Mormons & Jews

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

I see that Mormons are a hot topic here, so I offer the following.

Except for one major hiccup, Jews and Mormons have generally gotten along very well. Brigham Young University opened a branch campus on the Mt. of Olives a while back & is scrupulously honoring its commitment not to proselytize (which it had to agree to as a condition for being allowed to open the branch). The small Jewish community in Utah (Salt Lake City & environs) has always gotten along very well with its Mormon neighbors (see <http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=10836&intcategoryid=5>.

The major "hiccup" I referred to has to do with the Mormon practice of posthumous baptisms. The following is an article from Dec. 12, 2002:
_____

Mormons renew their vow
to stop baptizing deceased Jews
By Bill Gladstone

TORONTO, Dec. 12 (JTA) — A renewed vow from the Mormon Church to end
the practice of posthumously baptizing Jews has drawn a mixed reaction.

A Jewish official who met with church leaders this week believes the pledge is
meaningful, but skeptics are focusing on the fact that the church made a
similar vow seven years ago.

Church elders made the promise at a meeting Tuesday in New York, when
Jewish and Mormon officials discussed allegations that church members are
still baptizing many deceased Jews, including thousands of Holocaust victims.

Seven years after the church signed an agreement to do all it could to stop the
practice, new evidence emerged that the church’s vast International
Genealogical Index lists as many as 20,000 Holocaust victims — and perhaps
many more — all evidently baptized by proxy after their deaths.

Ernest Michel, a Holocaust survivor who in 1981 was chairman of the World
Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, notified church officials about the
renewed problem.

Church elders Monte Brough and D. Todd Christofferson traveled from Salt
Lake City to meet with him this week in New York.

During the meeting, the officials reaffirmed their intention to keep the 1995
agreement, “which means removing not only Holocaust victims, but all Jews
who have been posthumously baptized from the list,” Michel told JTA.

He added that in his opinion this intention “has never changed.”

Michel also said Jewish and church officials agreed to prepare a joint
memorandum outlining a procedure by which the church would remove all
Jewish names from the International Genealogical Index.

The parties will likely be in close consultation for several weeks, he added.

Meanwhile, the church issued a statement to make clear its willingness to
deal with Jewish concerns.

“When the church is made aware of documented concerns, action is taken in
compliance with the agreement,” Christofferson said in the statement, which
was released Wednesday.

At the same time, Christofferson alluded to the difficulty of the task.

“Removing the names of Holocaust victims and other known Jews from a data
base containing hundreds of millions of deceased persons is an ongoing,
labor-intensive process requiring name-by-name research,” he said in the
statement.

To judge by recent Internet chatter, however, some Jewish genealogists are
expressing strong doubts that a new agreement will solve the problem — and
they are discussing legal action.

“How will they know someone is Jewish when they are extracting names from
birth indexes, as they do on a weekly basis?" one Jewish researcher wrote.

“They didn’t know in the past,” the researcher added. “What changes will take
place in the future?”

Michel initiated an earlier round of negotiations with the church in 1995 after
discovering that his parents, who perished in the Holocaust, had been
posthumously inducted into the Mormon faith by zealous church workers acting
“out of love.”

After protracted negotiations with Jewish officials in 1995, the church removed
the names of 380,000 Holocaust victims from its database and agreed to work
to prevent church members from trying to convert deceased Jews who were
not related to them.

Church followers are required to research their own family trees and to submit
the names of their non-Mormon ancestors for baptism by proxy.

For each name submitted, a proxy is baptized in a Mormon temple.

Ignoring church policy, some zealous followers have culled names from a
wide variety of historical sources, including memorial books of Holocaust
victims from Central and Eastern Europe.

Helen Radkey, a genealogical researcher in Salt Lake City, recently conducted
a limited search in the International Genealogical Index’s computerized list of 2
billion names. She found some 20,000 Jewish-sounding names from Lodz,
Krakow, Bialystok and other former Jewish centers in Eastern Europe, and
asserts that many had belonged to Holocaust victims.

Radkey supplied the results of her research to Michel days before Tuesday’s
meeting.

“This issue is really important to me,” said Radkey, an Australian-born
Christian.

“The Jews have been treated badly by Christianity for 2,000 years. Any time
someone or something in the Christian world seems to imply that the Jewish
religion is inferior in some way, that is the bottom line for me. What the
Mormons are doing is not acceptable, and the Jews need to say something.”

