Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Columbus Dispatch]

Belief in God symbolically evaporated when more than a hundred atheists were “de-baptized” with a blow dryer yesterday. Organizers of the event in Westerville, described as a “coming out party” for atheists, agnostics and humanists, served root beer and crackers with peanut butter and honey to top off the late afternoon ceremony.

“Do you agree that the magical potency of today’s ceremony is exactly equal to the magical efficacy of ceremonial baptism with dihydrogen oxide, and do you agree that the power of all magical ceremonies is nonexistent?” Frank Zindler, president of American Atheists, said to launch the de-baptism.

After a resounding “amen” from the audience, the first person in line yelled, “Dry me brother! I’m free!” The crowd laughed as each person squeezed his or her eyes shut and walked underneath the blow dryer.

“It sounds perhaps frivolous, but it’s a very serious thing,” Zindler said before the ceremony. “The event is more of an invitation to a revolution more than a party in a sense. Until we come out of the closet and let people know our numbers, politicians think they can ignore us.”

Gillian Peiffer, 25, became more vocal about being an atheist after she said she was fired in the fall from a Columbus truck dealership because of her atheism.

“It’s the last form of discrimination that’s still acceptable,” Peiffer said.

Read more here.

[From me]

I would love to be able to laugh about this but I don’t find it funny. They have every right to live how they want but baptism means so much to me.  It represents the change that happened in my life when I became a follower of Jesus Christ.  For someone to mock it by evaporating the effects of baptism just makes me sad.

What do you think?

Our friend Bill the Mormon said he went to the Nashville Mormon Temple to baptize the dead.  How can you baptize someone against their will? Mormons have baptized 1000’s of people without their consent for years including Adolph Hitler in 1993. Isn’t it a little disrespectful to baptize a person who made their choice while they were alive?  I believe in free will.  I don’t want anyone to perish but if they chose to reject God or even follow a false religion like Mormonism then that is their choice.

The Mormons are angering The Vatican by trying to getting names of Catholics for baptism by proxy. What good does it do to baptize someone against their choice or the choice of their family?  Will Billy Graham be baptized by the LDS when he passes?  Will I be baptized by proxy?  I don’t get it.  

Baptism doesn’t save anyone.  I believe in baptism as a symbol of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  I have been baptized by emersion out of obedience to Jesus command-but I was saved before I was baptized.

On any given day, in more than fifty Mormon temples around the world, thousands of faithful Mormons are baptized vicariously for the dead. Most non-Mormons are dimly aware that the Mormons are interested in genealogy, but they are not sure why. While there is nothing wrong with being interested in genealogy as a hobby, this is far from a hobby for Mormons. 

Mormons believe people who have died can be baptized by proxy, thus allowing them the opportunity to become Mormons after their death. The idea behind baptism for the dead is this: God wants each of us to be with him in glory. To effect this, he allows us to accept the Mormon gospel here on earth. If we do not, he sends us to a “spirit prison” until the Mormon gospel has been preached to us there and we convert. 

Mormons believe that their church has missionaries in the “spirit world” who are busy spreading the Mormon gospel to dead people who have not yet received it. Should any of these dead people want to convert to Mormonism, they are required to abide by all its rules, one of which is water baptism. Hence the need for proxies to receive the corporeal waters of baptism.   So if you can be saved after you die, then why even bother to be good here on earth?

The Mormon church has teams of men and women microfilming records of Catholic and Protestant parishes, cemetery records, birth and death certificates—virtually any sort of record pertaining to past generations. Temple Mormons hope, in time, to have all of the dead of previous generations baptized posthumously into the Mormon church. 

The doctrine of baptism for the dead was first given to the Mormon church by Joseph Smith in 1836 and is found in his Doctrine and Covenants but not, as we’ll see, in the Book of Mormon.

