← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · albion
Thread ID: 17763 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2005-04-14
2005-04-14 03:09 | User Profile
**Jews, Mormons to Meet Over Baptisms **
[size=2]By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press Writer[/size]
SALT LAKE CITY - [font=arial][size=-1]Jewish leaders claim Mormons continue to posthumously baptize Jews and Holocaust victims, and will confront church leaders with a decade of frustration over what they call broken promises. [/size][/font]
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"We have proof, and we are bringing that," said Ernest Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
The Mormon church has long collected names from government documents and other records worldwide for posthumous baptisms. Church members stand in for the deceased non-Mormons, a ritual the church says is required for the dead to reach heaven. The church believes individuals' ability to choose a religion continues beyond the grave.
Michel plans to show posthumous baptism records to church officials in meetings Sunday and Monday. He says the records prove tens of thousands of Jews, including some who died in Nazi concentration camps, were posthumously baptized over the past 10 years and as recently as last month.
A 1995 agreement signed by Jewish leaders and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called for an immediate halt to unwanted proxy baptisms. After evidence was found in the church's massive International Genealogical Index that the baptisms for many Jews ââ¬â including Anne Frank ââ¬â continued, the two faiths reaffirmed the agreement in 2002.
Jewish leaders in New York have bitterly complained the baptisms never stopped, and last year asked Democratic Sen. [url="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead/14813106/http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Hillary%20Clinton%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw"][color=#0000ff]Hillary Clinton[/color][/url] to intervene. She met with Sen. Orrin Hatch ([url="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/politics/news/ap/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead/14813106/http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Sen.%20Orrin%20Hatch%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw"][color=#0000ff]news[/color][/url], [url="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/capadv/bio/ap/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead/14813106/SIG=117h712im/http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/bio/?id=586"][color=#0000ff]bio[/color][/url], [url="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/capadv/vote/ap/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead/14813106/SIG=11g3qj3av/http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/bio/keyvotes/?id=586"][color=#0000ff]voting record[/color][/url]), an Utah Republican and active Mormon, though neither side would discuss what was said.
The church, too, declined comment Thursday. "The church won't be commenting at all on this issue for the moment. We are looking forward to discussions with our Jewish guests," spokeswoman Kim Farah said.
Under the Mormon practice, most Catholic popes have been proxy baptized, as have historical figures like Ghengis Khan, Joan of Arc, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Buddha, according to Helen Radkey, an independent genealogical researcher in Salt Lake City.
However, the church directed its members after 1995 to not include for baptism the names of Jewish Holocaust victims, celebrities and people who aren't relatives.
The church also assumes the closest living relative of the deceased being offered for proxy baptism has consented.
Carol Skydell, also a researcher, said that didn't happen when her paternal grandparents and aunt and uncle apparently were given a baptism by proxy. She found their proxy baptism records in 2002.
"Nobody asked me, nobody asked my cousin. It's ridiculous," Skydell said.
[url="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=65&u=/ap/20050408/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead"][color=#800080]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=65&u=/ap/20050408/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead[/color][/url]
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2005-04-14 03:33 | User Profile
Big Deal. NOT!
2005-04-14 03:40 | User Profile
Jews are funny they try to find trouble where there is none, or maybe they are right for even I spit on the graves of Jews when ever I go to the cemetery and sometimes even lay a piece of pork on their graves.
Nothing like black magic to scare some people.
2005-04-14 04:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE]SALT LAKE CITY - Jewish leaders claim Mormons continue to posthumously baptize Jews and Holocaust victims, and will confront church leaders with a decade of frustration over what they call broken promises. [/QUOTE] Not only must jews guard themselves against gentiles attempts on physical jewry, they must guard against attempts on the souls of their poor departed brethren. Think of it, the soul of poor ole departed cousin goldstein, abiding in non-kosher fashion in heaven with a bunch of mormons gentiles.:lol:
Of course, I always thought jews didn't believe in afterlife anyway. There must be some other angle. I know - the holocaust lawyers. Maybe lifting the soul of poor cousin Goldstein out of Auschwitz constitutes another holocaust crime, and there's money to be had from the ample coffers of the Mormon Church. Sounds suspicious to me.
2005-04-14 04:44 | User Profile
Why would the Mormon church agree with Jewish leaders to cease a religious ritual that Mormons consider to be vital. Why would Jews care what ritual the Mormons practice?
2005-04-14 07:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Why would the Mormon church agree with Jewish leaders to cease a religious ritual that Mormons consider to be vital. Why would Jews care what ritual the Mormons practice?[/QUOTE]
Great question.
It would appear that they believe there is some spiritual substance to baptism.
Else, why would they care?
2005-04-14 14:41 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]Why would the Mormon church agree with Jewish leaders to cease a religious ritual that Mormons consider to be vital. Why would Jews care what ritual the Mormons practice?[/QUOTE] Mormons believe strongly in the 'literal gathering of Israel' or Eretz Israel, as a prerequisite of the Second Coming. They tend to be Zionist and extremely philo-Semitic. I think the Jews want the Mormons to agree that Jews have no need of Jesus, because of their 'separate covenant' with God. The Mormons, because of their philo-Semitism, agreed to this in principle, but were not adhering to it in practice. Therefore, the Jews are raising a ruckus, not because they think the baptisms are efficacious, but because they view each baptism as a statement that the Mormons haven't really accepted the Jews' 'specialness'. This is a means of theological enforcement.