Obama's Momma a Mormon?
It's one thing going door to door to proselytize the living, but leave defenseless dead people alone. Reportedly, the LDS Church has baptized President Barack Obama's late mother into the Mormon faith. Genealogical researcher Helen Radkey discovered records indicating that during the presidential campaign Obama's mama Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995, was subjected to the curious Mormon custom of "baptism for the dead" and an "endowment" ritual in the Provo Temple. Says Radkey:The LDS Church is walking a fine line...
It sends out the message that the religion she chose while she was alive was not good enough. And that spills onto her son, who is our president.
29 Comments:
Warchol, come one. Where's your editor. "prosthelize" the living? Is that a mixture of preaching and fitting for prosthetic limbs?
Perhaps you meant Proselytize?
LoL. I should have checked my own. No "?" in my second sentence. Still, you suck Glen.
but you and i both know that's not exactly how they work...
What horrible, ignorant, biased crap this column is consistently full of!
then don't read it?
why do we waste our time on things like this....don't we have more important things to be covering such as a failing economy?!...etc.
I'm really curious to know whether or not Barack Obama Sr. was baptized posthumously as well. Anyone know?
Bless you and the sltrib for this enlightening article and for your generous dissemination. Thank you for your "horrible, ignorant, biased crap." I enjoy it immensely. I will make just one further comment: Why can't Mormons see how truly offensive this is to those who don't believe their drivel? "To give them a choice in the afterlife..." indeed.
Still, you rock Glen.
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Glen, your post is brief, and that's a plus. On the other hand I believe you have missed an opportunity to have a good discussion regarding religious beliefs. Instead, I fear this could quickly turn into a slew of comments attacking Mormons and a slew of Mormons attacking Glen, or attacking other commenters.
Consider the words of Krister Stendahl, a late Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm, Sweden, and former Dean of Divinity Emeritus, Harvard University. At a press conference in 1985 he offered three rules for interfaith discussion.
Stendahl said (with some remembrances of Truman Madsen who was attending the press conference):
"I have three rules for interfaith discussion, to wit: Number one: If you’re going to ask the question, what do others believe, in their various faiths, ask them - not their critics, not their enemies.
Number two: if you’re going to compare, don’t compare your bests with their worsts, but compare bests with bests. Most people think of their own tradition as it is at its best and they use caricatures of the others.
And then number three, Leave room for holy envy. Let me give you an example of my holy envy for the Latter-day Saints: We Lutherans, when we lose our loved ones, we have funerals, we have cemeteries, but that ends our concern with those who have gone before. But the Latter-Day Saints care about their forebearers to the point that they want to bring the blessings of Christ’s atonement to them, so they build temples, and according to Paul’s instruction in First Corinthians, they perform baptisms for the dead."
Then Stendahl smiled and said:
"I have holy envy for that. In a world where we finally have learned what I call the 'holy envy', it’s a beautiful thing; I could think of myself as taking part in such an act, extending the blessings that have come to me in and through Jesus Christ. That’s generous, that’s beautiful, and should not be ridiculed or spoken badly of.”
These words can be found in the DVD “Between Heaven and Earth.”
This ordinance is not intended as a slight against other faiths. To the contrary, if Mormons believed other faiths were so horrible perhaps they wouldn't bother with proxy ordinances on their behalf in the first place. But this is beside the point. Whoever submitted the name disobeyed the rules the LDS Church has asked members to follow in doing ordinances for the dead. This information is from the LDS Newsroom, a resource of which I wish more journalists would make use:
Although the Church teaches that temple baptisms must eventually be performed for everyone who did not receive them in this life, from the beginning Church members have been taught to focus their efforts on their own relatives. Hundreds of thousands of members throughout the world conduct private genealogical research to determine the names of their departed relatives and then submit those names to temples for the performance of proxy baptisms. The process for submitting names is relatively open and depends on the accuracy and good-faith of Church members around the world. Because any Church member can research and submit names for temple baptisms, errors and duplications sometimes occur.
Church members are specifically instructed not to submit the names of persons not related to them. Before performing temple baptisms for a deceased family member born within the last 95 years, members are instructed to get permission from the person's closest living relative.See the entry from Nov. 10, 2008:
http://tinyurl.com/dlxjec
How about if we just make it an attack against stupidity disguised as "educational discussion" such as that spewed out by our honorable Mr. B. Hodges? Sir, perhaps you could make your pithy worthless tome a bit more brief next time? Get a hobby that is not blogging!
