Posted on 04/02/2012 9:05:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Yesterday, Religion Dispatches contributor Max Mueller published a piece at Slate detailing posthumous marriage rites performed in LDS temples that have wed Mormon and non-Mormon slaveholders to their former slave concubines—including Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.
The article sheds light on another form of posthumous religious rites performed in LDS temples. In addition to posthumous baptisms, LDS Church members routinely perform proxy temple marriages or “sealings” for their ancestors and other deceased couples. Church doctrine teaches that marriages performed within LDS temples “seal” husband and wife together not only for mortality but for eternity.
Mormonism uniquely emphasizes eternal marriage as a rite necessary to enter the highest levels of heaven. Viewed through this theological prism (and with a generous dose of romantic idealism about the quality of most human marriages), the practice of posthumous sealings has special warmth for LDS people.
But sealing deceased slaves to their slavemasters? Thomas Jefferson to Sally Hemmings? A relationship that emblematizes slavery’s most complicated and intimate forms of exploitation?
Because such relationships entailed coerced concubinage and, often, rape, Mueller writes, “Sealing a slave master to his slave is at least as troubling as the baptism of Holocaust victims, the practice of which the LDS Church has officially condemned.”
I’m not sure how to judge which is more troubling. But I do know that Mueller’s thoughtful, well-researched, carefully composed essay not only hits hot button issues like Mormons’ historic racial discrimination and contemporary racial insensitivity and the doctrinal persistence of polygamy—after all temple sealing policies permitted a polygamous sealing of Jefferson to Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemmings—but also gestures towards profound ethical and religious questions.
For their part, Mormons have tried to answer questions about posthumous baptisms and sealings by explaining that no posthumous rite is considered binding and that the efficacy of all rites depends on acceptance by the soul of the deceased.
But one element that has consistently gone missing from conversations I’ve witnessed in LDS circles is the acknowledgment that other religious traditions also have theological views of memory, the afterlife, and the connection between the dead and the living. From these non-Mormon perspectives, Mormon posthumous rites appear as a presumptuous claim on humanity’s dead.
Can one religion claim humanity’s dead? What if humanity’s dead are a sacred collective resource—a sacred public domain? There are norms of civility and respect that govern religious conduct in public domains, conditions absolutely necessary to the free exercise of religion without the fear of encroachment or imposition. Extraction of the names of strangers from public records for religious rites, as has been historical Mormon practice, may be viewed by non-Mormons as an uneasy fit with commonly held norms of religious freedom, interfaith deference, and cooperation.
What do Mormons owe to the other human beings with whom we share custody for humanity’s dead: human beings who may have similarly strong religious feelings about their ancestors, and who would like to see those ancestors rest in peace, without their names being said by strangers in unwelcome ceremonies? Or to those who would like to see their ancestors travel on, without being summoned by name back to traumatic relationships they did not choose?
To whom do the dead belong?
OMG!!!! You are sooooo funny.
Apparently you know nothing of mormonism, part of their doctrine is that men become gods of their own planets.
Apparently you also equate the exposure of mormonism with the taliban, that is completely delusional.
Apparently you are unaware that we as Christians are commanded by THE God Almighty to expose false prophets.
Apparently you actually beleive that a person who exposes false prophets as commanded excludes one from being a conservative, well then buddy I am no conservative.
It doesn’t matter who the nominee is, the media and Obama will launch a firestorm of hate and lies to destroy him. Their campaign to the Left will be that he’s a right-wing fanatic and to the Right they’ll claim he’s not really a conservative.
Don’t let the mitt-bots grind you down.
What the hell does all that have to do with getting rid of Obama?
No, actually, I see you, not Mormons, as much like the Taliban. Remember, be sure to hate anyone not as closed minded as you are.
O M G!!! You are delusional apparently.
If you can show me ONE, just one post where I said I hate mormons, I will concede.
I loath mormonISM.
I loath it because it is an affront to God Almighty. I loath it because it is blasphemy. I loath it because I have seen it first hand destroy families and communities with its lies and distortions. I loath it because it leads people away from God and into hell.
If you are are blind to that, so be it.
This story was posted in the religion forum, that apparently is getting your panties in a bunch, just stay off the religion forum.
;-) They are worse than paulbots.
I don’t understand why anyone even worries about this.
It is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. It does nothing, It means nothing.
So why worry who they claim to “baptize” or who they claim to “wed” (or whatever they call it) ?????
Why should I worry about what a bunch of people say when their “religion” is based on the words of some charlatan who was quite literally talking out of his hat?
They are only hurting themselves.
hat, explosions.........hahahahahaha
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
r
I am not sure why these anti Mormon gentiles worry about such things.
If the LDS church is right about heaven, then the slaves can chose if they want to be sealed into the guy’s family after they die, not as a slave but as a full fledged member of his family, equal to the others in the family.
And if the LDS church is wrong, then no harm done.
The mormons can do what they want, who has said otherwise?
As Christians we are commanded to call out false prophets, that is what this article is doing.
mormonism was started by a false prophet, it needs to be exposed for what it is - blasphemy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.