Leaders from the Jewish community and the Mormon Church jointly announced this week that the church has agreed to modify its policy of posthumously baptizing Jews.
Sort of.
Actually, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints agreed to form a committee to comb its database for posthumously baptized Jews. Church leaders also told the Jewish delegation they would work to limit but not cease the practice.
This is the same promise the church made 10 years ago, yet proxy Mormon baptisms in the name of deceased Jews have continued as recently as this year.
The church still intends to baptize Jewish relatives of Mormons and others it deems in need of the sacrament.
Among the newly baptized: Anne Frank and countless other Holocaust victims. Thanks to a few enterprising missionaries, those death camp inmates are all heavenly Mormons now.
Needless to say, the practice is unbearably hurtful to the descendants of Holocaust victims and to the Jewish people as a whole. Clearly, the Mormons believe they’re living out their religious creed and performing a sacred duty.
But we have a message to Mormons and the entire Christian world: Thanks, but no thanks. We do not want to be baptized.
There are plenty of explanations for our revulsion at the very thought of it. Jews have had more than a few run-ins with “well-meaning” Christians who presented a simple choice: Convert or die. In most instances, Jews died.
History is replete with stories of Jews who bravely faced death rather than submit to forced conversion. We honor their memory every time we pray at the synagogue or study Talmud or light Shabbat candles. The Torah described the Jews as a “stubborn, stiff-necked people” and, like it or not, that quality has carried us through the Crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms and the Holocaust.
We’re not about to change now. Despite the sincere belief on the part of Christians that the unbaptized are hell-bound, we don’t buy into that.
Judging from the joint announcement from Salt Lake City, Jewish leaders were satisfied that their Mormon counterparts heard their message. That kind of interfaith dialogue is always a good thing. In fact, thanks in part to such efforts, polls show many churchgoers from Mormon and other Christian denominations feel a healthy measure of respect, even reverence, for the Jewish people and Judaism.
But that’s small comfort when even tolerant societies can turn on a dime. Thus, to us, proxy baptism is no small change. As always, with the case of the Mormon Church, we urge more talking, and even more vigilance.