In Paul’s first epistle to the church in Corinth, he treats a number of subjects. This letter was written to counteract problems he saw developing in Corinth after he had established the church there. Corinth had its share of pagan religions, but there were also quasi-Christian groups that practiced variations of orthodox Christian doctrines. Enter baptism for the dead. 

Mormons cite a single biblical passage to support baptizing members on behalf of dead persons,

1 Corinthians 15:29

Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?

Mormons infer that in 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks approvingly of living Christians receiving baptism on behalf of dead non-Christians; however, the context and construction of the verse indicate otherwise. The Greek phrase rendered by the King James Version as “for the dead” is “huper ton nekron”. This phrase is as ambiguous in Greek as it is in English. The preposition huper has a wide semantic range and can indicate “for the sake of,” “on behalf of,” “over,” “beyond,” or “more than.” Like the English preposition “for,” it does not have a single meaning and does not require the Mormon idea of being baptized in place of the dead. Such a reading would be unlikely given the more plausible interpretations available, and even if huper were taken to mean “in the place of,” it doesn’t mean Paul endorses the practice. 

First Corinthians 15 is a key chapter for Paul’s teaching on the resurrection of the body. He makes no statement on baptism for dead persons except to note that some unnamed “they” practice it. While the rest of his teaching in chapter fifteen refers to “we,” his Christian followers, “they” are not further identified. Who this group was may not be known with certitude today, but there are some reasonable interpretations: 

There is no other evidence in the Bible or in the early Church Fathers’ writings of baptism being practiced on the living in place of the dead. Some Mormon writers assert that some Christian commentators have discussed the possibility of a kind of “baptism for the dead” among some in the Corinthian community in Paul’s time. But these commentators do not suggest that the practice was accepted or mainstream. Given the silence of Scripture and tradition, we conclude rightly when we see this behavior as another aberration within a community of believers already soundly scolded by Paul for its lack of charity, its factionalism, its immorality, its abuse of the Eucharist, and other matters. 

Although there is no way of knowing for sure who was engaging in this practice, it is certain that Paul was not referring to orthodox Christians baptizing the dead. Catholic and Protestant scholars agree on that. 

The case against baptism for the dead is also made by the Mormon scriptures themselves. The current Mormon doctrine on baptism for the dead is quite unlike what Joseph Smith first taught. As in other cases, the Book of Mormon becomes an important tool for the Christian apologist. It contradicts much Mormon theology, and baptism for the dead is no exception. 

In Alma 34:35-36:

“For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he does seal you his. Therefore, the spirit of the Lord has withdrawn from you and hath no place in you; the power of the devil is over you, and this is the final state of the wicked.” 

In other words, those who die as non-Mormons go to hell, period. There’s no suggestion of a later, vicarious admission into the Mormon church. So which is it?  Do we believe the Book of Mormon or the later teachings that came out of the LDS?  You see, the Bible never changes!  It is the same it was 1000’s of years ago.  Sure Christians disagree about certain doctrines but true believers know that having a personal relationship with Jesus is the only way to heaven.  True believers know that we can’t do anything to gain our salvation–it is all grace!

There is only one way to go to heaven.  Accept Jesus as the personal leader or your life.  Just because you are born into a Christian home doesn’t mean you are a Christian.  So just because I want all of my family, friends and neighbors to go to heaven I can’t manipulate it the process by baptizing by proxy.  I wish I could but it doesn’t work.  There is one way to God–accept Him today.

What do you think?

[WYFF]

The people who live in one South Carolina town say that the drought has left them in desperation — and one church has even had to give up on baptisms.

It’s ironic that the town with the name Rock Springs has gone dry.Rock Springs resident Alvin Wylie said, “We’re having to live in fear of running out of water every day.”

At Rock Springs Baptist Church, they are praying about the water situation. They said they can’t even fill up their baptistry, so new members can’t be baptized.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I think a committee needs to be formed to discuss this.  Maybe some “white papers” and some theological discussion on why there is no water and why the baptisms are down….