Researcher claims that Mormons are still baptizing Holocaust victims and other dead Jews

But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Matthew 22:31-32

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; Hebrews 9:27

The main emphasis of I Corinthians 15 is on the reality and necessity of the bodily resurrection, especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. I Corinthians 15:13-14

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? I Corinthians 15:29

According to Gleason Archer in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (1982), pp. 401-402, the term "for the dead" really means "for the sake of the dead" rather than "on behalf of the dead," and refers to the 1st century practice of older Christians who were on their deathbeds and would summon loved ones to their bedsides and exhort them to believe the gospel and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. Enough people did come to saving faith in this way that their public confession of faith and baptism could be referred to as being "for the sake" of the dead person whose godly example and exhortation had led them to Christ.

The Mormon practice of having current Latter-day Saints being baptized on behalf of dead people is an erroneous practice based on a faulty understanding of I Corinthians 15:29. As reported by Josefin Dolsten of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 22, 2017 (links in original):

A researcher says Mormons have posthumously baptized the late Lubavitcher rebbe, the grandparents of Carrie Fisher and Steven Spielberg, and hundreds of Holocaust victims, violating an agreement to halt the practice.

Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City-based independent researcher who has been looking into the Mormon practice of posthumous baptisms for two decades, said there are hundreds of examples of Jewish Holocaust victims being baptized in Mormon churches around the world since 2012. In a report released this week, she shared names of 20 such people who had been baptized.

“There are at least hundreds, probably more,” Radkey, a former Mormon who was excommunicated from the church in 1978, told JTA on Thursday.

The names cited by Radkey refer to Holocaust victims baptized from April 2012 and onward. In March 2012, the Mormon church, formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sent a letter to its congregations reiterating a 1995 policy that members should only do posthumous baptisms on their own ancestors and forbidding baptisms of Jewish Holocaust victims and celebrities.

In addition to hundreds of Holocaust victims, Radkey claims to have found other examples of famous Jews being baptized. For example, she says the late Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, were baptized in 2015. So were philosopher Martin Buber in 2016, and the grandparents of Spielberg and Fisher in 2015 and 2017.

Radkey found the names in FamilySearch, a website used by Mormons to trace family lineages and submit requests for proxy baptisms. Her study was first reported by The Associated Press.

The practice of proxy baptisms is a controversial one. Mormons are instructed to perform baptisms on dead relatives who did not have the opportunity to convert to the church. However, in the 1990s it was discovered that Mormons had performed such rites on hundreds of thousands of Jews who died in the Holocaust. This angered Jewish groups, which said the practice disrespected the victims’ religious beliefs.

In 1995, the Mormon church reached an agreement with Jewish leaders to cease the practice, and it was emphasized in the 2012 letter.

Radkey also says she found examples of family members of famous politicians, including Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as relatives of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, being posthumously baptized.

Eric Hawkins, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the church was doing its part to ensure there were no posthumous baptisms.

“The Church cares deeply about ensuring these standards are maintained,” he said in a statement. “Each month, we receive a list of names of Holocaust victims from the [Simon] Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. These are added to our database of names that require a direct family connection before temple work can be requested or performed.”

Four full-time employees at FamilySearch monitor the site for names of Holocaust victims and others that should not be added, Hawkins added.

The Anti-Defamation League, which has worked with the Mormon church on the issue, said the church was doing its part to prevent Holocaust baptisms.

“My sense is that they are making every good faith effort to first of all block these before they happen, [and] if in the case that something slips through and they become aware of it, they then remove it and reverse it,” ADL’s director of interfaith affairs, Rabbi David Sandmel, told JTA on Friday. “I’m satisfied that they take this seriously and that they are doing the best they can to fulfill the commitment they made on this.”

However, Gary Mokotoff, a Jewish genealogist who has been involved in the issue, begged to differ.

“If the problem still exists, whatever the church is doing to prevent it is not working” Mokotoff told JTA on Friday.

“A single person called Helen Radkey can find hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of Holocaust victims being submitted for posthumous baptism, then why can’t the church, which claims they actually have people working on it, find the very thing that Helen is finding?” he asked.

Mokotoff, who has relatives that died in the Holocaust, said the baptisms of Nazi victims were particularly jarring.

“These people died because they were Jews,” he said, “and here you are bringing them into a second religion even though these people are not related to you.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the idea that Jews needed to be baptized was offensive. The parents of the center’s namesake, famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, have previously been baptized by Mormons.

“We were sure that these baptisms were removed but we’re seeing that they’re not,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s founder and dean, said in a statement emailed to JTA. “We reiterated yet again the reasons we protested that it’s insulting that the People of the Book whom G-d made a Covenant would need the assistance of a group of Mormons to gain entrance to Heaven.”

That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would agree not to baptize Jews is typical of Mormonism, which has a history of officially doing away with practices that prove unpopular with outsiders. However, if you believe, as Mormons do, that baptism into the Mormon church is necessary for salvation and is possible even after death, are you going to stop doing it because a particular hypersensitive group finds it offensive?

While disagreeing with the Mormon practice of baptism for the dead, I also take issue with the statement of Rabbi Marvin Hier at the end of this article. Rabbi Hier sounds exactly like the Pharisees in John 8 who thought they had a relationship with God on the basis of their genealogy; the Lord Jesus Christ had nothing good to say to or about them:

They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?
He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.
And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?
Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:
Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:33-58