Posted on 03/04/2012 3:42:22 PM PST by greyfoxx39
Mormons around the world are getting this warning Sunday: Stop posthumous baptisms of "unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims."
"Our preeminent obligation is to seek out and identify our own ancestors," says a letter to be read in every Mormon congregation. "Those whose names are submitted for proxy [baptisms] should be related to the submitter."
Mormons who continue to embarrass the faith by submitting the names of celebrities and Holocaust victims for the proxy baptism rite will lose access to the Mormon genealogical records, the letter warns. "Other corrective action may also be taken," it says.
The letter is signed by church President Thomas Monson and his two "counselors" in the Mormon First Presidency, the top leadership of the faith.
The warning follows an avalanche of criticism about the Mormon practice of baptizing deceased souls into the faith. In recent weeks, an excommunicated Mormon who continues to do genealogical research in church baptism records has found the names of prominent Jews and Holocaust victims, including Anne Frank and Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter captured and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.
"We welcome this as an important step," says Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a Holocaust survivor.
"Church members should understand why proxy baptisms are so offensive to the Jewish people," Foxman adds, citing "near annihilation during the Holocaust simply because they were Jewish" and "forced conversions throughout history."
Jewish leaders first raised concerns about the practice and the inclusion of Holocaust victims in 1992. Several meetings with Mormon leaders in the two decades since have resulted in promises to remove the names of Holocaust victims from Mormon baptism rolls and to screen baptism lists for those who died in concentration camps.
But some Mormons continued to place the names on baptism lists and conduct proxy baptisms in which the name of the deceased is read aloud while a living proxy is immersed in water.
The controversial practice has even touched the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney, a faithful Mormon. Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel called on Romney to denounce inappropriate baptisms after discovering Wiesel family members had been posthumously baptized.
Romney's campaign referred questions about Wiesel's statement to the Mormon Church.
Mormons believe the ceremony has no effect if the deceased soul rejects it.
Mormon policy, as the letter restates, is to confine the baptisms to ancestors, but as recently as 2009, one of the highest-ranking leaders of the church indicated otherwise.
Quentin Cook is one of the faith's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the group at the top of church leadership. During a tour of a new Mormon Temple in Draper, Utah, Cook described the posthumous baptism practice and belief.
"We concentrate first of all on our ancestors and then for the people in the world at large," Cook told NPR.
In recent weeks, Mormon officials said they had punished at least two followers who had violated Church policy by baptizing prominent Jews who were not among their ancestors. The members involved lost access to the baptism system and a church spokesman said more serious sanctions are possible.
Proxy baptism is a fundamental tenet of the Mormon faith and followers are encouraged to participate. Millions of Mormons have gathered and placed billions of names into church genealogical records. Volunteers travel to Mormon Temples to conduct the baptism ceremony.
Mormons believe the rite offers deceased souls the opportunity for eternal salvation, but Foxman says the Mormon Church should "reconsider all the implications of continuing the practice of posthumous baptism, as it has re-evaluated other of its traditions."
It should have been PUBLICLY urinated on your parents grave and took pictures?
LOL. Careful, someone might take you seriously then the Mormons will bring it up every time someone asks what we posted was false. That’s what happened when I wrote a fake letter a few years ago as a joke.
In Mormonism is it all about the money (and PR).
The quickest way to get the LDS church to back off is to have your lawyer contact them.
“LOL. Careful, someone might take you seriously then the Mormons will bring it up every time someone asks what we posted was false. That’s what happened when I wrote a fake letter a few years ago as a joke.”
Eh, they lie. They are taught to lie for the Lord.
I helped bring out the truth about the cult of Mormonism through satire.
They don’t like the truth. I understand.
The truth really scares Mormons. They keep harping on how they have ‘the Truth’ etc, but in reality, they would rather live a comfortable lie than deal with the harsh truth or entertain the notion that Mormonism, and thus their entire life, is a lie.
It really is scary for them, it was for me but I resolved that I wanted to know the truth, even if it meant giving up everything and so I pressed on. Most Mormons just put the doubts up on a shelf and ignore them rather than really investigate.
BTTT
One false prophet worshipper versus another...and that’s the best we should expect as Americans? I think not.
Stop posthumous baptisms of “unauthorized groups, such as celebrities and Jewish Holocaust victims.”
