Stephen Taysom put together a collection of essays in a new book titled Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader. Topics include biographies, theory, experience, memory, and media/literature with authors such as Newell Bringhurst, Larry Foster, and Jonathan Stapley (to name a few.)
Many of us are familiar with Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers in the St. George Temple. Brian Stuy gives some interesting background on this story. Just after the temple was dedicated in 1877, apostle and temple president Wilford Woodruff had a dream on two successive nights. The signers of the Declaration of Independence said to Woodruff,
You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.
Stuy notes that Woodruff had been reading a book titled Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America. Woodruff participated in proxy work for not only these famous Americans, but also Christopher Columbus and John Wesley. Stuy believes this book to be the source that may have inspired Woodruff to ponder on the subject.
However, Woodruff was not the first to perform proxy work for the Founding Fathers. Stuy quotes Charlotte Haven, writing in May 1843. She witnessed baptisms for the dead performed in the Mississippi River:
We drew a little nearer and heard several names repeated by the elders as the victims were douched [bathed], and you can imagine our surprise when the name George Washington was called.
Stuy goes on to say on pages 84-86,
In addition to the event Haven witnessed, there were at least three other occasions in Nauvoo when George Washington was baptized.5 Others for whom this proxy ordinance was performed in Illinois include Benjamin Franklin;6 Presidents John Adams, William Henry Harisson, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe; George Washington’s wife, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington; mother Mary Ball Washington; and Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson.7 Later in St. George, Woodruff would arrange to have proxy baptisms perfromed for all of these individuals.
…
In 1876, most likely in response to the centennial the nation celebrated that year, [John] Bernhisel began systematically arranging for the baptism of all the Founding Fathers and other well-known U.S. leaders. On August 9, he and his daughter Mary went to the Endowment House and were baptized for most of the deceased U.S. presidents and their wives. Bernhisel was also baptized for Revolutionary War hero Patrick Henry.13
Duplicate temple work is something that has long been a problem. In fact, that is a major reason why the church has put the new program for familysearch online. With the old PAF files, duplication was a tremendous problem. With the new Family Search, the hope is for more collaboration and less duplication.
While the baptisms were performed multiple times, Stuy notes that the Endowment House only allowed for “live” ordinances. The St. George Temple is the first temple in which endowments were performed for the dead. In that case, even though baptisms were performed previously for the Founding Fathers, Woodruff wsa the first to allow the other ordinances to be performed for these men and women. Stuy notes that in 1985, President Benson wanted to make sure these ordinances were performed. While most had been performed, some wives and children of the signers weren’t completed, so Benson made sure these were done in time for the bicentennial celebration of the Constitutional Convention in 1987.
What do you make of Woodruff’s vision?
Wheat & Tares 
Nice post. It is somewhat amusing that they had the same problem back then. Obiviously, the troubling part is that they come to WW and say nothing was done for them. If they had said their Temple work needed to be completed, its one thing.
Perhaps, the only explanation is that those on the other side only find out after the work is done???? Who knows?
I wonder what person has been baptized the most? Elvis?
Ultimately, what we are doing now is just a drop in the bucket considering people who have lived before written records, or people who live now in great swaths of the world where our presence is minuscule.
I don’t think it will change much until after the Millennium or such a time where there is true communication between the people for whom the work is being done and the people doing the work. They can basically just say who has and who hasn’t had any particular work done. Up until then, what we are doing is useful, but just a drop of water in the ocean.
Mike,
You bring up a every good point which I have been thinking about. I have a number of family whose records were supposedly destroyed by the Nazis and/or Russians. I am missing birth and death dates and I really am not sure where to look for them. Even older family members did not know and they are all gone now.
So, it does beg the question of how we do Temple work for those people and the millions you bring up who have no records?
also, I was doing confirmation once and we had a list of names which were only “Jose, ” no last name. In addition to cracking up after about 5 of these, I askedthe temple worker how they would know there Tample work was done.
The answer…… “They’ll know. So, you’ve raised a very good point.
It makes one wonder how ineffecient even the Celestial bureaucracies must be, if time of salvation is delayed on account of technicality. For all intents and purposes, we assume that the “founders” had done all that was possible to qualify for Salvation, and were yet denied progression until Wilford Woodruff was told to “get the led out”.
It makes me wonder if worthiness has anything to do with temple work or being able to appear to mortals, like WW.
Certainly, while the Founding Fathers were charged with creating a unique government to support freedoms…they weren’t all perfect and righteous individuals. They weren’t taught gospel principles in this life, even if they might have been taught ethics or moral behavior to live by.
So does it matter if a person lives gospel principles or not?
The other question (I love wondering about the next world)…does it imply the Founding Fathers all hang out together in the Spirit World and talk about what has been done for them after all they did for this world?
I really like the vision and the concept of such a vision as an answer to sincere pondering, even with the following disclaimer:
I believe temple work is more about the need to perpetuate symbolism and for what it does to our hearts than it is about any literal blessing to our ancestors.
Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE the principle embodied in temple work more than anything else about the theological foundation of Mormonism and the LDS Church, and I believe it is one of the central things that required a “restoration” – but I don’t take it literally. It’s much more powerful to me as a grand symbol and as a humbling action than as a literal blessing.
“So does it matter if a person lives gospel principles or not?’
One must assume that it does. Or why do we bother….. If, at some point, our name were to appear on one of those little slips of paper…
“does it imply the Founding Fathers all hang out together in the Spirit World and talk about what has been done for them after all they did for this world?”
Really good question. Perhaps they have a book club? 🙂 What about those Twelve Apostles on the hill?
According to the artist rendition of the vision…spirits in the spirit world wear white wigs and colonial garb.
I would think they’d opt for the Moroni look with loose fitting white robes and bare feet. If you’re gonna be hanging out for centuries, at least be comfortable. Maybe their book club has a dress code?
Anyway, I like Ray’s explanation. Temple work is for us and symbolizes some things that help us deal with our understanding of things. I can’t see how it can be literal either. Too many unknowns…and way too inefficient for it to really be a celestial practice, IMO.
“Too many unknowns…and way too inefficient for it to really be a celestial practice, IMO.”
I tend to agree. Or else, we’re pretty far behind…. And we’ve got almost 9 Billion now, (minus 14M) not counting those that are already gone…..
Heber13 and Ray:
Respectfully, how can Salvation for the dead be regarded as anything but a literal technical necessity in the context of the prevailing teachings on the matter?
Doctrine & Covenants 128: 17 – 18
17 And again, in connection with this quotation I will give you a quotation from one of the prophets, who had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood, the glories to be revealed in the last days, and in an especial manner this most glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel, namely, the baptism for the dead; for Malachi says, last chapter, verses 5th and 6th: Behold, I will send you bElijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
18 I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times.
It’s an odd thing to suggest that the whole earth would be literally (presumably) stricken with a “curse”, if the whole thing was just a symbolic gesture for our benefit. As I read section 138, and consider other teachings relative to salvation for the dead, I can’t but conclude that those who taught on these principles believed in the literal necessity of Temple Ordinances. I agree that there are some problems with this belief that ultimately strain credulity, but I don’t see anything doctrinal that supports any other conclusion. It’s only our rational senses that lead to the possibility that they were not intended to be literal technicalities.
In the anti-Greek pogroms in Turkey that led up to WWI.
I have similar concerns about finding records, and similar difficulties.
That is the take away point for me on this particular vision, that the FF remonstrated with Woodruff over being condemned by Church members who had judged them as unfit and not needing the ordinances.
It is a matter of what you have done with the light you have, rather than being judged against absolute rules regardless of your knowledge.
It is a strong warning against judging others.
Re Ray
Yes, this is how I look at it as well. And this is really why I love the temple. It’s less about family history, and more about spiritual transformation. At least for me.
Re Cowboy-
I think you’re right in pointing out the doctrinal conundrum. But I suppose at least I don’t consider myself bound to the technicalities you raise. Perhaps that puts me a bit out of the box, but so be it.
Re MH-
An interesting post, though at least for me I didn’t quite come away with an explicit point I felt you were trying to make. Maybe that’s okay as it gave me something to chew on this morning.
Cowboy…excellent points. I don’t know how to reconcile what is taught by people professing it is all literal to all the exceptions that have to be in place to make it literal. So since there is paradox and conundrums whether it is all symbolic, or all literal, either way, I have to use faith to make it work. So I choose to have the faith that makes most sense and feels right to me…because neither scenario solves the problem perfectly in my mind.
Does it make more sense to say baptism is needed for everyone, literally, or they cannot enter God’s presence? Except for small children under the arbitrary age of 8 yrs old, or the mentally handicapped…those people will be covered by the Atonement. But everyone else must be baptized by proper authority in the proper way of immersion with a physical body (except for Alma who arbitrarily was given authority to baptize himself in a way that is not approved today or has never been documented in history is ok but is still recognized as ok for all the thousands following him in the Book of Mormon). Literally, with these exceptions, all must have this baptism or the infinite Atonement can’t wash away their sins (how, then, is it Infinite?). If people die before they are able to find the right authority to do it, then another exception is made, wherein through the Mercy of God without robbing Justice, mortals in the last dispensation can find these ancestral names and do temple baptisms for them. But if their names aren’t recorded … there is some unknown process we don’t know about yet that provides an exception for them to literally be baptized … OR, they are damned to best possible scenario of Terrestrialites.
Ya know, that could be possible. But it could also be possible that it is just symbolic.
Either way, it doesn’t change how I want to baptize my kids, or go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, or the faith I have in the Atonement…so, it doesn’t really matter to me one way or another. The rest is all speculation and faith. And I’m OK with that.
(I still don’t know why the Spirits in WW’s vision were wearing white wigs.)
I too wonder why the founders of the US appeared to Pres. Woodruff if they already had their work done
Heber13,
There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that says that Alma baptized himself for the remission of sins. Remember, he was a consecrated priest of King Noah. He had likely already been baptized and ordained by one having authority (one of the righteous older priests who got replaced).
