Anti-Mormon Posts YouTube Video Of Secret Mormon Temple Rituals On Reddit

While visiting the Reddit site on October 21st, 2012, I noticed that someone posted a link to a video entitled "Behind The Veil: Never-Before-Seen Footage of Secret Mormon Temple Rituals". The intent is to denigrate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the video was filmed surreptitiously by someone who went through the Salt Lake Temple recently, and the commentary embedded within the video indicates the person is anti-Mormon. Even though the temple rituals are not disclosed to non-Mormons and Mormons who are not temple-worthy, I decided to embed the video here because this story is too important to be owned by anti-Mormons. At least the videographer had the dignity to obscure the faces of the worshippers.

What you'll see on the video, in order, is a group of worshippers in temple garments initially giving the prayer "Oh God, hear the words of my mouth" during the orientation preceding the endowment ceremony. You will then see a young teenage girl performing proxy baptism on behalf of a deceased person. Then you will see the endowment ceremony itself, first the mass briefing along with a clip of the film shown, then an individual passing through the opening, reciting the tokens or key-words while offering the ceremonial handshakes, and then the individual concludes the ceremony and goes into the Celestial Room to contemplate and reflect for a few moments before departing the temple:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6udew9axmdM



Other evidences of anti-Mormon distortion embedded within the video:

-- References to an "Oath of Vengeance" that has long since been abandoned. FAIR Mormon addresses this issue in more detail.
-- Repeated derogatory highlighting of Mitt Romney to perpetrate the false notion that he would take orders from President Thomas S. Monson should he be elected President.
-- References to a government of Zion which make it appear that the LDS Church is planning to take over the government and establish a "worldwide theocracy" at some time in the future (after the Second Coming, there will be a worldwide government -- headed by Jesus Christ).
-- Misrepresentation of LDS doctrine regarding the creation. We believe that God created the earth, but we define "create" as "to organize", and we believe the Father delegated that authority to Jehovah and the archangel Michael.
-- Repeated references to the Freemasons. Similarity between Mormon and Masonic ceremonies is coincidental; there is no overt connection between Mormons and Masons.

The video was uploaded to YouTube by someone identified as Newnamenoah, and it's an abridged version of a much longer video of 1 hour and 18 minutes. Despite reassurances to the contrary by the LDS Church, Newnamenoah seems convinced that the oath taken by Mitt Romney in the temple will conflict with his Presidential Oath of Office. But Newnamenoah offers no objective evidence supporting this conclusion, but merely paranoid conjecture. If A, then B. Classical simplistic slippery-slope logic.

However, Newnamenoah's anti-Mormon bigotry will backfire. We will take the lemon with which he has presented us, and transform it into lemonade. For this offers us another "every-member-a-missionary" opportunity to spread knowledge of the fulness of the restored Gospel, particularly for LDS members who have YouTube and Reddit accounts and can post comments. We might want to act fast, because there's the possibility that the LDS Church may ask YouTube to take the video down, or even to take down Newnamenoah's channel, simply because the temple ceremonies are sacred. There certainly is not sinister about anything presented on the video. The LDS Church Temples website presents a more detailed explanation of the endowment ceremony.

Now Elie Wiesel Is Complaining About LDS Proxy Baptisms Of Jewish Holocaust Victims

After it was reported that a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had performed a proxy baptism upon the parents of one Holocaust icon, Simon Wiesenthal, it was revealed by apostate ex-Mormon Helen Radkey that a Church member had submitted the names of the father and grandfather of another Holocaust icon, Elie Wiesel, into the genealogical database in preparation for proxy baptism. KSTU Channel 13 reports that the name of a third Wiesel relative, not identified by the media, was also submitted. No proxy baptisms were actually performed upon these people, though.

Predictably, Wiesel was distressed, not only criticizing the Church for the practice, but also calling upon LDS presidential candidate Mitt Romney to condemn the practice as well. The Washington Post quoted Wiesel as saying, in part, “I think it’s scandalous. Not only objectionable, it’s scandalous...I wonder if as a candidate for the presidency Mitt Romney is aware of what his church is doing. I hope that if he hears about this that he will speak up.”

