Converting someone is a difficult task when they don’t want to be converted. But it becomes a whole lot easier once they’re dead. Apparently, baptizing dead people is actually encouraged by the Mormon Church. Technically, Mormons are only encouraged to baptize dead non-Mormon relatives….but many aren’t that particular. Thousands of Holocaust victims, and famous Jews such as Albert Einstein, Menachim Begin, Marc Chagall, and Hank Greenberg.
Also among those baptized posthumously by the church: Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Buddha.
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I can hear the joke now:
Buddha, Joan of Arc and baseball player Hank Greenberg arrive at the pearly
gates…
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How to Win Friends, Influence People, and Convert Dead Souls
What do Genghis Khan
Buddha
Marc Chagall
and Joan of Arc
have in common?
They’ve all been baptized
into the Mormon church.
Albert Einstein
Adolf Hitler
Hank Greenberg
and thousands of Holocaust survivors
have also received the dubious honor.
None of them asked for it.
Converting someone
is a difficult task
when they’re alive.
They can resist.
Just ask King David.
Saul made him convert
100 Philistine warriors.
He too waited until they were dead.
David even helped
the process along a bit,
by killing them,
and no one’s accused the Mormons of that,
but still a lot of people are upset.
Baptism by proxy
may be a lot less messy
than adult circumcision,
which was David’s task,
but it’s just as undesirable.
Update 02/04: The above was written in anger after reading news articles that didn’t go into enough detail about the Mormon custom. Mormons do feel that the conversion is still a voluntary process in that the soul of the one being baptized gets to freely choose. On the other hand, they still are only supposed to do the proxy-baptizing for family members. There appear to be a few over zealous members of the community. In short, I am not a hateful person, but I do react strongly to stories of forced conversions.