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November 11th, 2008

Oh…By The Way…Those Jewish Ancestors Of Yours? They’re Mormons Now…

I think the proper term for this is grave robbing…

Holocaust survivors to Mormons: Stop baptisms of dead Jews

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

Now…look at this carefully.  On the one hand they’re saying they’re trying to make it more difficult.  But on the other…

In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.

“We don’t think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines,” Wickman said. “If our work for the dead is properly understood … it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It’s merely a freewill offering.”

Emphasis mine.  Check out the massive weasel words there.  They don’t think anyone has the right to ask a "faith group" to change their doctrines.   But when it comes to other people’s faiths, it’s okay for them to unilaterally convert their dead, and never mind what they happen to think about that.  They’re going to make your dead relatives Mormons whether you like it or not.   A "freewill offering"…?  Where’s the freedom to say ‘No’…?  Oh…the free in "freewill offering" doesn’t apply to you…

Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.

But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.

The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.

What a class act these people are.  Note that one of the arguments raised in California’s proposition 8 battle was that same-sex marriage infringed on people’s religious freedom.  But it’s okay to convert other people’s dead whether they want that or not.

4 Responses to “Oh…By The Way…Those Jewish Ancestors Of Yours? They’re Mormons Now…”

  1. Tavdy Says:

    Almost exactly the same thing is going on at the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan.

    "Enshrinement is carried out unilaterally by the shrine. Some families from foreign countries such as South Korea have requested that their relatives be delisted on the grounds that enshrining someone against their beliefs in life constitutes an infringement of the Constitution. Yasukuni priesthood, however, has stated that once a kami is enshrined, it has been ‘merged’ with the other kami occupying the same seat and therefore cannot be separated."

  2. Bruce Says:

    You have to love the way freedom of religion works from the point of view of religion.

  3. Tavdy Says:

    Correction: "the way freedom of religion works from the point of view of exclusive religion" – freedom of religion is a foundational concept for many faith groups, including Quakers, UUC and (in most cases) Wiccans.

  4. Bruce Says:

    Yeah…I was fumbling around trying to find a simple way of putting that and I guess I couldn’t.  Baptists, though it seems remarkable nowadays, were originally in that category.  Some Baptist congregations still are, but they seem the exception now, not the rule.  I have quotes from Roger Williams, the man who founded the first Baptist church on American soil, on religious freedom that I swear would get him kicked out of most Baptist churches nowadays.

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