So far, there's been no recorded response by Mitt Romney, although according to HuffPo, an email accidentally sent to the HuffPo reporter indicated that Romney campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho suggested that the campaign ignore the issue. However, the LDS Church, which originally apologized for the proxy baptism of Wiesenthal, issued a more expanded statement on February 14th:

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that they may be baptized by proxy for deceased ancestors who never had that opportunity.

The policy of the Church is that members can request these baptisms only for their own ancestors. Proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims are strictly prohibited.

In this case, the Wiesel family names were not submitted for baptisms but simply entered into a genealogical database. Our system would have rejected those names had they been submitted.

In a few instances, names have been submitted in violation of policy. Whether this is done by simple error or for other reasons, the Church considers these submissions to be a serious breach of protocol.

It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention. The Church will continue to do all it can to prevent such instances, including denying access to these genealogical records or other privileges to those who abuse them in this way.

Meanwhile, the proxy baptisms prompted Jewish pundit Keith Olbermann to name LDS President Thomas S. Monson the "second worst person of the day" on his Countdown program. Olbermann need not be taken seriously, though; he was too far left even for MSNBC, which turned him loose a while back.

LDS Member Performs Proxy Baptism On Simon Wiesenthal's Parents, Simon Wiesenthal Center Erupts And Demands LDS Church Abandon Proxy Baptism

A professional Jewish lobby is howling about another proxy baptism of a Jew by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. An unidentified LDS member apparently performed a proxy baptism, or baptism for the dead, for the parents of Holocaust icon Simon Wiesenthal; Wiesenthal's mother was murdered at the Belzec concentration camp in 1942. The baptism was performed sometime during January 2012. Proxy baptism does not make the deceased a member of the Church nor add the decedent's name to the rolls; the ordinance becomes valid only if the beneficiary in the spirit world accepts it.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center found out about it, but instead of quietly notifying the LDS Church of the problem and resolving it behind the scenes, decided to transform the minor drama into a full-blown crisis. On February 9th, 2012, the Center issued an inflammatory and hysterical statement in which they lashed out at the Church, claiming further communication was useless, and impetuously demanding that the Church change their doctrine and stop all proxy baptisms period. Here's the applicable part of the statement:

“We note that these rites were undertaken and confirmed in Mormon Temples in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho. Further meetings with Church leaders on this matter are useless. The only way such insensitive practices would finally stop is if Church leaders finally decided to change their practices and policies on posthumous baptisms, a move which this latest outrage proves that they are unwilling to do. We are grateful to activist Helen Radkey for exposing the latest outrage.”

Note that the Simon Wiesenthal Center expresses gratitude to a sworn enemy of the LDS Church, Helen Radkey. Radkey has participated enthusiastically in the witch hunt against the Church over the proxy baptism issue, which heretofore had been led by the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors. Also note the phrase "if Church leaders finally decided to change their practices and policies on posthumous baptisms"; since the LDS Church already changed its policy to require Mormons to agree not to submit names of Holocaust victims or celebrities for proxy baptism unless those names are direct ancestors of the submitters, I can only interpret the Center's statement to mean that they want us to change our doctrine and abandon the practice of proxy baptism altogether.

Update February 15th: The Anti-Defamation League also issued its own statement, although their rhetoric was milder. They welcomed the LDS apology, and were willing to acknowledge that the Church is making an honest attempt to live up to their previous agreements with the Holocaust lobby. But they, too, call upon the LDS Church to revisit its theological position on posthumously baptizing Jews and other believers outside the Church, just as other religions have reconsidered centuries-old beliefs.

But before Jews start dictating to us about our religious doctrine, maybe they should clean their own theological house first. For example, in the Talmud, which is the second holiest book in Judaism behind the Torah, one rabbi promotes pedophilia. The following is recorded in Sanhedrin 55b:

R. Joseph said: Come and hear! A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his.

And get a load of this from Kethuboth 11b:

Raba said, It means this: When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this [less than three years old], it is as if one puts the finger into the eye [tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years];

Absolutely disgusting. Other problems with the Talmud were documented by Rev. Ted Pike back in 2006. This is the type of stuff that sows the seeds of genuine anti-Semitism. But considering all this baggage carried around in the Talmud, I question what moral right Jews have to pass judgment upon our doctrine and practices. Fortunately, the attitudes of the Simon Wiesenthal Center towards Mormonism does not appear to be representative of the greater Jewish community.

