Hi. As a no mo with a recently baptized girlfriend, I was wondering about the whole baptisms for the dead thing.

My girlfriend has been baptized only a couple of months, but she was asked to do baptisms for the dead. I thought that was only for long time members?

Will she have to do the interview thing? I don't like to think of her talking about our sex life (or lack thereof) with some strange guy.

Baptisms for the dead are usually done by the teenagers. They don't have access to the whole temple. At the LA temple, they have a separate entrance. They do need a special recommend, so she will be asked all the temple questions including obeying the law of chastity. Does she know that she has to submit to their questioning just so she can go? Hopefully that process will make her run in the other direction.

I dont know what expectations she has for the ceremony, whatever expectations she has, they will not be met.

baptisms for the dead are usually done by young teens, and so that's who she will be grouped with.

temple workers who are used to dealing with young teens will not differentiate between your GF and the rowdiest, most immature teen amongst the group.

the ceremony is anything but spiritual...............it involves being dunked anything between 20 - 40 times in quick succession by a bored temple worker who makes the ordinance sound like an auction call.

and, if your GF is lucky the temple worker won't be a perv.

She will have to do the interview. How old is she?

She will be given a provisional recommend, only have access to the baptismal font. I don't know of any waiting period required after baptism...I remember my mission pres saying something like "as soon as they are dry, get them to the temple." But I could be remembering wrong.

I have heard this as well. It seems that they are anxious to get them involved with dead dunking to keep them busy and not thinking.

On an intellectual level, I recognize that the Mormon practice of baptizing the dead is a pointless, meaningless ritual. But on an emotional level, it is an arrogant attempt to reframe the life and negate the religious choices of the deceased who cannot protest.

Mormons say they are only offering the deceased a choice. However, the wording of the ritual makes no mention of “choice”. The wording is essentially the same as that for a living person and the subsequent confirmation declares the individual to be a member of the LDS church.

Ask her to show you where proxy baptism is mentioned, let alone commanded, in the Book of Mormon.

Interestingly, despite the importance of proxy baptism in LDS practice, the Book of Mormon makes no mention of it. Even though the Book of Mormon is supposed to contain the "fulness of the gospel," it never mentions the doctrine of baptism for the dead, not even once! The word "baptism" appears twenty-five times in the Book of Mormon. The word "baptize" appears twenty-eight times. The word "baptized" appears eighty-five times, and the word "baptizing" appears six times, but the doctrine of baptism for the dead is not mentioned at all!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2012 10:22PM by caedmon.

The hard part of baptizing the dead is keeping them from bobbing up to the surface.

I thought it was getting them to grab your wrist.

that cracked me up!

In the eyes of the Mormon church your GF's s*x life with you should be absolutely celibate unless she is a very grevious sinner (at least in their eyes). It would be better that she's drug dealing or committing armed robbery than having s*x outside of a legal man-woman monagamous marriage (at least in their eyes). They do consider murder to be a bit worse of a sin than s*x outside of marriage. But any s*x outside of marriage is very bad (at least in their eyes). And even in marriage certain things like oral/anal are forbidden according to the LDS leaders and should keep her from being able to attend the temple. If you are the type of guy who really likes celibacy a lot then she may be the perfect GF for you.

She will have to have an interview. It's the bishop's choice if he expands on the question about chasdity and asks specifics about her relationship with you.

Dead dunkings in the temple are way of helping kids and new converts feel useful and involved. Church people hope it inspires them to want to do the more secret rituals which require a higher level of commitment.

All temple recommends require tithing payments and this is one way the church extorts funds.

Usually they do a whole bunch of proxy baptisms in one session. She is a stand-in for someone who is deceased. That's it in a nut shell.

Some of the proxy baptisms are done by adults for family groups that have been submitted also.

She will be interviewed and get a recommend to go to the temple to perform these ordinances the LDS Church believes is necessary.