Deseret News | Jewish family makes peace with LDS baptism

Jewish family makes peace with LDS baptism

By Manya A. Brachear
Chicago Tribune

Published: Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008 12:01 a.m. MDT

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Grandpa's arms always offered the warmest embrace. But he had an iron fist when it came to being Jewish. Having watched his parents shun his brother Al for marrying a non-Jew, Grandpa didn't marry my Christian grandmother until she had converted to Judaism. And he boycotted his sons' weddings when they both married Catholics. So imagine the shock when I learned that my late grandfather had been posthumously baptized a Mormon.

The news revealed nothing about my grandfather. After all, the baptism wasn't his idea. Instead, it opened my eyes to the role of free will in the belief system of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church. And it gave me a new perspective on a dilemma that generations ago nearly tore my family apart.

For years, the "Mormon side" of the family had been no more than shadowy characters in our genealogical soap opera. The "Mormon cousins," as they came to be known, were the descendants of my great-uncle Al, who for years supposedly did not speak to his family because of the Christian woman he chose to be his wife. Family came first.

There was something else: Uncle Al had found Mormonism. And so, another faith entered the clan, a faith that valued family and welcomed new converts with open arms.

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When I finally met my great-uncle and cousins four years ago, I knew we were related just from the same quirky sense of humor we shared. We had the same family stories, too, even some of the same photos in the family albums. And it was while flipping through those albums filled with family trees that I learned the news. Next to the names of my grandmother and grandfather were dates of their births, their deaths and their baptisms.

My cousins archive family history for a theological purpose. The Mormon Church calls on its members to pour their energies into the salvation of all people — including those no longer on earth.

Mormons trace their unique custom of baptizing the dead to the New Testament. In one of his letters to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?"

The verse confuses a lot of Catholics and Protestants. But for Mormons it makes perfect sense. They believe Christianity's intent was restored through their church in 1830. They also believe God would not deny that good news to previous generations. So to be fair, everyone should get another chance in the next life to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that offer is proffered through baptism.

My cousins say they have lost count of how many posthumous baptisms they have performed, estimating the number to be in the hundreds. The church tracks them in the International Genealogical Index, a database of more than 700 million names that includes celebrities, popes and dictators. It also lists Holocaust victims, which has led to no shortage of tension between Mormons and Jews. In 1995, Mormons responded to protests from the Jewish community by promising to stop posthumously baptizing Jews without the consent of their family members. In 2004, the church promised to remove the names of Holocaust victims who had been added to the index without consent from their relatives. For many Jews, posthumous baptisms evoke thousands of forced conversions during pogroms and the Holocaust. It's one thing to offer prayers for someone. It's quite another to seemingly seal their fate without consent.