Radkey and others contend that the 20,000 Jewish names are likely just the tip
of the iceberg.

“There may be hundreds of thousands of Jewish names in there,” said
Bernard Kouchel, a retired builder and Jewish genealogist in Fort Lauderdale,
Fla.

Having conducted his own search of the International Genealogical Index in
recent weeks, Kouchel found scores of notable Jews, including Rashi,
Maimonides, Menachem Begin, Irving Berlin, Samuel Bronfman, Marc Chagall,
Hank Greenberg, Irving Howe and Gilda Radner.

Such revelations have led to angry accusations in Jewish genealogical circles
that the church has done too little to uphold its seven-year-old agreement with
the Jewish community.

Some genealogists have characterized the practice of turning dead Jews into
Mormons as a brazen act that may obscure the historical record for future
generations.

Expressing outrage in recent days at the persistence of a practice that they
liken to the “forced conversion” of souls in the afterlife, some have hinted at the
possibility of a class action lawsuit for damages.

Few have been placated by the church’s explanation that deceased persons
may choose to accept or reject the baptism in the afterlife.

“From their point of view, it’s an article of faith, and from our point of view, it’s a
slap in the face,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Some church officials have claimed that they cannot control the activities of all
of their members.

Brough, one of the elders at Tuesday’s meeting, has said that Mormons who
have submitted thousands of Jewish names for baptism intended only a
“Christian act of service” and acknowledged that their acts were “misguided
and insensitive.”

Jewish representatives now agree that the church must exert more control over
its flock.

“It’s clear that there has been no serious monitoring” of what goes into the
International Genealogical Index, said Cooper, who participated in
negotiations with church officials last year to remove more than 200 Jewish
names from the list, including those of Albert Einstein and David Ben-Gurion.

“This is something that keeps coming up, and the church is going to have to
find a better way to put closure on it,” he said.

Link: <http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=12178&intcategoryid=2>
_____

We find the idea of Jews being posthumously baptized into the Mormon church to be deeply offensive in the extreme & cannot express our disgust, outrage & revulsion at this practice in strong enough terms. It takes the spiritual hounding of Jews to new lows; not even the grave is a refuge from over-zealous missionaries! But hopefully, ongoing dialogue will deal with this problem.

Oh, I'm new here; this is my first post. (I heard about TheologyWeb from a cyberfriend on another forum.)

Be well!

ssv

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Stillsmallvoice, welcome to TWEB! :cheers:

I used to believe in Mormonism, so I'll respond based on my former beliefs

JOHN MORMON:
I find it funny that the Jews care that much what other religions do "on behalf of their dead." If the Jews were to say a prayer to their God so that certain Mormons could be blessed, should Mormons cry foul? Mormon vicarious baptisms don't force the dead to do anything. It does not make them members of the LDS church. It's up the dead spirits to decide if they want to accept the work done in their behalf.

If the Jews had sued, I'm confident the case would have been thrown out of court.

John Powell.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi John!

I apologize for taking so long to reply but as an orthodox Jew, I don't use the computer (or just about any other electric/electronic device, for that matter) over Shabbat (i.e. the Sabbath), which, for us runs from sundown on Friday until nightfall on Saturday. We (DW & I) are too busy on Friday cooking, cleaning, etc. getting ready for Shabbat, for me to be on line. This is my long-winded way of telling everyone why I've been cybernating for 2.5 days.

You posted:

I find it funny that the Jews care that much what other religions do "on behalf of their dead."

Why? Our Sages teach that "All Jews are responsible, one for the other." This mutual responsibility is not limited to matters of this world.

If the Jews were to say a prayer to their God so that certain Mormons could be blessed, should Mormons cry foul?

We don't need to pray to God so that members of other faith might be blessed. Our Sages declare that, "The righteous of all nations have a share in the world-to-come." But I think that there's a big difference between asking for blessings for someone from another faith (any Christians, pagans, etc. who want to pray for blessings for me, please go right ahead, I need all the help I can get!), and presuming to posthumously induct the deceased of another faith into one's own. The Mormons can look after their own dead as they wish; we'll look after ours, Muslims will look after theirs, etc.

If the Jews had sued, I'm confident the case would have been thrown out of court.

???

Be well!

ssv

[John Powell]

JOHN MORMON (JM):
I find it funny that the Jews care that much what other religions do "on behalf of their dead."

STILLSMALLVOICE (SSV):
Why? Our Sages teach that "All Jews are responsible, one for the other." This mutual responsibility is not limited to matters of this world.


