An article written by the Associated Press accused the LDS Church of allowing posthumously baptizing (known as Baptism for the Dead) for holocaust victims and the grandparents of famous people such as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg. The Church has had rules in place to discourage, and prevent this kind of extraction of names not related to the submitter. In some cases, the names are actually blocked. I have encountered this with some of the names I wanted to submit, even though we were related, if somewhat distantly. So I always wondered how unrelated people got names approved.
This was apparently discovered by avowed Church enemy, former member Helen Radkey, who has spent many years uncovering ordinances she thinks are done for people they shouldn’t have. In spite of her having been blocked from certain portions of FamilySearch databases (because she is no longer a member), she used a friend’s logon to conduct her recent research. I wrote a piece at Mormon Matters on this same subject back in 2009, “Stop Baptizing Our Dead.”
She found that members of the Church posthumously baptized 20 holocaust victims over the last 5 years. I have no idea if these names were submitted by Church members, extracted from records or even submitted by relatives. The spokesperson for the Church stated that the Church, “acknowledged the ceremonies violated its policy and said they would be invalidated, while also noting its created safeguards in recent years to improve compliance.” Sounded like they were not proper.
The Church has, for some time now, encouraged people to look after their own family. In fact, from my experience, the majority of names I see in the Temples are Family file names. The Church has somewhat said they are running out of extracted names and do restrict the number of names each patron can be baptized for during a baptismal session.
Invalidated Baptisms
But, that is really not what I wanted to focus on. What caught my eye was the part of the statement that said, “… they would be invalidated.”
I can understand that the ordinances would no longer be recorded and probably blocked. But invalidated?.
We believe that all must receive the ordinances of the Temple, either in this life or the next. If the person is deceased, they have the choice beyond the veil to accept the ordinances or not accept them.
I don’t claim to know much about what goes on in the afterlife when one dies. But in my mind’s eye, I tried to imagine how this acceptance might take place.
Please bear with me, I am not trying to be facetious or disrespectful.
Is there a desk that a departed one reports to when an ordinance has been performed or do they just know?
If so, what happens if that ordinances is invalidated?
“Sorry, Brother or Sister so and so, the ordinance you’ve been waiting for for 70 years now, was just invalidated because someone complained to the earthly Church that you were a holocaust victim and therefore ineligible to receive these ordinances. You’ll have to wait for a relative to do your work.”
“Oh, all your family was killed in the holocaust?” Well, not to worry, the Lord will figure it out for us.”
Of course, the other scenario could be just as valid.
“ Oh, Mormons baptized me? Well, I’m Jewish so no thank you.”
I really have no idea.
I guess my question is, given our belief in these essential ordinances, can one of these ordinances performed under the proper conditions, but objected to by a third party, be really invalidated?
Your thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
Doctrinally, the LDS church has power to bind and loose in heaven by binding and loosing on Earth. So if the objection is sustained by the LDS church, they can absolutely undo the ordinance.
I wonder whether the process is assumed to be the same in undoing a sealing to a spouse or resigning a member.
I also wonder whether church leaders imagine those whose baptisms are invalidated being thrown back into spirit prison.
More PR Spin from the church.
I’d imagine that the “invalidation” will simply be the removal of the ordinance dates from the records. It’s a date for us, as the person on the other side knows when they accepted the ordinances, if they did, and can correct the record when they get back here. The only reason for us to keep the date is to avoid wasting time doing the work again when it’s not needed.
Frank, speaking of wasting time doing duplicates, a friend of mine that is a temple worker at the LA Temple told me that when they run out of names for patrons, they just recycle the names per the Temple Pres direction. He said up to 50% of the names are recycled. Now THAT is a waste of time if we believe that we are going to the temple to redeemed the dead. My personal opinion is that we go to the temple for our own edification. I believe the higher ups think the same, thus the recycling of names.
The Deseret News article used “cancel” instead of invalidate. But I agree with Frank that they’ll just delete the dates, note the ordinances as not available and flag that individual in case people try to do it for that same record in the future.
I feel like there are ways to tighten up the way we do names – the presence of the “find my relationship” feature means it should be very easy to tell from the system perspective if the name selected meets the requirements (shares a common ancestor, or the spouse of someone who does). The other issue is that I see people often using data-mining apps to come up with a name that needs temple work, so they rarely have any concept of who these people are (whether it’s a duplicate of someone else or if this person actually belongs in their family tree).
As to whether ordinances can truly be revoked in the spiritual realm by deleting a date in a computer here, I’m a little skeptical. There are a lot of stupid mistakes people make when doing temple work (merging incorrect people, sealing wrong spouses/children), so I have a suspicion that there are plenty of eye-rolls on the other side.
This makes me wonder at what exactly happens when a live sealing is cancelled via divorce. Being sealed takes a specific ceremony, language, and the live paticipants. How does a sealing end? Is there a ceremony of some sort, or is it a letter of approval or what?
Bishop Bill…what is so edifying about being spending time and money to make the trip to the temple and serving there under false pretenses?
My retired parents take a 5 hour round trip to a prominent temple in the east twice a month as temple workers. That’s ten hours a month of driving on some dangerous interstate roads. Month after month. They are taking a small risk with their own safety. But this also constitutes a significant investment of time and money.
It has long been suspected in exMormon crowds that there is recycling going on in the temples. Your friend confirms it. It is just another example of deception by the church. What is so edifying about being deceived?
Bishop Bill, first: sorry for pilling on!
But that sort of practice is really discouraging, both for reasons mentioned by John and the implication that time spent in the Temple is inherently better than alternative activities that also forward the three-fold mission of the church…is that still considered a thing? What about performing service? You know, help redeem the living? I know that I’m venting a little bit and I’m sorry, buy why did we go to the temple? To feel the spirit? To perform the Lord’s work? Does the Lord really think that busy work is appropriate given the state of the world?
Focusing on the article itself, the church is going to need to de-emphasize baptism for the dead because in this information age, names that are discoverable in this life are already running out. I personally feel that Mormon church/culture focuses a little too much on the next life. This one still needs a lot of work. We’re not done here.
Thanks for sharing your experience, though.
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on what happens in the temple, I’m not endowed yet, but in my mind there do seem to be a number of inconsistencies. We obviously can not hope to baptise all those who have passed away, we simply can’t find them all. Second, and this is just me thinking, it seems that most of the value from baptism comes from the personal covenant you make with God, of which the actual baptism is mostly a symbolic, physical representation of those covenants. How much different is me using my body in proxy from them making the covenants by themselves in the next life. If we were really dedicated in bringing all the dead to Christ as soon as possible, why do we only baptise famimy? Comfort? Do we need a way to interact with the next life?
In a way I must agree with Bishop Bill, temple ordinances must be primarily for the members it just doesn’t make sense for it to be primarily for the dead.
My comment is,” If the Jewish community doesn’t believe in our church, what difference does it makes. I think some people are just creating a sensational problem to make sure they are still visible to the public eye.” Sad………….
We started out as great enthusiasts for family history work, and my no-mo in laws were at first happy for our interest, but forbade us to do any ordinances. We complied out of respect for them, but now find we have neither the time, energy or inclination thirty years on to pick this up. I did always wonder though, if they disbelieved in our authority or doctrine, why would it bother them that we might do this?
On reflection i think possibly the most important thing to come out of the situation for us was an increased respect for our ancestors as we became aware of their life circumstances, and consequently a more forgiving attitude towards our parents. Probably a win/win all round as things stand.