Once is Forgivable, Doing It Again is Plain Dumb

Reported:-

The latest unwitting recipient of a posthumous Mormon baptism was revealed as murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — much to his parents’ chagrin. Pearl, who was captured and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, received the Mormon rite on June 1, 2011, in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Boston Globe reported.

...Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel called for the end of the ritual posthumous baptism of Jews after learning the names of his late father and grandfather were entered in a baptism database.

The parents of Pearl, 38, gently chided the Mormon Church for the baptism of their slain son. “We appreciate your good intentions but rest assured that Danny’s soul was redeemed through the life that he lived and the values that he upheld,” said an e-mail from his parents, Judea and Ruth Pearl.

“He lived as a proud Jew, died as a proud Jew and is currently facing his creator as a Jew,” the Pearls wrote to the Globe. “For the record, let it be clear: Danny did not choose to be baptized, nor did his family consent to this un-called-for ritual.”

Church officials, in a statement to the Boston newspaper, agreed that the submission of Pearl’s name for baptism was a violation of church protocol.

It has gone far in the past ("Genealogist Bernard Kouchel conducted a search of the International Genealogical Index, and discovered that many well-known people from within Judaism have been vicariously baptized, including Rashi, Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Menachem Begin,* Irving Berlin, Marc Chagall, and Gilda Radner.") So, how does this fit with this portrayal?

The doctrines of the Latter Day Saint movement, commonly referred to as Mormonism, teach that its adherents, Latter-day Saints, are either direct descendants of the House of Israel, or are adopted into it. As such, Judaism is foundational to the history of Mormonism; the Jewish people are considered a covenant people of God, held in high esteem, and are respected in the Mormon faith system. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is consequently very philo-Semitic in its doctrine.

Or this:

there is an important place for the Jews in Mormon theology. I found this out years ago when, walking down the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, I happened on a tenderly cared-for plot of land called “Orson Hyde Park.” Hyde was one of the elders of the church, who in the 1840s had gone on a mission to the Holy City. Jews were not only a plurality of the sacred place; they were a majority. (So much for how much Muslims cared for the town back then! Islam cares for Jerusalem only when Christians and Jews are its governors.) Hyde had a vision that emerged from the arrival of increasing numbers of the People of the Book in Zion, that is, in Jerusalem. He prophesied that this was the beginning of the Jewish return. My memory tells me that right there in the park commemorating his long visit was a letter to Joseph Smith envisioning a Jewish commonwealth a hundred years later, just about in 1948, which would make his prediction a revelation.

They really should get their act together.

P.S.

on the meeting between [Israeli Prime Minister Menahem] Begin and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bailey Smith

who had said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew. That’s a big theological rift already. But Begin tried to finesse the history. When questioned, he said, “Look, about religious truth, we’ll wait and see. When the Messiah comes, we’ll ask him, ‘Is this your first visit or your second?’ He’ll surely be honest with us.”

^