JM:
Right, but you still don't seem to understand the Mormon position. Vicarious work does not obligate the dead person to accept it. Are you presuming to deny your fellow Jews the right to choose to join another religion in the afterlife?

JM:
If the Jews were to say a prayer to their God so that certain Mormons could be blessed, should Mormons cry foul?

SSV:
We don't need to pray to God so that members of other faith might be blessed. Our Sages declare that, "The righteous of all nations have a share in the world-to-come." But I think that there's a big difference between asking for blessings for someone from another faith (any Christians, pagans, etc. who want to pray for blessings for me, please go right ahead, I need all the help I can get!), and presuming to posthumously induct the deceased of another faith into one's own. The Mormons can look after their own dead as they wish; we'll look after ours, Muslims will look after theirs, etc.


JM:
I agree that each family and extended family / friends should "look after their own dead" meaning bury their dead bodies in their own manner and care for those graves. However, we're talking about the spirits of the dead who are presumably nowhere near the gravesite. And, again, this vicarious work does not "induct" them into our faith, but merely "opens the door" if they wish to go through that door.

Are you saying that if a Mormon spirit wanted to believe in Judaism after they died then they would be denied that by your people? What if male circumcision were a necessary requirement for the greatest blessings in the world-to-come, and what if G-d revealed that dead people could have this done vicariously done for them (not actually have flesh cut, but something symbolic) and that would suffice for the dead, would you refuse to participate in such ordinances for friends of yours who visited you in your sleep asking you to do this thing for them? Well? What would you do?

JM:
If the Jews had sued, I'm confident the case would have been thrown out of court.

SSV:
???


JM:
My point is that the Jews probably had no legal recourse for their complaint.

John Powell

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi John!

You posted:

Right, but you still don't seem to understand the Mormon position. Vicarious work does not obligate the dead person to accept it. Are you presuming to deny your fellow Jews the right to choose to join another religion in the afterlife?

Are you saying that if a Mormon spirit wanted to believe in Judaism after they died then they would be denied that by your people?

I think that I do understand the Mormon position but I wonder if most Mormons understand that it is so utterly foreign to Judaism as to border on the shocking and the repulsive. I am not "presuming to deny my fellow Jews the right..." To deny a right is to acknowledge it. We do not acknowledge that any such "right" exists at all; thus, there is nothing to deny. We do not believe that the deceased has any such choice (and neither do, as far as I know, most Christian groups, Islam, the Bahai faith, etc.). To us, this is the theological equivalent of asserting that 2+2=5. Regarding your second question, one becomes a Jew either by being born of a Jewish mother or undergoing an orthodox conversion. A deceased person cannot undergo conversion and thus (if you want to be technical about it) cannot convert to Judaism. At the risk of being repetitive, the whole idea seems beyond ludicrous to us.

I wonder if most Mormons are aware how, as I said towards the end of my first post, deeply, deeply offensive the idea is to us. In the last 2,000 years, my people has been subject to having our children stolen (Pius IX did this), be forced to listen to conversionary sermons by priests who barged into our houses of worship uninvited & backed up by force of law, forced baptisms, being herded into ghettoes, seeing our holy books burned and slandered, and martyrdom, but at least we had the grave as a refuge from this pathological hounding. The Mormons would deny us even that! If elements in the Christian world cannot accept us as equals, then we ask, at the very least, to be please left alone, if not in this world, then in the next!

Be well!

ssv

[Jin-Roh]

Intresting thread.
It seems that the two sides seem to be passing up each other here.

John Mormon seems to be saying that Baptism-via-Proxy isn't all that diffrent than a Christian praying for the salvation of a non-Christian neighbor.

Stillsmallvoice seems to be saying that the Mormons need to leave the Jewish death rituals and views of the deceased to Jews. Perhaps this could be likened to a Muslim replacing Christian symbols on gravesites with Muslim ones?
:chat:

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Jin-Roh posted:

It seems that the two sides seem to be passing up each other here.

I got/get that impression too, that John & I are broadcasting on different wavelengths, but I don't know how else we Jews can view this issue. We cannot see it any other way. We have known & dealt with Christianity & Christians ever since the two faiths began to separate, but the Mormon doctrine of posthumous baptism is so novel & is at such utter variance with our views that I do not know how we can see it otherwise.

