Posts tagged: Holocaust

The Temple and Baptism for the Dead

By , February 22, 2012 11:47 am

I want to thank Daniel C. Peterson for pointing me (and you) to this video:

In turn, I’ll direct you to his blog where he discusses baptism for the dead. Petersen, by the way, is an Islamic scholar and teaches at BYU. You might be interested in his short book Muhammad: Prophet of God.

The Mormon Practice of Baptism of the Dead

By , February 15, 2012 10:21 am

I get the initial concern, even the outrage, over the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s (the Mormons) practice of posthumous baptism of the dead. What I don’t get is the outrage after the practice has been explained, time and time again. But with hope in my heart, I’ll give it another shot:

1. Nobody, not even the dead, is forced to join the Mormon Church. Yes, we perform proxy baptisms in our temples on behalf of those who died without baptism, but it is part and parcel of our belief that those on the other side retain their free will and can accept or reject the baptism.

2. In response to complaints from the Jewish community, the Church had long ago stopped baptizing Holocaust victims, except in rare instances. In fact, “the policy of the Church is that members can request these baptisms only for their own ancestors.”

3. Mr. Weisel was never baptized.

4. Bottom line, the doctrine of proxy baptism is a doctrine of love and certainly not one of force. Moreover, the Church has bent over backwards in its efforts to explain the doctrine to concerned individuals and to accommodate those concerns without repudiating a core doctrine of the Church.

I hope this helps.

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