That's what they're trying to do. In Mormon theology everyone who dies without a chance to be baptized must be given a proxy baptism by someone living, so they have a chance to accept the gospel in the afterlife. The goal is that this will eventually happen for everyone who ever lived. (Source: former Mormon.)
Correct. Proxy baptisms are never considered to make someone a member of the Church, precisely because it is not possible for the earthly Church to confirm with a dead person that they have given their consent. It is merely considered to make the opportunity for giving consent available to the person in the afterlife.
Why does it require genealogical research, though? Can proxy baptism only be performed by living relatives? And if not, then wouldn't just knowing the name of the person suffice? Or, for that matter, wouldn't any way to unambiguously identify them?
In practice, you just need the name and birth year and maybe another detail or two. And a recent rule does require that members focus on their own ancestors.
But the point of the whole thing is actually to spend time learning and researching your family history. In other words, the literal posthumous baptism is not the point. That's the ritual. It's what to learn and do along the way of accomplishing the ritual that is the point.
I’m a Jewish atheist and the first time a couple Mormons knocked on my door and explained proxy baptism to me my first reaction was to be taken aback. But hey, may as well cover all my bases right?
It sort of addresses a fundamental issue with a lot of Christian religions that teach that people who never had a chance to hear about Jesus and be baptized automatically go to hell. There's a lot I dislike about the Mormon church and its doctrine, but the Mormon conception of the afterlife is quite a bit more fair than a lot of other religions.
Note: in Mormon theology, those that die and receive their baptism by proxy still get to choose to accept or reject that baptism in the afterlife.
> It sort of addresses a fundamental issue with a lot of Christian religions that teach that people who never had a chance to hear about Jesus and be baptized automatically go to hell.
This always struck me as one of the most stupid and illogical tenets as it's in opposition to the concept of loving and just God: why create millions of people who have no chance to meet the Gospel, and then automatically condemn them to suffer forever, just like that, for nothing? It really makes no any sense! And yet, the modern world lives on remnants of these ideas.
Most Christian denominations do not believe that those who are unaware of Christianity automatically go to hell. They usually say that it's down to divine providence and God's mercy, and that it's pointless to speculate beyond that, those being ineffable and all.
I feel like taking offense at this is not worth it. If they sincerely believe they are saving souls, and you don't, then it shouldn't mean anything to you.
Baptizing the dead seems silly and quaint, but Christians used to ask, how is it fair to send the unbaptized to hell that never had a chance to be saved? Mormons should get some credit for acknowledging the unfairness and coming up with a "solution".
I think it's a sad commentary on human nature that the Christian sects that don't believe anyone goes to hell at all are even more fringe and taken less seriously than Mormons.
>I think it's a sad commentary on human nature that the Christian sects that don't believe anyone goes to hell at all are even more fringe and taken less seriously than Mormons.
One reason they might not be taken seriously is that in the Bible Jesus directly talks about people being in Hell.
>the Bible Jesus directly talks about people being in Hell.
Jesus talked about people being in Gehenna (burning trash dump outside Jerusalem), Hades (Limbo or Paradise, Sheol in Hebrew) and I think Tartarus (deep pit). Tartarus may be OT only, I can't recall ATM.
All those terms, each with it's own intent and meaning, were later rolled into Hell (which received a new meaning, one different from any of the original terms). This was eventually codified during one of the Ecumenical councils (1st council of Nicea?)
>I don't really think the name matters; Jesus wasn't speaking English.
Diction mattered a great deal to Christ. Gehanna (Hebrew: Valley of Hinnom; גיא בן הינום) was a location in Christ's time, that was likely associated with burning, destruction and loss - things that one might be expected to feel in the absence of the Creator.
Hades was where all dead went and remained until the day of judgment. Christ's reference to it as Paradise implies it isn't a place of suffering. Catholicism's Limbo implies it is a place of waiting.
The modern notion of Hell as a location dedicated to the eternal suffering of man, is quite different from either of those places.
Jesus said "Then they will go away to eternal punishment". That seems clear enough to me that there's some place (not necessarily a physical place) where people will suffer eternally. I think that covers the basics of the Christian view of Hell. Whether it's associated with burning or not seems a lesser matter to me.
This doesn't seem relevant to the original question of whether the Bible says Hell exists or not. People can agree that something exists without agreeing how it was created.
One view[1][2] is that Hell isn't really a place, but rather a state of being, and the primary suffering of Hell is the separation from God[3]. God didn't create it, rather we ourselves created it by separating ourselves from God through sin.
>Bart Ehrman says the ideas of eternal rewards and punishments aren't found in the Old Testament or in the teachings of Jesus.
What about Matthew 25:46?
> Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
That article seems to assert that Jesus taught the soul cannot live apart from the body. There are various other quotes from Jesus contradicting that. John 14:1-3:
> Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
John 18:36:
> Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."
Luke 23:43:
> Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
In the gospels Jesus is a guy who walks around talking in parables and analogies 100% of the time. Taking his sentences literally and building an elaborate theology involving an eternal lake of fire doesn't seem true to the spirit of things at all.
Nevermind that the gospels themselves are copies of copies of texts that were written long after this man lives.
Having been brought up evangelical Christian I just find the whole thing kind of baffling and a little enraging now. What I was taught was in scriptures isn't, really. If you read them again without the template of the interpretation given by the church there's dozens of different ways to interpret that look nothing like Christian (protestant or catholic) theology.
If I weren't an atheist now I'd at least be some kind of heterodox non-Nicean blasphemer, because it's absolutely confusing to me that anybody can take the council of Nicea and related councils seriously.
Sure a lake of fire is an analogy. But "eternal punishment" seems pretty clear and not an analogy.
Taking parables literally obviously we shouldn't do. But interpreting them and building a theology around them seems to be exactly what Jesus wanted. Jesus even interpreted some of them for his apostles (Mark 4:3-20).
Jesus never said we should take scripture as our sole source of truth and ignore other sources. Jesus gave the power to guide the Church to his apostles, and specifically Peter (Matthew 16:18). We can even see the apostles using this power in Acts 15 to establish doctrine. A good explanation of this is in this video[1]. They can continue to use this power at the council of Nicea.
> Baptizing the dead seems silly and quaint, but Christians used to ask, how is it fair to send the unbaptized to hell that never had a chance to be saved? Mormons should get some credit for acknowledging the unfairness and coming up with a "solution".
Mormons were hardly the first Christian or Christian-adjacent group to come up with a solution to that, though perhaps one of the earlier groups to adopt a single solution as a firm doctrine rather than leaving the question doctrinally open with multiple possible solutions proposed and not condemned by authority.
I grew up with evangelical christian teaching (one of the 2 big christian Churches in northern Germany) and as far as I understood in their version nobody goes to hell.
That's the whole point; they intend to baptize everyone living or dead, and theoretically even the dead get to decide whether to accept.
Genealogy is a side effect of this, I have the vague impression that they need to know who you are to baptize you; however, everyone on the planet is a member of the same "family".
That is a correct impression. A name, date, and associated place, with all three assumed to uniquely identify an individual in most cases, are required to perform the ordinance. Most typically, that's a birth name and a date and place of birth, date and place of death, or date and place of marriage.
If it turns out that there were two people with the same name born in the same town on the same day... well, the angels will help figure that out later.
