll have to go visit that child-molesting supporter of a Pope and tell him off myself. Oh, and also to tell him what to do with my baptism paper! Oh, sorry, he doesn’t like PAPER up the ass; another meaningless piece of paper produced by an institution that wishes to control every aspect of your life and make you fearful and guilty for no real reason. Thank science and reality I’m an atheist!

12 years ago

I’m a cultural Catholic. Became atheist at around 10 yrs. Anybody have a de-baptizing hairblower?

12 years ago

Aren’t there litigation remedies? In other words, can’t the family of a dead Jew sue the Mormon Church? Just throwin’ that out there. I don’t know anything about the legal ramifications of any of this.

Reply to  Jimmy James
12 years ago

Well, thanks for the reply. What about this? Let’s start digging up dead Mormons and converting them all to Judaism. We could get a little nosh, drink some sugar saturated red wine, then break out the shovels. I’m gonna start a movement. Maybe a FB page? ConvertDeadMormons.com

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