Disrespecting Holocaust Victims?0
Jewish groups are upset at the thought of the Church baptising Holocaust victims. It seems that they are being egged on by one Helen Radkey. The Church had agreed that members are to do the work only for those in their line–or with the permission of their next-of-kin. Despite assertions that the Church has reneged on that agreement, the Church’s NewFamilySearch web site has software that would make such breaches extremely difficult. To add to this woe, the Vatican has expressed concern about the practise of baptism for the dead, and has issued instructions to end LDS access to their records.
Leaving the present difficulty for members of the Church to violate this agreement aside, I would like to comment on both the reasons for Jewish objections and what is actually being done by baptisms for the dead, and to perhaps reassure them of both our intent and the absence of negative effects of those baptisms.
From the links above, I gather that Jewish groups believe that our baptising for the dead is a backdoor way of erasing the Jewishness of Holocaust victims, and a sly way to eliminate Jewry by latter-day revisionism. I can understand this fear. I am painfully aware of the forced conversions and other denials of basic human rights by the Spanish Inquisition and other pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust that was Nazi Germany. I have had Jewish friends from childhood, and I certainly would not want the erasure of what makes them uniquely them.
Read the rest of this story at fairblog.org
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