Controversy Arises Over LDS Practice of Baptisms for the Dead

Fox13Now.com ^ | Moni Basu, CNN, and Fox 13 Web Staff

[AnTiw1]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has apologized for "a serious breach of protocol" in which the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons.

[AnTiw1]

Among others discovered to have been baptized by proxy is President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

[Arkady Orinko]

It isn’t really a big deal to me.

[Lmo56]

I trace my family’s genealogy and commend the LDS for their tremendous efforts in this field.

However, I have NEVER been enamored with their “baptising” or “sealing” of people who were not of their faith ...

[chichipow]

Hilter, Braun, Napoleon, Revere, etc.. as well as the Jews slaughtered during WWII have also been ‘baptized’ by proxy. LOL the Mormons are as bad as $cientology and one of the crazier religions out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTi8dq4KAeE

There’s not a chance I would cast a vote for Romney unless he proves he doesn’t believe this stuff (or any of the other ‘stuff’ out there).

[CT]

"That month, in an act as seditious as anything in the South, Brigham Young’s government announced it would decide which American laws were to be obeyed in Utah—a brazen proclamation the new president considered treasonous. By the time Buchanan took office, “public sentiment favoring both a firm assertion of federal authority in Utah and the curbing of Brigham Young’s political power had made some kind of response on his part almost mandatory,” wrote Kenneth M. Stampp in America in 1857. Federal appointees to Utah Territory had found it all but impossible to function in the theocracy; prosecutors and federal marshals were unable to challenge the vigilante tactics of the Danites.

Surveyor General David Burr had fled for his life in February. “These people repudiate the authority of the United States in this country, and are in open rebellion against the general government,” he wrote the General Land Office commissioner. With increasing brazenness, Young flaunted his long-standing secessionist convictions, whipping his audiences into an antigovernment frenzy. The stage was set for federal intervention.

Buchanan initiated a forlorn search for a new governor of Utah Territory. The post, considered political oblivion, held no appeal for the candidates Buchanan felt were most qualified. His first choice, Ben McCulloch, a onetime leader of the Texas Rangers, declined twice. Others refused until finally a Georgian named Alfred Cumming was persuaded by Thomas Kane to accept the position. That spring and summer Buchanan also settled on other federal appointees for the territory, including three new federal judges, a U.S. marshal, and a superintendent of Indian affairs, and he designated more than twenty-five hundred troops to man and protect the huge supply trains accompanying the new officials. The Mexican War hero General Winfield Scott placed three regiments—the Second Dragoons, the Fifth Infantry, and the Tenth Infantry—under the command of Brigadier General William Harney to enforce the law and keep peace as the new federal officers were installed. President Buchanan explained his decision in his first annual message to Congress, pointing out that as governor of Utah, superintendent of Indian affairs, and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young had a despotic and absolute power over the dominion.

“The people of Utah, almost exclusively, belong to this church, and believing with a fanatical spirit that he is governor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his commands as if these were direct revelations from Heaven.” Quick to acknowledge that the government had no right to interfere with their religious beliefs—though they might be “revolting to the moral and religious sentiments of all Christendom”—Buchanan thought it his duty to “restore the supremacy of the Constitution and laws.”

Denton, Sally (2007-12-18). American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 (Kindle Locations 2065-2086). Vintage. Kindle Edition.

[1malumprohibitum]

I do not get the indifference. I find it repulsive that people who were killed for being jewish are baptized into a different faith. It is a big deal for the people doing it and for the relatives of the dead, NOT for the dead who are unaffected by it.

[1malumprohibitum]

Anybody know if the baptized count towards anyones populating of planets or any other silly quotas? I think someone has to benefit for this besides the church being able to claim higher numbers.

[I see my hands]

By definition faith is supernatural. You can't embrace one supernatural while ridiculing a different supernatural. One plus one equals three just as much as one plus one equals four.

So long as you don't hurt another in process then believe away.. it's good for everyone, IMO.

[garjog]

What does it matter? The ceremony is based on a single obscure line from 1st Corinthians and means nothing. Mormon’s don’t have magical powers. (I hope).

If the Church of Scientology said: “Guess what? We made your dead relatives members of our church!” would it matter?

What if the Republican party looked up the names of dead people and said: “Hey, gang! We performed a induction ceremony and your dead relatives are now officially Republicans! Yeah!”

Can you believe that someone who believes this silliness is that close to becoming the most powerful man in the world?

[MacMattico]

I found out this happened to my father. We have absolutely no LDS connection. But I have faith my father is where he is suppose to be, and a fake baptism didn’t change that.

[MacMattico]

Could the dead Republicans vote for Conservative candidates? Just sayin’ ... Dead democrats vote all the time!

[Carthego delenda est]

Jason Chafetz may know.

[Trod Upon]

But that’s just it—they aren’t being baptized into anything—they’re dead. It’s completely moot and nothing more than bait for someone looking to be offended. If you take the Mormons at their word, misguided though they may be, they’re actually trying to do the deceased a favor. So what if they get a jolly thinking they’re doing a good deed? Any fool can come along and mumble something over a grave or body or whatever, but so what? If anything, I can see this controversy being stirred up by Democrats to get older Jews (say the ones offended by 0bama’s anti-Israel leanings) upset about a possible Romney presidency. On the other hand, the Democrats do seem to do pretty well at politically converting the deceased....

[ansel12]

I don’t want cultists rooting for information on my family and then having a ritual where they use my dead mother’s name and have a cultist play her in a satanic rite in an effort to negate her Christian baptism and baptize her into their anti-Christian cult, to serve them after they become Gods.

[1malumprohibitum]

I know they are dead & it doesn’t affect them. The point is it is an obscenely arrogant thing to do. This is exponentially so when that faith That they are baptizing the dead out of lead to the persons death.

