I find the Jewish indignation about Baptism for the Dead

[creekster]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I don't have a proposal for improved enforcement. It wasn't my promise. The only knowledge of the agreement I have is what has been reported on the news. The key point (which the church hasn't disputed) is that the baptisms would no longer take place. I'm not privy to their point by point plan of enforcing it. It's not necessary to know what the plan is to know that it isn't working. Like I said before, if it can't be enforced at this time, come clean and say it can't be done.

Is that what the 'promise' said? I remember this issue coming up but I don't recall the exact terms of the representation made by the church. Does anyone have a link handy? I thought it was more to do with stopping extraction than it was baptisms.

Not that anyone cares, but my impression was that the church leadership may have seen a conflict between work for the living (meaning a presence in Israel) and the extraction of names outside of the work done for identified ancestors and so chose the work for the living, assuming the dead will be taken care of otherwise.

Before we condmen or defend what has happened it would be nice to actually have the text of the chruch's statement, if possible.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I don't have a proposal for improved enforcement. It wasn't my promise. The only knowledge of the agreement I have is what has been reported on the news. The key point (which the church hasn't disputed) is that the baptisms would no longer take place. I'm not privy to their point by point plan of enforcing it. It's not necessary to know what the plan is to know that it isn't working. Like I said before, if it can't be enforced at this time, come clean and say it can't be done.

Unless you know exactly what was agreed to, how do you know if the church is failing to live up to their end of the agreement?

If they only promised that they would make an official announcement to the church membership what the official church stance is, then they've lived up to their end of the bargain.

Getting some 3rd or 4th hand summarization in the newpapers of what was or wasn't promised isn't a sufficient basis to determine if the church is in breach of any informal or formal agreements they may have made.

[Indy Coug]

Dated 4/11/2005:

http://www.lds.org/newsroom/showrele...-21312,00.html

In 1995 we made an extraordinary gesture of goodwill to our Jewish friends by recognizing special sensitivities over Holocaust victims," he said.

At that time, some 380,000 names of Holocaust victims were removed by the Church from display in the public database known as the International Genealogical Index, or IGI, which is freely available to researchers on the Internet.

In addition, he said the Church had over the years removed from display in the IGI the names of deceased Jews when they had been made known to Church officers. A letter from the governing First Presidency of the Church was read in Sunday meetings worldwide in June 1995, urging Church members to submit for temple ordinances the names of their own ancestors, and not the names of deceased celebrities or Jewish holocaust victims.

There is no mention of what was explicitly agreed to between parties. All we know is that as a result of whatever dialogue they had, the church took certain actions as part of a good-faith effort and then "urged" its members to stick to their own geneaologies.

[BlueHair]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Unless you know exactly what was agreed to, how do you know if the church is failing to live up to their end of the agreement?

If they only promised that they would make an official announcement to the church membership what the official church stance is, then they've lived up to their end of the bargain.

Getting some 3rd or 4th hand summarization in the newpapers of what was or wasn't promised isn't a sufficient basis to determine if the church is in breach of any informal or formal agreements they may have made.

Sorry, but everything ever discussed on a message board is at least 2nd hand information. The church has apologized in the past for the same error so I think it's reasonable to assume that they agreed not to do the baptisms. Why apologize if that wasn't the agreement? I wasn't there when any of the church leadership was called, so I have to trust the 3rd or 4th hand account of the newspapers and church magazines to believe they were called. That's good enough for me. That's not to say newspapers are always right, but neither are leaders. If new information comes to light, I'll gladly revise my opinion.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I don't have a proposal for improved enforcement. It wasn't my promise. The only knowledge of the agreement I have is what has been reported on the news. The key point (which the church hasn't disputed) is that the baptisms would no longer take place. I'm not privy to their point by point plan of enforcing it. It's not necessary to know what the plan is to know that it isn't working. Like I said before, if it can't be enforced at this time, come clean and say it can't be done.

How do we know it isn't working if we don't know what the plan is. Perhaps these new complaints are illegitimate. Why do you assume that a critic of the Church is automatically correct and the Church is automatically failing?

Perhaps the complainants perceptions are incorrect? Have you ever considered that?

[BlueHair]

Originally Posted by Archaea

How do we know it isn't working if we don't know what the plan is. Perhaps these new complaints are illegitimate. Why do you assume that a critic of the Church is automatically correct and the Church is automatically failing?

Perhaps the complainants perceptions are incorrect? Have you ever considered that?

Here is the website. It's not an actual copy of the agreement, but sort of an outline. http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/ldsagree.html

I guess you could argue that they agreed to issue a directive to stop the baptisms so that's good enough. They did issue that directive, but I think it's still their responsibility to follow up an make sure it is happening. If I were Jewish, I'd be pissed. If I were a GA, maybe I would argue that I never agreed to make sure it happened, I only agreed to issue a directive.

[MikeWaters]

How do you prevent the work being done for someone that is Jewish? Are all the records from the past stamped "jew"?

Sure there be a line on the submission form: "I guarantee that this person is not Jewish."

If I am king, I tell these folks "we will discourage it out of respect for your wishes, but we will not go to extraordinary means to prevent it, and if that isn't good enough for you, then I'll know I can't please you, and I probably ought not try."

Actually, I would have never agreed in the first place. But that's me. The more this practice gets into the media, the happier I am. I am of the belief that the elect will come, when they are aware.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

Here is the website. It's not an actual copy of the agreement, but sort of an outline. http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/ldsagree.html

I guess you could argue that they agreed to issue a directive to stop the baptisms so that's good enough. They did issue that directive, but I think it's still their responsibility to follow up an make sure it is happening. If I were Jewish, I'd be pissed. If I were a GA, maybe I would argue that I never agreed to make sure it happened, I only agreed to issue a directive.

That's a good link. Nowhere in that link does it mention anything about church oversight and controls over individual genealogical research and name submission.

It does mention that the church will

Reaffirm the policy and issue a directive to all officials and members of the Church to discontinue any future baptisms of deceased Jews, including all lists of Jewish Holocaust victims who are known Jews, except if they were direct ancestors of living members of the Church or the Church had the written approval of all living members of the deceased's immediate family.

Confirm this policy in all relevant literature produced by the Church.

IMO, the LDS Church leadership has held up their end of the bargain and only a few individual members have failed (and the intent of those individuals, to our knowledge, has not been established) to adhere to the stated church policy.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

Here is the website. It's not an actual copy of the agreement, but sort of an outline. http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/ldsagree.html

I guess you could argue that they agreed to issue a directive to stop the baptisms so that's good enough. They did issue that directive, but I think it's still their responsibility to follow up an make sure it is happening. If I were Jewish, I'd be pissed. If I were a GA, maybe I would argue that I never agreed to make sure it happened, I only agreed to issue a directive.

You'd be pissed about something involving millions of persons living in many countries?

You'd be pissed about something not involving coercion, not involving actual physical involvement of living persons but which may relate to relatives of converted Jews?

I don't see the cause for consternation. Issuing the directive is about as much as can be expected.

[Archaea]

As I read the link, I see histrionics and a misunderstanding of baptism for the dead. First, the other doesn't recognize it's a proxy baptism. Second, he believes we're "trying to erase one's Jewishness". How so? The person in the public annals will be forever remembered as a Jew. A relatively secret ordinance is performed so that somebody may receive some additional religious blessings. How does this act erase one's Semitic links?