The LDS Church chose to placate the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In an official statement, LDS spokesman Scott Trotter apologized, saying that the LDS Church sincerely regretted that the actions of an individual member led to the inappropriate submission of these names in violation of Church policy. Trotter characterized it as a serious breach of protocol, and said the Church has indefinitely suspended the member's ability to access genealogy records.

Here was one good comment posted to the Tribune story:

Bill Kilpatrick February 13th 5:00 P.M:
I find it hard to get worked up about Mormons baptizing other Mormons in the name of non-Mormons who are dead and gone. I understand the argument that doing so is disrespectful - both of the dead, whose consent was never obtained, as well as of their families. On the other hand, it seems a little silly to get so worked up over something Mormons are doing to one another within their own sacred precincts. They're not robbing graves. They're not adding the names to the membership numbers. They're simply checking off that they have performed the perfunctory rite for and in behalf of each person they know of, on the hopes that if that person should change their mind in the afterlife, they'll be able to claim the baptism as their own. It's wishful thinking and the intent is simply to satisfy themselves that the offer was made. How narrow-minded does one have to be to demand that Mormons not practice their faith, particularly upon one another? How weak-minded is it to lose sleep over the possibility that in the afterlife, everybody secretly joins the Mormons?

Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Protests LDS Church's Use Of Deceased Records To Perform Vicarious Ordinances For The Dead

On September 6th, 2010, Hurriyet Daily News reports that the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church is criticizing the Estonian Ministry of the Interior for allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints access to records that may be being used to perform baptisms or other vicarious ordinances on behalf of deceased Estonians. This was also published on August 31st by the Baltic Reports website.

The Estonian government has had a cooperation agreement with the LDS Church in place since the early 1990s that allows the Church to copy Estonian state archives to Mormon databases. The Ministry of the Interior reportedly receives millions of Estonian krooni from the Church in exchange for the access. The Interior Ministry and the Tallinn City Archive and Estonian Historical Archives both signed a contract with the LDS-run non-profit Genealogical Society of Utah, which is dedicated to preserving the records of the families to help people connect with their ancestors by facilitating easy access to historical records.

But money was not the only benefit, since the LDS Church also did all the legwork to digitalize the data and make it available for Estonians to trace their ancestry and find out about their family histories. In addition, state archivist Priit Pirsko said that the Mormons’ technological capability is tens of times greater than Estonia's own capability, leading to the proposal to exchange digital copies.

But Arho Tuhkru, a spokesman for the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, thinks the motive of the Mormons in keeping the records is dubious. “The reason that they committed their activities for the dead as well is not justified,” Tuhkru told Baltic Reports. “Their theological justification and appeal to free will is clumsy.” Tuhkru further explained that as church records belonged to their congregations previously before being archived by the state under the Soviet regime, it would have been natural for the government to ask permission from the Evangelical Lutheran Church as well as Roman Catholic Church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the most attended in Estonia, with 15 percent of the population currently members.

Estonian LDS spokesman Erki Koiv said, “We believe that all people should be baptized and one opportunity is to do it on Earth”. According to official LDS statistics as of December 31st, 2009, there are 1,010 members of the LDS Church in Estonia scattered among five congregations. An official Estonian-language LDS website is also available HERE.

To help clear up consistent confusion about this process, I've added some additional information. The following ordinances are performed vicariously for the dead in an LDS temple:

1. Baptism
2. Confirmation and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost
3. Receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood (for men)
4. Washing and anointing (initiatory)
5. Endowment
6. Marriage sealing

These ordinances do NOT result in the deceased becoming actual members of the LDS Church. Their names are NOT added to the membership rolls. Furthermore, we believe the ordinances themselves are not effective unless or until the persons for whom they are performed accept them in the spirit world. As LDS members, we are counseled not to try to determine their worthiness, whether they will accept the ordinances, or the feelings of other deceased persons affected by the ordinances. In order to be binding in eternity, any ordinance in behalf of the dead must be accepted by the people involved, merited by individual worthiness, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise (see D&C 132:7, 18). These determinations must be made beyond the veil.