#15: el oso He had likely already been baptized and ordained by one having authority
Perhaps. But this is a completely unsubstantiated statement made entirely to support a foregone conclusion.
Whizzbang,
“I too wonder why the founders of the US appeared to Pres. Woodruff if they already had their work done”
They were apparently baptized, but the “work” was not finished at that point. My question was: Did they know they had been bpatized? And it so, did they tell WW?
#15 el oso: “There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that says that Alma baptized himself for the remission of sins. ”
What’s your point? There is a loophole that he did baptize himself…but not for remission of sins, and therefore his act was totally OK and we have no problems with that?
Let’s read: MSH 18:13-15
13 And when he had said these words, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he said: Helam, I baptize thee, having authority from the Almighty God, as a testimony that ye have entered into a covenant to serve him until you are dead as to the mortal body; and may the Spirit of the Lord be poured out upon you; and may he grant unto you eternal life, through the redemption of Christ, whom he has prepared from the foundation of the world.
14 And after Alma had said these words, both Alma and Helam were buried in the water; and they arose and came forth out of the water rejoicing, being filled with the Spirit.
15 And again, Alma took another, and went forth a second time into the water, and baptized him according to the first, only he did not bury himself again in the water.
Based on that, Alma baptized himself once, used completely different ordinance wording than we now use, and by doing so all those people afterwards were also baptized and added to the Church of Christ, and were filled with the Spirit and the Grace of God.
So…it seems God is OK with the actions, to send His spirit to confirm it and capture it in His Holy Scriptures. It doesn’t resemble anything I see in the Church and wouldn’t be approved today for baptism or for temple work.
So, I guess there are two options:
1) Add these people to the list of names of more souls we have to do proxy baptisms correctly in the temples in this last dispensation to correct everything in history that was not done exactly right because these are all requirements for salvation to be done correctly the way we do things today (even though we’ve changed it a bit in the past 180 yrs since truth was restored);
or…
2) There are exceptions and changes, and God recognizes that. His mercy is great enough to cover these small differences we worry about as mortals.
Frankly, I’m open to both, because neither changes how I baptize my son in our world now…but, the 2nd option seems more rational to me…so I lean towards that, even though I’m not convinced it has to be one or the other.
I like the symbol that temple work can help us bind children to their parents, and parents to children. It loses power to me when it becomes that we better just baptize any name we come across because everybody has to have this or they are damned and will be eternally in hell and there is no other option. I thought the infant baptism arguments in the Book of Mormon were moving us away from this kind of thinking, but apparently literalists suggest it just shifted God’s grace 8 yrs…and that makes perfect sense?
Oh yeah, and it was fortunate Patrick Henry was famous enough to have his name known in the Revolutionary war histories so he could be known, and get his temple work done. The other dodds who died on the battlefield we no nothing about…they’re screwed.
Sorry I didn’t respond sooner–I was available in the morning, but nobody posted comments. JMB asked what the point of the post was. Well, Paul Harvey used to say, “And now, the REST of the story….” So, that’s what I was trying to do, just give some background.
I’ve had personal experience with duplicate ordinances, and it is interesting that the problem existed 100 years ago as well. About 8 years ago, I caught the genealogy bug. I was excited to put together some names for temple ordinances. I followed the procedure to see if ordinances had been done. However, the family history centers were often out of date, and I later discovered that I had submitted names in which ordinances had already been completed.
I want to mention one other thing–artistic license. Artists are not historians. They try to make something pleasing and recognizable to the eye. I don’t understand all the hubbub when people note that artistic renderings are not always accurate–it’s art, not history!
“I don’t understand all the hubbub when people note that artistic renderings are not always accurate–it’s art, not history!”
True to a point. Why do most of the characters in renaissance era Christian art look like 15th century Europeans, well because the artists based their worldview on their immediate surroundings. When we look at modern Church history art, that is used in flip-charts to teach a discussion, depicting Joseph Smith carefully pondering over the Gold Plates in the presence of his scribes, is it really artistic expression? More to the point, even if the artist wasn’t familiar with the details better – or they even were just being “creative”, is it right to use the art to make a case for an alleged historical event, knowing that the depiction is more favorable than what actually happened?
(I was joking about the wigs, MH)
The questions raised here are certainly worth consideration, but those who have mentioned some of the founders wanting their “work” done, there’s nothing inconsistent with it. There were considerably more ordinances to be performed in President Woodruff’s day. Perhaps some of those ordinances were the only ones required before their own resurrections.
As for Alma’s baptism, there are accounts of Adam’s baptism that indicate that self-baptism was performed before Christ. One also wonders how John the Baptist was baptized (perhaps by his father)? Additionally, the Jews had other baptismal (cleansings) rites. Whether these rites are the ones we understand as “baptism” is uncertain. Additionally, whatever rite it was, I think we can assume it was done according to the priesthood procedure of the day.