Recommended: Mormon ritual is no threat to Jews

There has been some fuss recently around the revelation that some Mormon church has “baptized by proxy” Anne Frank and a few other Holocaust victims. I think the article Mormon ritual is no threat to Jews is right on.

I have in my time been blessed by a Hindu priest and prayed for by Catholic friends, though I am neither Hindu nor Catholic. I hardly feel offended; indeed I very much appreciate the supportive thoughts that were behind these blessings and prayers. I don’t think such actions impinged on any way on my own religion or my own culture.

When I enter a synagogue for a bar mitzvah or a wedding I put on a yarmulke as a sign of respect for that religion, if I enter a mosque I take off my shoes as a sign of respect for that religion, though I am neither Jewish nor Muslim. It is just good manners. It doesn’t mean that I accept their theology, just that I respect their culture.

If Mormons want to baptize people who are already dead, I hardly think it is a matter for great outrage. In fact, I really don’t think it matters one bit to the people who are dead. It might be a bit insensitive to the living for the Mormons to presume to “save” people of other faiths (implying that their own faith isn’t good enough), but it hardly warrants a great deal of fuss. And in fact most monotheistic religions are guilty of thinking that theirs is the only “true” religion, and all others are in error, so the Mormons are hardly alone in this intolerance.