Official LDS Church Statement In Reaction To Proxy Baptism Of The Late Stanley Ann Durham, Mother Of Barack Obama

The report of the posthumous proxy baptism of Stanley Ann Durham, the mother of President Barack Obama, has generated yet another round of anti-Mormon hysteria amongst those who are terminally contemptuous of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as genuine concern amongst those who honestly misunderstand the intent and purposes of LDS ordinances on behalf of the dead.

A screenshot of the actual record is posted on Politico. Reaction on Joe.My.God, the AmericaBlog, the Salt Lake Crawler, and Mormon Curtain was bitterly critical and regurgitated some classic anti-Mormon canards. In contrast, a sampling of unofficial LDS reaction by individual members is now posted on the Bloggernacle, to include Times and Seasons, A Soft Answer and Mormon Matters. For its part, the Obama Administration has not reacted to this development.

The proxy baptism of Stanley Ann Durham was not done with the official sanction of the Church, and represents a departure from the manner in which Latter-day Saints are directed to pursue and undertake this ordinance. The LDS Church issued a full statement, posted on the KSL Channel 5 website. For further dissemination, the statement is cross-posted below in full:

Statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related. The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such.

Doctrinal Background

For nearly 180 years, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have performed baptisms in Church temples on behalf of deceased relatives. The practice is rooted in the belief that certain sacred sacraments, such as baptism, are required to enter the kingdom of heaven and that a just God will give everyone who ever lived a fair opportunity to receive them, whether in this life or the next. Church members who perform temple baptisms for their deceased relatives are motivated by love and sincere concern for the welfare of all of God's children. According to Church doctrine, a departed soul in the afterlife is completely free to accept or reject such a baptism — the offering is freely given and must be freely received. The Church has never claimed the power to force deceased persons to become Church members or Mormons, and it does not list them as such on its records. The notion of coerced conversion is utterly contrary to Church doctrine.

Although the Church believes everyone must ultimately have the opportunity to receive the sacraments of salvation, Church members are counseled to request temple baptism only on behalf of their relatives. However, well-meaning Church members sometimes bypass this instruction and submit the names of non-relatives for temple baptism. Others — perhaps pranksters or careless persons — have submitted the names of unrelated famous or infamous people, or even wholly fictitious names. These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment. They are also extremely difficult to prevent because the temple baptism process depends on voluntary compliance by millions of Church members around the world. The Church nearly always learns about problems after the fact.

The LDS Church's current policy on posthumous ordinances for the dead evolved as a result of complaints directed towards them by a Jewish extremist group, the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, beginning in 1995. Church authorities subsequently reached an agreement with them not to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims unless they are actual ancestors of current LDS members. And the policy is enforced and has worked reasonably well; since that time, the Church removed 260,000 names of victims submitted to its International Genealogical Index. In addition, 43,000 additional names -- 42,000 of them identified by the church -- have since been found and removed, which demonstrates that the Church is monitoring the process to ensure it is upholding its end of the deal. There are no other reasonable precautions that the Church can be expected to take.

Terminating the practice is not an option. Our legal religious practices and ordinances are not subject to the so-called "court of public opinion". We don't expect other faiths or denominations to change practices with which we disagree; likewise, we will not entertain such requests from others. Major historical doctrinal changes, such as the Manifesto of 1890, which indefinitely suspended the practice of plural marriage, and the Revelation of 1978, which extended Priesthood membership to all worthy LDS males, were not enacted because of popular opinion, but because of divine revelation. You either believe it or you don't.

By the way, Ardis Parshall has just revealed through his research that one of Stanley Ann Durham's ancestors was a member of what was once referred to as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ.

More doctrinal background on vicarious ordinances for the dead can be found at the following links:

-- November 2008 Background statement on LDS Newsroom
-- LDS Gospel Library Link - Baptisms for the Dead
-- Jeff Lindsay's FAQ on Baptism for the Dead
-- Light Planet: Baptism for the Dead