DCP:?????[lds] temples...polar opposite to extermination camps?????

[_Lemmie]

Peterson’s article containing the above statement was rejected by the Deseret News this week, so he decided to post it on SeN, in an entry titled: “Banned in Boston? No, suppressed in Salt Lake City.”

Here’s his explanation, blaming readers who might be too sensitive:

Although I didn’t address the question of vicarous baptisms on behalf of Holocaust victims, an enormously sensitive issue for both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jewish community, and although I’m fully supportive of the compromise worked out between the Church and Jewish leaders and had absolutely no thought of upsetting it, my proposed column mentioned temple work and the Holocaust in fairly close proximity to each other — and that, the editors decided, was simply too risky. The Deseret News is owned the Church, and some folks out there are much more interested in generating heat than light. They couldn’t be relied upon to read the column carefully or sympathetically. Some might actually be seeking to take offense. (Nobody needs to be reminded of the existence of such sensationalizing polemicists less than I do.)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -city.html

Bolding added.

DCP has posted the entry in question. In my opinion, he did address that “sensitive” question, in a thoroughly insensitive way.

Some excerpts:

Those who presided over the camps saw their victims not as individuals but merely as representatives of a hated human type...

Everybody was killed. No descendants survived to continue their lines or to remember them. No records remain to confirm that they ever existed.

Quietly and without fanfare, though, an effort that directly contradicts these totalitarian attempts at liquidation and erasure has been gathering steam since the first half of the nineteenth century. In the family history research fostered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an attempt is underway to identify every individual human person who has ever lived and to recover and reconstruct the family relationships that link us all together....

Virtually every day in the Church’s dedicated temples worldwide, tens of thousands of men, women, and children act on behalf of those who are gone.

Moreover, these ordinances, these acts of remembrance, are carried out individually, not en masse. In many cases, the names of these individuals are being uttered, even remembered, for the first time in generations.

Baptisms for the dead...

And here he continues:

In a real sense, temples are the polar opposite to extermination camps, a divine response to the dehumanizing demonic forces behind those places of unspeakable horror.

Temple service constitutes a radical rejection of Satan’s attempt at what C. S. Lewis, in another context, called “the abolition of man.”

Not only did Peterson “address the question of vicarious baptisms for Holocaust victims,” he actually defined vicariously performing Mormon ordinances without permission on those of other faiths as the thing that is necessary to counteract the horror of their unspeakable deaths.

On a more mundane note, Peterson also seems to be indicating that the lds church does NOT follow the agreement made in 1995.

In a 1995 agreement, the Church agreed to limit their posthumous baptism practice of Jews — of all Jews, not just Holocaust victims — to only direct ancestors of Mormons. Instead of implementing promises made, the Church has engaged in a course of unfulfilled promises, a record of decisions adopted and then abandoned, and an apparent wish to undo what they have agreed to.

See 'Mormons, Jews Sign Agreement On Baptizing Holocaust Victims’

https://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/ldsagree.html

[_Kishkumen]

I am performing magic rituals to turn living and dead Mormons into gay atheists.

[_Lemmie]

I am performing magic rituals to turn living and dead Mormons into gay atheists.

I think there’s a site for that. Or maybe I’m just recalling a SNL skit that involved purse slinging.

[_Finn the human]

It’s important for the church to weigh these tricky situations carefully. On the one hand you have alleged necessary saving ordnances for dead people. On the other you’ve got bad PR to worry about. I think the Desert News did the right thing to not run a controversial article about Mormon vicarious ordinances for Holocaust victims. It’s just best not to stir the pot.

In the end every Mormon knows that those Holocaust victims are going to get those ordinances one way or another, probably in the millennium. No living (or dead) soul will escape vicarious Mormon ordinances.

[_Philo Sofee]

The more they explain, the deeper they get.......into it.........the muck.

[_Lemmie]

The more they explain, the deeper they get.......into it.........the muck.

That’s what I think. Just imagine, your ancestor died in a horrific manner because they were Jewish, and now a Mormon announces that, to balance out the horror, your Jewish ancestor has been baptized a different religion, and will be given the marvelous opportunity to renounce their entire heritage, beliefs and way of life!

What pricks. That takes a very special kind of obnoxiousness to repeatedly infringe on others’ lives like that. But, this is the church that preaches that god will separate families in the afterlife, so it’s no surprise.

[_Kishkumen]

The more they explain, the deeper they get.......into it.........the muck.

Yeah, the LDS Church needs to drop this.

[_Gadianton]

This is really astonishing, and for reasons too numerous to list. First of all, has the proprietor ever taken criticism to heart for anything at all? One out of 570 papers he's submitted was rejected from a sycophantic outlet, and he can't sit back and say, 'you know, maybe they have a point?'

Second, and this is where I'll leave it, forget about all the controversy with Mormons and Jews and look at what is being done at a very basic level. I get that in the scriptures, Satan is contrasted with Christ and in that context it works, for whatever reasons. But it's never the case that in the real world, we go around contrasting the absolutely most depraved individuals or institutions with the good.

Imagine if I were to give a speech at the university: "Folks, I recently viewed a disturbing documentary about the crimes and deviant psychology of Ted Bundy. In contrast, our guest of honor tonight is both a friend and a colleague, and whereas Ted Bundy tricked and then murdered dozens of victims, my good colleague is nothing but sincere and generous and warm, and scores of individuals over his term with us have approached me and reported on the positive effect he's had on their lives. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's give it up for my good friend and colleague, Professor ________!"

(I went through about ten names of friends here who I figured would take the parody in a stride, but even as parody it sounds so wrong that I couldn't go through with any of them.)

[Guest]

The Holocaust sought to eradicate Jewish lives, Mormon baptism for the dead seeks to eradicate Jewish faith. I’m not seeing a polar opposite.

[_moksha]

In the family history research fostered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an attempt is underway to identify every individual human person who has ever lived and to recover and reconstruct the family relationships that link us all together. It’s not coincidental that the words “genocide” and “genealogy” share the same Greek root, “genos,” meaning (among other things) “race” or “lineage.”

What was the Deseret News thinking in not wanting the Holocaust and a testimonial to the Temple name retrieval program in the same article?

In any case, Dr. Peterson will simply resubmit it in a few years. No doubt he will tweak the nose of his critics by reminding them that there are no longer any records of Ann Franks being sealed to the Führer. So there!