Bring Out Your Dead … To Be Baptized

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Posthumous proxy baptism is a religious practice where a living person, acting as proxy, is baptized on behalf on a dead person. It is currently practiced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church), who submit names for the ordinance. The vicarious ordinance for the deceased have included Holocaust victims, prominent Nazis, and well known Jews such as Albert Einstein.

It has been discovered that the name of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had been entered into the database but not submitted for baptism. Wiesel said, “I object fervently. It’s an outrage.” Wiesel wants Romney to speak out on the subject of the baptisms. Wiesel claims he’s still alive.

Those who practice this rite view baptism as an indispensable requirement to enter the Kingdom of God and believe that baptizing the dead will satisfy this requirement. The justification for this belief comes from 1 Corinthians 15:29, though Biblical scholars question the verse’s translation and  meaning.

The outrage is that anyone would take this practice seriously. Either the practice works and the dead person enters the Kingdom of God, apparently a desirable outcome, or it doesn’t work and nothing happens. Those who object to the rite seem to be fearing the former outcome for there is no reason to object to the latter.

None of this brouhaha is about the dead.

H/T: Howard Friedman, HuffPo, Jesus and Mo.