When this altruistic desire was unearthed the Faustian LDS apologised for such wanton generosity. This LDS would prefer that the offer of eternal bliss be offered to all except some of those of a certain faith, not because they are not able to access salvation, not because of a heavenly revelation, but because they received illogical representations from a number of pressure groups, and to avoid critical comment are willing to effectively deny such persons the opportunity to respond to the LDS gospel's call. In truth, the apology called for by this story is for the LDS to apologise for the Faustian LDS' earlier apology.
A Postscript
For the avoidance of any doubt, I hereby append this message to this article for the benefit of any succeeding generations who may be members of the LDS and are concerned for my soul's well-being (thank you by the way) but you should note that I am (was) a Christian and believe I have received all the baptisms I need in my life or death and therefore deny that your post-mortem ritual has any salvific efficacy whatsoever. Nonetheless, if you want to conduct a post-mortem ritual on my behalf who am I to tell you how to waste your time? Please don't be offended if my sincerely held religious beliefs suggest your equally sincerely held religious beliefs are nonsense but, if you must, I guess that's the price for religious freedom.
PS: Did anyone remember to feed the cat after I died? If not I have a favour to ask but, be warned, it might not be pleasant …
Article comments
1 - Brad Lee
Yes, you just may be the smartest non-mormon man speaking on this subject. As a Mormon, I will not waste my time to add your name to the list of post mortem baptisms.
All I could say is you are totally right, if Mormons baptise someone of the Jewish faith, the Jewish faith should shrug their shoulders and say, whatever. Unless Jews or anyone else believe a mormon baptism actually works...which they shouldn't. If they do, they should convert to Mormonism and also baptise their ancestors.
2 - Joe
I'm not sure it is as easy as that. If someone was able to find out that their relatives had been baptised, presumably there must be some kind of public register (which makes no logical sense - if there doesn't need to be the body present, why not symbolically use the sea and baptise the whole of humanity - why do you need to baptise individual, named people, and how are you deciding who deserves baptism..? anyway, I digress). And, like it or not, that implies that the personal faith of the dead person is as nothing compared to your religious rite.
And if you are a religious person who really believed in the dead-person's faith, is understandably really offensive.
There is of course a simple solution: the LDS could refuse to comment on who they've decided to baptise then the rest of us could ignore them. Simples.
3 - Tom J
Some people think that "Mormons" ( members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are not Christian, but the reason we proxy baptize for the dead is Jesus' statement, "Except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5) and the practice of early Christians to baptize for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29). Do you realize that we don't know the religious preference of 95% of the people who have died; only 5% left any record of what their religious preference was. The reason I believe that it is not offensive to baptize someone for the dead, even someone who was known to be committed to a particular religion, is that after we die, we will all have much more knowledge of religious truth and some people may want to accept this baptism, whithout which Jesus said they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Tom J
4 - Dave Nalle
I like Stephen Colbert's proposal that Rabbis start circumcising dead Mormons.
Dave
5 - Casper
@Brad Thanks for the kind thoughts.
@Tom - I have to say that strikes me as a very tenous exegesis of Jn 3 but I'll let that slide. I can see that is is possible that the practice is offensive but, as i said, so what? Religious beliefs often offend that is the price of freedom.
@Joe Actually i think that has pretty much been LDS' position, the news of the baptisms was disseminated by an ex-mormon researcher.