The Body Snatchers

The Mormon church has formally asked its members to stop baptizing dead celebrities, Jews and others who aren’t connected to a church member. Having been lampooned by everyone from Stephen Colbert to the folks behind this website, the LDS church has been mocked pretty thoroughly for its practice of baptizing the dead, and I suspect that’s one reason why church leaders are telling their members to cool it.

But not everyone is laughing. Among those not amused: the father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl. Pearl was baptized by an Idaho Mormon congregation last year, without informing the family. Judea Pearl is now asking the LDS church leadership to void these baptisms:

Pearl said he was considering rallying a group of Jewish leaders to send the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a stern message:

Stop performing unauthorized posthumous baptisms of Jewish people — and nullify any of those that have been performed.

Since learning of the baptism, which occurred in Idaho last summer, Pearl said no one from the church had contacted him to apologize for the ceremony, which is common practice in the Mormon faith.

The purpose of the sacrament is to ensure that ancestors can join church members in the afterlife.

The practice has long stirred controversy, leading to a 1995 agreement between Jewish leaders and the Mormon Church that was supposed to prevent the baptisms of Holocaust victims.

It’s a bad idea to mock any religion for their specific beliefs, because any religious belief looks ridiculous to a non-believer. But this posthumous baptism stuff really crosses the line. It’s offensive and disrespectful to the living, as well as the dead.

I’ve given a lot of thought to this stuff because I’m pretty sure my Mormon relatives baptized my mother posthumously. Oh, they never asked me, mind you. It’s all a big secret. But judging by the probing questions one relative asked, including the spelling of names, birth dates and the way this information was recorded in a little pocket notebook, I’m pretty sure that’s what was going on. At the time I just naively thought it was weird, but later when I learned more about the Mormon religion, a big ol’ lightbult went off. I have to say, it kinda pissed me off.

This was all years ago, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it should even matter. It’s not like I believe that stuff, right? If they want to do their little ceremony, why should I care?

But I do. First of all, this side of the family has never even met my parents. Why would they be so concerned about where they spend the afterlife? What makes them think they’d even want to spend the afterlife with my folks — especially my martini-swilling, chain-smoking, blue-streak cussing mother? I’m pretty sure she’d turn their celestial kingdom into celestial hell faster than you can say “offa my cloud.”

Really what bugs me is that no one ever asked. They just do it. Temple rites are supposed to be super-secret, and tolerant non-Mormons are supposed to honor others’ sacred traditions by not being nosy and asking prying questions like, “did you posthumously baptize my dead mother?” But I’m sorry, this respect for privacy stuff is a two-way street. You’ve lost the right to have your super-secret temple rites respected when you started snatching my dead relatives and claiming them for your own. It’s beyond disrespectful, it’s predatory. It feels like a violation. It’s certainly a gross breach of boundaries.

Mormons have baptized all kinds of people: President Obama’s mother, Anne Frank, Princess Diana and Mitt Romney’s atheist father-in-law, who went to his grave saying he thought religion was a crock (here’s a more thorough list of dead people who have been baptized. Shockingly, this includes Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. Adolf fucking Hitler? Really???).

Walter Kirn, one of my favorite authors, was raised a Mormon. He weighs in on the suspicion the Mormon religion engenders, writing:

It’s not just the right that has taken to casting stones; this is one Lottery that welcomes everyone. The editor of Salon, Joan Walsh, a pillar of cafe latte West Coast humanism who doesn’t often find common cause with Darwin-denying Folgers drinkers, chimed in a few days ago, on Twitter, with her own sour remarks on Mormonism. “Romney’s saving the soul of America,” she quipped, attracting much chirpy approval from her flock, “so he doesn’t have to baptize us after we’re dead.” This flabby jab at the Mormon temple rite that seeks to redeem non-Mormons’ departed souls via rounds of in-absentia dunking (the ritual’s critics seem to be divided between those who find it hugely silly and those who fear it actually works) followed another Tweet by a New York Times wag that snarled about Romney’s “magic underwear.” When urban liberals give themselves permission to join their toothy brethren from the hills in gathering at night on enemies’ lawns, they like to make the mob laugh first, if they can. No luck so far. They’ll just have to keep at it.

Fair enough. Laughing at Mitt Romney’s “magic underwear” may be a cheap shot, but here’s the thing: when your religion starts involving me and my dead people? Then you’ve crossed the line. The deal in this country has always been: believe what you want, but don’t force your beliefs on anyone else. And whenever we get into trouble in this country it’s always because one group is trying to impose its religious beliefs on those who don’t believe the same thing.

I’m not going to get upset at what any particular religious person believes, all I ask is that you leave me and my family out of it. If the Mormon church can’t convert people while they’re alive on earth, then you folks are just going to have to call it a loss.

So, this nullification thing? This shouldn’t just be for Jews and dead celebrities. It should be for everybody.