So said Groucho Marx. I wonder if he was posthumously baptized by the Mormons, as it now turns out (against the “rules,” but what are rules when salvation is on the line?) was done to Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham — d. 1995, LDS baptized and endowed 2008.
There are plenty of people up in arms about this. I am, perhaps, too insensitive over it, but I consider it, at worst, a rather rude act in bad taste — sort of like spreading false gossip about the dearly departed when they aren’t there to defend themselves.
I mean, let’s look at the alternatives:
- Death is it. No afterlife. So, aside from the family members feeling cheesed off at someone spreading theological rumors about their departed one, no harm, no foul.
- The Mormons are right. Okay, well, then, they’ve done her a favor. (cf. Pascal’s Wager)
- Doing this is casting some sort of evil spell on the departed that sucks them away from their richly deserved paradisaical afterlife into the LDS orbit. How wude! (This one’s sort of the opposite of Pascal’s Wager.)
- The Mormons are wrong. Whatever heaven / nirvana / valhalla you’re headed for is where you go, no matter what gets thrown over the transom after you get there. Or whatever awaits individuals in the afterlife is so beyond any of the conventions, posthumous baptism is utterly irrelevant (I tend to think this latter is the case, but that’s just my gut hunch). In this case, again, no harm, no foul, aside from temporal irk of the survivors.
So, really, let the Mormons do their thing here. I really don’t believe it makes any difference to the departed (I plan to get quite the chuckle over it when my membership arrives in whatever passes for a mailbox wherever I’m going — right alongside all the other junk mail). And for the survivors here, it just shows that the Mormons don’t care what people think of them, and are just as autocratic in their treatment of the dead as they are said to be in their treatment of the living.
Since I really have no positive feelings toward the Mormoms, I think some group needs to go out an unbaptize all dead Mormons…you know…to give them an option.
I don’t know if they can be unbaptized — but maybe baptized into a different sect? Heh.
Yep yep!
I don’t think you can be unbaptized once dead, but you can formally ask to be removed from the church while living. I know two folks who have gone through the process because of their dislike of the church. Few other churches have such a process in place, unless you are willing to be declared a heretic, which is harder than one might think!
With a wave of my mighty mojo stick I can convert all the dead Mormons to Zoroastianism! *waves stick* Ah ha! There, it’s done!
*waits for lightning bolts*
None? Well, I guess that just shows how silly the whole thing is. Frankly if they want to take the phonebook and ‘baptise’ everyone in it . . .go for it, but they should keep it to themselves.
Well….I am thinking it needs to “Offical” with forms and such that would be on line….starting with Joseph Smith.
Yes, Mormon baptisms of the dead involve paperwork as well as a ceremony where stand-in folks who are baptized in the name of the dead. And they practice emersion baptisms, so no drops of water on the forehead for the LDS members.
Very good! I like what Homer Simpson said when Marge was convincing him to get ready for church “But Marge what if we picked the wrong religion….then evrytime we go we are just making god madder…..”