I disagree. I am not Jewish. I find this aspect f Mormonism especially repulsive. If Romney partook in it it tells me tons about his character. It is a deal breaker for far more than old Jews.

[T. P. Pole]

Anybody know if the baptized count towards anyones populating of planets or any other silly quotas? I think someone has to benefit for this besides the church being able to claim higher numbers.

Nope, no future planetary population increase or quotas. And the folks this is done for are not counted in the advertized number of members. The 13-14 million are folks that are still alive and were at one time baptized and have not requested their names removed from the church records (to be sure, there is some lag between the death of a non-attending Mormon and their "tick" being removed from the count).

[bonfire]

My father is on their “list” but I will not click on the rest of their links to find out if they baptized him. No Mormons in my family either but I don’t believe that is the criteria no matter what they spew. They “lie for the lord”.

[bonfire]

Amen. The thought of them even speaking my relatives names in their satanic ritual makes me ill.

[LadyDoc]

one: The LDS church instructed folks to stop doing this a couple years ago. I guess some folks didn’t get the message.

Two: “baptizing” someone doesn’t do anything to hurt the person: Indeed, if the LDS are correct, it actually helps them in the afterlife. So it is a “mitzvah”, a good deed, not an insult.

Three: Usually baptisms are private. Who released this? Could it be someone who dislikes Romney?

[AnTiw1]

' one: The LDS church instructed folks to stop doing this a couple years ago. I guess some folks didn’t get the message.

Two: “baptizing” someone doesn’t do anything to hurt the person: Indeed, if the LDS are correct, it actually helps them in the afterlife. So it is a “mitzvah”, a good deed, not an insult.

Three: Usually baptisms are private. Who released this? Could it be someone who dislikes Romney? '

Well. That's interesting.

First I've heard of anyone representing Jews that sees the supposed transmogrifying of their passed Jewish family members into mormons, as a "mitzvah", a blessing supported by jewish tradition, as you say.

If there's a silent groundswell of Jewish people who desire to be "blessed" by a ceremony that relieves them of their Judaism, they should make their wishes public, as the mormons would be happy to accomodate them. Why it's more desirable to become a mormon after death, and why Jews aren't flocking to join the mormon cult while they're still alive (since it's such a great blessing ), I cannot answer, as I am not Jewish, but I'd love to hear more.

Is there anyone else representing the silent Jews who consider becoming mormon after death a "blessing", who can come forward and explain to us why the mormon cult is desirable, and that it's a blessing to be mormon in the next life, yet cling to Judaism in this one?

The Jews such as the Wiesenthals, objecting publicly to their ancestors being "blessed" into the lds, the story of their making this plea solely motivated by a secret anti-Romney political agenda, seems to have been thus far unreported.

I just googled "Jews for Romney", and the single, solitary result that it produced was a blog still remaining from his 2008 campaign. It doesn't appear to have been updated in some time.

http://jewsforromney.blogspot.com/

However, I found quite a few jewish publications of protests from leaders of the Jewish faith who protest the mormon baptism of their family members.

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/secret-posthumous-mormon-baptism-of-holocaust-victims-jewish-leaders-sparks-outrage/2012/02/15/

If Jewish protests are actually a concerted anti-Romney political agenda, again this needs to be reported, so we can at least make an attempt at finding out the truth, and perhaps more Jewish people will feel safe enough to make their posthumous desires to be mormon in the afterlife, public.

After all, there isn't anything lower, really, than liars with personal agendas misleading others and silencing the truth from being told.

When it comes to an agenda of lies, however, I have zero evidence to give of the Jews lying about their own traditions out of an anti-Romney agenda, or anything else. But, as an ex-mormon, both by personal experience, many corroborating testimonies from other ex-mormons right here in this forum, and by documentary evidence, that mormons are commanded by their leaders, and by church doctrine, to lie in any arena where the truth would cast a bad light on the mormon cult and mormon agendas.

Lying for the Lord refers to the practice of lying to protect the image of and belief in the Mormon religion, a practice which Mormonism itself fosters in various ways. From Joseph Smith's denial of having more than one wife, to polygamous Mormon missionaries telling European investigators that reports about polygamy in Utah were lies put out by "anti-Mormons" and disgruntled ex-members, to Gordon B. Hinckley's dishonest equivocation on national television over Mormon doctrine, Mormonism's history seems replete with examples of lying. Common members see such examples as situations where lying is justified. For the Mormon, loyalty and the welfare of the church are more important than the principle of honesty, and plausible denials and deception by omission are warranted by an opportunity to have the Mormon organization seen in the best possible light. This is part of the larger package of things that lead many to describe Mormonism as a cult. "Lying for the lord" is part of Mormonism's larger deceptive mainstreaming tactics, and conversion numbers would drastically lower if important Mormon beliefs were fully disclosed to investigators. http://www.mormonwiki.org/Lying_for_the_Lord

I should be honest, and say that I, as a former lds born into the mormon cult, who was himself commanded to lie to protect the cult's interests, do have an anti-Romney agenda. Whatever you think of the other bizarre beliefs mormons hold, it is worth considering that while all politicians obfuscate the truth, Romney, like all other mormons born and raised in that cult, is commanded by his faith to lie if the truth harms the interests of the cult, and by extension, mormons who defend him have the same commandment.

As always, I recommend anyone who desires the truth about mormonism, to google "ex-mormon", and find out for yourselves from people who have left the cult, for a true witness of what mormonism is really all about.

Let the truth be told. And let the Jews who want to be posthumously baptized into mormonism, come forward. There is no reason for secrecy, except for those who fear the light of truth on this subject.