FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Are the dead being "baptized into the Mormon faith?"
Question: Are the dead being "baptized into the Mormon faith?"
The ordinance is provided but is only contingent upon the dead accepting it
- Some have misunderstood and suppose that deceased souls “are being baptised into the Mormon faith without their knowledge” [1] or that “people who once belonged to other faiths can have the Mormon faith retroactively imposed on them.” [2] They assume that we somehow have power to force a soul in matters of faith. Of course, we do not. God gave man his agency from the beginning. (See fn11) “The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,” [3] but only if they accept those ordinances. The Church does not list them on its rolls or count them in its membership.
- Our anxiety to redeem the dead, and the time and resources we put behind that commitment, are, above all, an expression of our witness concerning Jesus Christ. It constitutes as powerful a statement as we can make concerning His divine character and mission. It testifies, first, of Christ’s Resurrection; second, of the infinite reach of His Atonement; third, that He is the sole source of salvation; fourth, that He has established the conditions for salvation; and, fifth, that He will come again. [4]
Notes
- ↑ See Ben Fenton, “Mormons Use Secret British War Files ‘to Save Souls,’ ” The Telegraph (London), 15 Feb. 1999.
- ↑ Greg Stott, “Ancestral Passion,” Equinox (April/May 1998): 45.
- ↑ D&C 138꞉58
- ↑ D. Todd Christofferson, "The Redemption of the Dead and the Testimony of Jesus," Ensign (November 2000): 9.off-site (Footnotes have in places been integrated into the main text; citation for has been slightly modified.