_______________________________________________
and Nana’a happily-dead-as-Christians ancestors..
Daniel Pearl's last words (before he was beheaded and before his body was cut into ten pieces and scattered on camera for the entire world to see):
"My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California USA. I come from, uh, on my father's side the family is Zionist. My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish. My family follows Judaism. We've made numerous family visits to Israel. Back in the town of Bnei Brak there is a street named after my great grandfather Chaim Pearl who is one of the founders of the town"Daniel Pearl died as he lived - a Jew who loved God with all his heart.
The Mormons are clear in saying that his faith was not enough. His love of God was not enough. He was not good enough. And for that matter, God Himself is not good enough. Even though God and the Bible say otherwise, according to Mormons, everyone gets a do-over. Everyone gets to be Mormon, which is so much better than being Christian or Jewish.
I strongly encourage you to seek out and watch the footage of Daniel Pearl being decapitated for his faith in God and then come back and explain again how it doesn't make a difference and how it doesn't matter.
Come back and explain how one can refuse to deny God, knowing that means leaving your wife a young widow and your child fatherless. Explain how a man can willingly pay the ultimate price for his faith, and then be told that it wasn't good enough.
Oh noez
14 million mormons are scared now..
The worse punishment ever..
Surely its unconstitutional...
Mormons who continue to embarrass the faith by submitting the names of celebrities and Holocaust victims for the proxy baptism rite will lose access to the Mormon genealogical records, the letter warns.
______________________________________________
So what happens to tennagers like tghe young Willard Mitt Romney who voluntry get wet in proxy for thoose listed ???
and Thomas Monson himself who allows and encourages the practice in the mormon temples ???
Someone in high authority allows the use of the temple cow bowls...
the common peon mormons dont just walk in and stealthy do this ..
Ya, don’t believe. I mean lds does seminars on lying so......
reaganaut, you had and have amazing courage.
Anytime you invalidate someone’s reality, they resent it.
The problem Mormons face is that the have been deceived into trading objective truth for subjective feelings. Feelings are all they have left now.
Feelings are intensely personal and hard to give up and admit you were wrong. I wish for the Mormons here that they would ask why Christianity is saturated in facts and Mormonism has only feelings? Has God changed?
Don’t worry, it will be front page stuff once Willard get the nomination.
Hey Fox, don’t you know that all the old white presidents were faking, they were deists. {:-)
I don't have to see it. An act of true barbarism committed by Muslims has absolutely no bearing on the ceremony performed on already dead people where the bodies are not even touched - just prayed about. The two acts are totally incomparable.
Once again, if you don't believe Mormons praying over one's soul has any legitimacy, why let it bother you? If a group wants to pray that my soul turns into a chocolate nougat, what the hell should I care once I'm already dead? If it's a lie, it has no effect between God and I anyway. Period. To let it upset you just shows how shallow your faith is.
God knows the truth (or He isn't God) and He is not fooled.
Again, I ask you, would you object to people publicly urinating on your parents grave and then taking pictures or posting it on the internet?
Aside from the fact that Mormon doctrine in this and many other matters is the height of arrogance, it is disrespectful and ironic since they DEMAND respect from Christians.
My faith is far from shallow, and I used to be Mormon and believe this doctrine and even put some names of family in and did temple work. I’ve been there and I see how disrespectful it is.
Again, I ask you, would you object to people publicly urinating on your parents grave and then taking pictures or posting it on the internet?
Aside from the fact that Mormon doctrine in this and many other matters is the height of arrogance, it is disrespectful and ironic since they DEMAND respect from Christians.
My faith is far from shallow, and I used to be Mormon and believe this doctrine and even put some names of family in and did temple work. I’ve been there and I see how disrespectful it is.
BTW, the Mormons don’t pray over someones soul, they act as them (by proxy), and they take oaths and perform rituals in the name of this person, mostly people they have never met and are not related to.
Mormons really believe they take the place of Christ by saving these people. Been there, done that, performed the same rites.
What kind of ACTION would a person take; if they REALLY ‘believed’ in something???
On this date in 1849, Senator Davis Rice Atchinson served as President of U. S. for one day.
The reason: Zachary Taylor was scheduled to be sworn in but refused to take the oath on Sunday—thus as president Pro Tempore of the Senate, Atchinson filled in for one day.
They play the VICTIM card; then WE play the Book of ABRAHAM one!
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