Be well!

ssv

[bar Jonah]

StillSmallVoice, if you haven't already, I encourage you to learn more about what the Mormons believe and preach regarding Jewish history -- namely that some of the Hebrew people took a ship to N. America and became the Native Americans, but because of their wickedness, were cursed (dark skin is seen by them as a curse from God upon a race). They believe they are now spiritually the new replacement of the Jewish people on earth today.

So, you may find their theology in relation to the Jewish people to be much more offensive to you than you thought.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi RightIdea!

I have studied Mormon history. Of course, their beliefs are at utter variance with our own traditions regarding the "lost tribes." (I have always wondered how Mormons explain the complete lack of archaeological evidence of these vast civilizations in North America.) But what Mormons believe doesn't concern us & is their business; it's what they do (i.e. posthumously baptizing deceased Jews, many of whom accepted death rather than renounce their Jewish faith) that concerns us.

Be well!

ssv

[Jin-Roh]

Stillsmallvoice saith
I got/get that impression too, that John & I are broadcasting on different wavelengths, but I don't know how else we Jews can view this issue.

Yes, that is very common when two worldviews try to discuss something. :lol:
And please be careful before lumping Mormons in with Christians. There are a lot of Jews who act and think like atheists, and as such I would not call them Jews.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

I am reviving this dormant thread. It seems that the LDS is violating the 1995 agreement (which I refer to in my first post). The following is from the current edition of The New York Jewish Week:

Mormons Still Baptizing Dead Jews

Church has not removed Jews’ names from database.

Stewart Ain - Staff Writer

Despite a 1995 promise to stop baptizing
deceased Jews, the Mormon church has not
removed the names of thousands of Jews
within its database who were earlier baptized,
and a church official admitted that more Jews
may continue to be baptized posthumously.

Ernest Michel, a former executive vice
president of UJA-Federation of New York who
helped broker the 1995 agreement, said his attempt to convince the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints to remove Jewish names from its database of 400 million
names has been rebuffed by the church. Just a year ago, the church rededicated
itself to ending the practice of baptizing dead Jews and to removing the names of
those already recorded.

“In accordance with our interpretation of the agreement, they have violated it,” said
Michel. “We have reached the point where we are now going public. There is no
point in meeting with them again. My hope is that the church will understand we are
serious about this and will not just sit by while the church posthumously baptizes
Jews — not just Holocaust victims but all Jews, including prominent Israelis.”

He said that among the Jews the Mormons posthumously baptized were David
Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, and Theodor Herzl, the founder of the
Zionist movement. Anne Frank, Moshe Dayan and Albert Einstein have also been
baptized, critics claim.

According to Mormon theology, those who did not convert during their lifetime
should be baptized even after death and given a choice of religion. The Church
encourages its followers to record their ancestors’ names and baptize them in a
sacred ceremony.

Part of the dispute is that Michel wants the church to go through its database and
remove the names of all Jews.

“They put them in, let them take them out,” he said.

But a church elder, Todd Christofferson, said that is not feasible. He said the church
would, however, investigate and remove any Jewish names it is informed of on an
individual basis.

Countered Michel: “The onus should not be on us.”

Christofferson insisted it would be virtually impossible for the church on its own to
remove the Jewish names.

“The cost of trying to do that is astronomical,” he said. “You would have to do
research on each line. You can’t just say this name sounds Jewish.”

But Michel said there are obvious Jewish names that should be removed, such as
persons named Yankel and Chaim.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los
Angeles, said the church should endeavor to put this issue to rest by hiring a Jewish
genealogist to provide a list of obviously Jewish first and last names.

In addition, he said the church must better educate its members of its policy not to
baptize a dead person without the explicit permission of a relative.

Rabbi Cooper pointed out that there have recently been complaints from Armenians
and those in the Russian Orthodox Church that their relatives have also been
posthumously baptized by the Mormon church.

“The dramatic growth of the Mormon church worldwide and the advent of the
Internet age means that what may have been done quietly yesterday is going to be
front-page news today,” Rabbi Cooper said. “They may be surprised by the
sustained interest and concern from the Jewish community, and are probably
surprised to hear from other communities who also don’t like the idea of
posthumous conversions. …

“As far as Judaism is concerned, [baptism of the dead] is theologically irrelevant,
but emotionally it is quite distressful because it is viewed by many of us as a sign of
disrespect.”

Michel, a Holocaust survivor, said he became involved in this issue when he learned
that the church posthumously baptized his parents and about 10 other family
members, all of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

Christofferson said the church at this time does not have any means of requiring
those planning to add a deceased’s name to the database to list the name of the
relative who approved the baptism.

