[wyomugs8394]

Mormons believe that based on the eternal principle of vicarious service, the Lord has ordained 'baptism for the dead' as the means whereby all His worthy children of all ages can become heirs of salvation in His kingdom (The Celestial Kingdom).The fact that Christ never mentioned baptism for the dead is strong evidence that no such doctrine existed in the early Christian church. Although the Bible and The Book of Mormon contain no specific authorization of baptism for the dead, the Mormon Church has been practicing this doctrine since its early days in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith declared, "The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead." (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 2, p. 146)Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the Mormon Church made this statement: "Joseph Smith himself went into the Mississippi River one Sunday night after meeting, and baptized a hundred. I baptized another hundred. The next man, a few rods from me, baptized another hundred. We were strung up and down the Mississippi, baptizing for our dead." (The Deseret Weekly, vol. 42:554, April 25, 1891, as quoted in Temples of the Most High, by N. B. Lundwall, Salt Lake City, 1962, p. 69)Baptism for the dead is now only performed in temples. Fonts for such purposes are constructed in the basements or lower portions of such buildings. The baptismal font rests on the backs of twelve carved oxen, representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Mormon people are very zealous about this work for the dead; they believe they are saving their dead ancestors. John Taylor, who became the third President of the Mormon Church, stated: "We are the only people that know how to save our progenitors,...we in fact are the saviors of the world, if they ever are saved." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6 p. 163)The Mormon Church has one of the largest and best genealogical libraries in the world. The Church is spending millions of dollars doing genealogical research in order to find the names of those who have died so they can do proxy baptism and temple work for them. Worthy adult members and youth of the Church may participate as 'proxies' for baptizing the dead after an interview with their Bishop.The Church also has many people serving as 'extraction missionaries.' Elbert Peck, the former editor and publisher of the unauthorized Mormon intellectual magazine, Sunstone, said in an interview with The New Yorker Magazine in 2002: "They basically go to their little stake center and sit down at a microfilm machine and take these names and put them into our computer database."According to Richard E. Turley, Jr., the managing director of the Family and Church History Department in Salt Lake City, as many as two hundred million dead people have been baptized as Mormons, (no permission was needed) including Buddha and all the Catholic popes, Shakespeare, Einstein, and Elvis Presley. Peck dismissively calls this practice "celebrity work for the dead." In the early nineties, some Mormons were moved to baptize victims of the Holocaust. The practice caused a great deal of friction with Jewish genealogists, who now monitor Mormon baptismal lists to make sure that Jews are not included.Wilford Woodruff, the fourth president of the Mormon Church, claimed that he had saved (by doing their temple work) John Wesley Powell, Columbus, all the Presidents of the United States except three, and the signers of The Declaration of Independence, who he said gathered around him in the spirit and wanted to know why they had not been redeemed. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 19, p. 229)Many people wonder why Mormons spend so much time and money searching for the names of the dead when there are so many people in the world starving to death. Maybe the answer to this question is in Malachi 4:5-6, which reads: "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."Mormons literally believe that if they don't search out their deceased ancestors and have their temple work done, there will be devastating eternal consequences. (See source below)Have a blessed day.