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Thank you for taking the time to read my remarks, Anonymous. (Though you seem a little beside yourself in this discussion, earlier telling Glen he sucks, now you're after me!)
;)
Note that Anonymous criticizes Blair Hodges not for being wrong but for writing something too long.
When "See Dick Run" becomes the standard by which all other written works are judged, we're in trouble.
Are we actually heading toward the world foreseen in the movie Idiocracy?
a) There can be more than one anonymous poster. They might or might not be different people. Duh.
b) Mr. Hodges was the one who couched the length issue.
c) Mike, the "Dick and Jane" books outshine Mr. Hodges drivel any day.
d) Burn the witch!
To the most recent anonymous of 4:52 PM: I know more than one person can post as "Anonymous." It was just a tease. ;)
So what if Stanley Ann Durham was vicariously baptized. If you don't believe in it, it has no effect. You don't own your ancestors.
And as far as the Jews are concerned, the campaign against proxy baptism of Holocaust victims is waged by the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, a Jewish supremacist organization dedicated to promoting the unique "singularity" of the Jewish Holocaust. Members of Utah's Armenian community find Jewish ownership of the term "Holocaust" offensive and recently rallied in Salt Lake to manifest their ire.
It is an incredible attribute you have there glen, to be able to know differently and have the balls enough to deny it for your job.....hmmmmm judas, was that his name. i think it was.
Why do people care so much about what the Mormons do? If they are wrong in doing what they do, then why the hell do I care? And if they are right, then maybe people WILL have a second chance after they are dead? But seriously, why does anyone care?
We need to start a DNB list.
I sounds like most of you have a problem with a religion you obviously know little about.
If you want to make an educated comment, read the Book of Mormon!
Why not include the whole quote?
“The LDS Church is walking a fine line when the mother of our very special president has been posthumously baptized and endowed in a Utah temple,”
What makes this woman think "our
very special president" is any different than any other president? Unless she states this about EVERY US President it makes me wonder about her motives in sending this info out.
This is an old discussion, true. But one that should not go away. In each case defenders of the practice say the same thing, that since the person is dead, no harm no foul. And that if they are right in performing the practice, that dead person will be grateful. They allow their personal beliefs (or motives--they believe they are doing good deeds) to trump the emotions of people in the here and now.
Such people will never understand that those actions are offensive and bewildering to religious non-Mormons. It is a wound to their fellow brothers and they don't care to heal it. They will continue in that offensive behavior always, but they will continue unabated without this discussion.
I think what makes Barrack a "special" president is his unique heritage. His mother's posthumous baptism is an attempt to homogenize him and deny him his heritage.
I disagree, Anonymous. It isn't logical to say such an act can "deny a heritage."
A lot of "anonymous" folks sounding off here. Is that usual?
BHodges,
Tribune Comment sections, and Warchol's blog in particular, are not productive places to have intelligent "conversations".
If you're new, I'd recommend you don't waste your typing trying to be logical or thoughtful on the trib.
I'll waste a few key strokes here:
1) Obama's mother may be related to the person who submitted her name. There are many cousins and other distant relatives around.
or
2) Someone submitted the name just to cause a ruckus. If so, shame on them for being a pain.
In the end, every religion thinks they are right, or they wouldn't be a distinct religion. No church should alter their sincere practices just because someone else doesn't believe it's right.
Don't look into any religion if you'll be offended that they think they're right, and by extension that you are "wrong".
If you don't understand how being posthumously baptized into a religion run by wealthy WASP males, which is noted for it's history of racism, plural marriage and more recently intolerance of homosexuals, then you probably never will understand where the LDS church's detractors are coming from.
With some investigation we are sure to find out that Helen Radkey submitted President Obama's mother's name herself. She has a huge anti-mormon agenda and she is the number one suspect in my book. It would not be that hard to create a false identity and submit names for proxy baptism and then conveniently find them in the IGI.
Are all the thin-skinned offended when they find a Catholic has lit a candle for them?
No one is baptized a Mormon. Dead or alive. One can only be baptized. Read the ordinance. It simply says they are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy spirit. So, the premise to the whole affair is wrong.
It's no different than a Catholic lighting a candle for me. Doesn't offend me in the least nor make me a Catholic.
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