“But technology is getting to the point where that would be doable in two or three
years,” he said.

Rabbi Cooper said that is not good enough.

“They have to shorten the time period in putting up effective firewalls,” he said.
“They are experts. And they have to do a better job in communicating to their fold”
the 1995 directive.

He pointed out that the “only reason we are in possession [of the names of Jews
who continue to be baptized] is because there are people in the church who see that
there is something wrong.”

“The Jewish community is not interested in fighting with them,” Rabbi Cooper added.
“We don’t need another enemy. But we need to develop trust.”

Earlier this year, a group of Mormon volunteers organized a cleanup of a Jewish
cemetery in Bayside, Queens. While many in the Jewish community welcomed the
help, some were skeptical of the participants’ motivation, suggesting the purpose
was to collect names for posthumous baptism, a charge denied by leaders of the
group.

Link: http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=8852

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[John Powell]

POWELL:
These hypersensitive Jews are looking quite foolish. If they don't BELIEVE in Mormonism then what do they care whether Mormons are doing Mormon ordinances for dead Jews? It's not like those dead people are FORCED to become Mormons in the afterlife.

These Jews should be more like the Catholics who apparently don't really care whether Mormons marry dead Catholic celibates to each other. It's not like the Mormons are doing these things to HURT those dead persons. Mormons believe it helps them.

Perhaps these Jews should be outraged when Christians pray for them in the name of Jesus Christ, given that those Jews don't believe in Jesus Christ.

The LDS church made a mistake in agreeing to stop this. Perhaps they have realized their former mistake and are trying to wiggle out of keeping the promise.

John Powell

[The Curtmudgeon]

Recently, the Russian Orthodox Church (via its leadership; I don't necessarily mean to imply that every single member of said church was involved) has raised the exact same protest over the Mormon baptism of the dead. The LDS Church cannot seem to get it through its collective head that this is deeply insulting to many groups of people -- it's not just a "Jewish problem".

SSV, as for understanding this from the LDS point of view, you have to realise that baptising the dead is one way of scoring brownie points in the Church: the more dead ancestors, possible ancestors, not-very-likely-but-let's-count-them-anyway ancestors, etc., that one person has baptised into the LDS post mortem, the more status that person has within the church, or at least within his Stake (not to say that such status would count more than actual position within the church). It's counting coup without having to actually scalp them. Therefore, it's extremely important to most LDS to get as many names on the docket as they can, no matter how many toes they dance on on the way (lessee, did I miss anything in that mangled metaphor?). That's why, no matter how many times the LDS leadership agrees to "correct this oversight" nor how sincere they may be in saying that (and I would be willing to accept that many or maybe even most are sincere), that individuals within the LDS Church will continue to abuse the practice whenever they think the heat has died down sufficiently.

Ergo, it's rather pointless to protest about it unless it just makes you feel good to make your position known. That, in itself, can be a good thing to do, so I'm not saying that it's completely pointless, just that you (and other like-minded Jews, Orthodox, etc.) should just get used to repeating yourself on this ad nauseum because the people you're talking at ain't listening.

The (people 're like that a lot of the time) Curtmudgeon

[Tophet]

LDS believe that people are literal children of God, that men are "gods in embryo", and that men can become gods. Under the law of Moses, is this belief not punishable by death? If so, what Hebrew scriptures, and statements from the Talmud, would support this position?

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Hmm, methinks I am changing my position from one of outrage to one of "Who cares?" (i.e. "Who cares if others want to be rude and grossly insensitive?")

Rabbi Boteach convinced me!

'I Don't Care If Mormons Baptize My Dead Relatives'

It's how they treat living Jews that counts.

Jewish officialdom is up in arms, the Mormon Church is on the defensive, and frankly I don't give a damn. I refer, of course, to the controversial Mormon practice of baptizing deceased non-Mormons into their faith. In 1995, the Mormon Church agreed to stop posthumously baptizing dead Jews. But according to Ernest Michel, a former executive vice president of UJA-Federation of New York who helped broker the 1995 agreement, the Church has rebuffed attempts to remove Jewish names from its database of 400 million and have violated the agreement.

That may be so. But what a waste of time for everybody involved. It seems incredible that at a time when more Jewish civilians are dying that at any time since the Holocaust, and with the Jewish community in general, and the State of Israel in particular, needing all the allies they can get, we would waste our time with such trivialities.

I could not care less if the Mormons baptize me after I'm dead. It won't affect me. I'll always be a Jew, in this life and the next. If this is part of Mormon practice and belief, they do it in the privacy of their own church, and it doesn't affect me in the slightest, why should I care? People's beliefs are their own business. It's how they treat others that is everyone's business. What I care about is how much the Mormons support Israel today, not what they do with Jewish souls in what they regard as the afterlife. Far from being my sentiment alone, this is a pivotal Jewish teaching: "It is the action [and not dogma] which is most important."

In my first few years as Rabbi at Oxford University, I befriended a doctoral student by the name of Michael Taft Benson, whose grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, was at the time president and prophet of the Mormon Church. Not only did Mike become and remain one of my dearest friends, he served as vice president of my L'Chaim Society and regularly brought hundreds of Mormon students to our Sabbath dinners to learn more about Judaism. A great lover of Israel who has visited there more than ten times, Mike chose to write his doctoral thesis on Harry Truman's support for the creation of the Jewish state.

Through Mike, I was granted a meeting with the current president and prophet of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, who is Mike's grandfather-in-law. We spoke about Israel, his admiration for the Jewish people, and the Mormon dedication to Israel's prosperity and survival. I am regularly invited to address Mormon audiences in Utah who thirst for knowledge of all things Jewish and who treat me like a wise elder brother. Mike even arranged for me to launch my book "Judaism for Everyone" at the University of Utah, and he and I are currently planning a Jewish Studies center for Snow College, where Mike serves as president.

The Mormons are our brothers, the Christians are our kin. So long as they support and defend the Jewish people through their current persecution, that will always be so, whatever their beliefs, and we owe them our gratitude.

The same is true of those righteous evangelicals who love Israel like it is their own country.

Many Jews are alarmed at the steadfast support of evangelical Christians for Israel, claiming it is insincere. It's an end-of-days strategy, they say. Jesus can't come back until the Jews have returned to Israel. The evangelicals aren't real friends because at the Second Coming, they believe, all Jews will become Christians.

What an absurd complaint. To tell people who send tens of millions of dollars to help the poor in Israel and who press the Bush Administration never to abandon Israel that they are not real friends is to be ungrateful at best and treacherous at worst. Who cares what their beliefs are? They are our greatest friends in the world. What will happen when Jesus comes back? Hey, we'll talk about it then. In the meantime we'll show them unstinting appreciation for their love and support in keeping Israel on the map.

I don't mean to be flippant about any of this. My point is a very serious one. Friendships are not based on creeping into the innermost chambers of the other's heart and discerning their motivation. Friendship comes down simply to the affection with which people treat each other.

If Jews are troubled by Mormon and evangelical Christian theology and propose to focus more on these groups' beliefs than on their actions, the logical outcome would be for the Jews to be far closer to Muslims than to Christians. After all, theologically speaking, Islam and Judaism are closer than any two other religions. Both are pure forms of monotheism which utterly reject the deification of a man as G-d; both accept no division in the G-dhead, such as a trinity; and both are based on a written law (the Torah and Qur'an) and on an oral legal tradition (the halakha and the hadith). So why aren't we as close to the Muslims as we are to the Christians? Simple. The Christians, whatever their belief, treat us as beloved brothers, while extremist Muslims, however monotheistic, murder our children.

Perhaps the Jewish community should focus more on how other groups treat us than what they believe about us. Let's stop with the silly insecurities that have us looking to scratch the skin of a friend and find underneath a closet anti-Semite.

Link: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/137/story_13772_1.html

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[Da Lone-Warrior]

The whole baptism for the dead is based on one obscure passage, which lacks context, and should never be the basis for any doctrine.

I remember when I was in grad school, I had the chance to interact with a jewish acquaintance about our religious differences through an intermediary. From the intermediary, I found out that he had studied Christianity and said that it reminded him of Naziism. After a little bit of study, I let the intermediary know that the Jewish faith reminded me of Adam Smith's Laissez-Faire. I.e., it is the laissez-faire approach to comparative spiritual development. Peoples will find their way to God on their own without Jewish or anyone elses interference.

As someone of mostly Swedish descent, I had problems with this, because the brutal paganism of my ancestors came to an end when someone shared Christianity with us. We didn't just come to greater spiritual enlightenment on our own.

Anyways, sorry if this is the wrong forum for such.

dlw