About This Video
Shawn McCraney explains the Mormon practice of "Baptism for the Dead," which was introduced by Joseph Smith as a means to secure salvation for those who died without water baptism, like his older brother Alvin. Smith's initiation of this ritual addresses the dilemma of posthumous salvation and is supported by a single Bible reference, with faithful LDS members partaking in temple rites on behalf of the deceased to ensure their spiritual progression in the afterlife.
Latter-day Saints (LDS) emphasize the importance of "work for the dead," particularly through the practice of baptism by proxy, which they believe is essential for the salvation of deceased individuals and deeply rooted in their theology as expressed by founder Joseph Smith. This practice is considered so integral that neglecting it endangers the member's own salvation, underscoring its significance compared to other religious obligations, and is often justified to potential converts using a specific interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:29.
Baptism for the Dead: Examining an LDS Practice
LIVE! From the “Mecca of Mormonism” Salt Lake City, Utah – THIS . . . is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. . . . “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.”
Show 7 Baptism for the Dead February 16th 2010
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Understanding the Doctrine
Last week we discussed Baptism, and talked about how within Mormonism it is doctrinal to believe it is necessary for salvation. Because the LDS believe baptism is required to enter heaven, Joseph had to sort of figure out what happens to people who die without having ever had a chance to hear the Mormon gospel and receive the LDS baptized requisite to enter the celestial kingdom.
1 Corinthians 15:29
The problem of “people who die without water baptism” was not only a hot topic among interested Christians living around the Smith’s in the early 1800’s, it was a very important topic to Joseph Smith personally. Joseph has an older brother named Alvin whom the entire family looked to as a leader in the home. Well Alvin got very sick and died – without ever having received water baptism. Enter one ignorant and insensitive Christian preacher who came to the Smith home shortly after Alvin passed, and announced that Alvin was in hell – because he lacked the water rite. Needless to say, the Preacher’s errant opinion deeply hurt Joseph’s mother and, in my opinion, served to inflame young Joseph against all creedal Christianity. Hard to blame him.
A Solution Presented
I suggest that young Joseph, smart as a whip, said to himself: “This makes no sense to me at all. There must be some other solution.” Then later, as Joseph was want to do, he provided a solution – a ritual called baptism for the dead – which, unlike some of his other ideas, he could support through a single Bible reference. This is how it works.
Faithful LDS believers qualify to go to LDS temples. Inside they perform vicarious LDS works and ordinances for those who have passed on to the spirit world. This is why they do genealogy – to find the names of people and relatives in whose names these ordinances can be done. The works done in the temple for dead people include what are called the “endowment,” “washings and anointings” “sealings” “Priesthood ordinations,” and “baptisms,” or “baptisms for the dead,” which is the first rite performed in the name of a deceased person.
So let me give you an example of how it works. Let’s say there was a man named Jacobus Fountainbleau who lived in Paris France and died in 1752. And someone alive today, in doing their genealogy, discovers all the necessary information on the life and deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. of Jacobus Fountainbleau. This living person would submit Jacobus’s name to an LDS temple for all the required works of salvation to be done on his behalf.
Well, the first thing to be done for Jacobus is baptism. And in the LDS church, while any adult can do baptisms for the dead, the youth – ages 12 and up – are allowed to step in and get baptized on behalf of them. This is one of the only things youth get to do in LDS temples. So, for example's sake, some day after school, an LDS ward takes its youth to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. They change into white clothes and go down to the basement of the temple where they will find a baptismal font, usually a large Jacuzzi-like tub that rests on twelve graven oxen. And then one by one a youth will step into the waters and get baptized on behalf of a number of dead people – including Jacobus Fountainbleu. And then someone else will actually go through and do the rest of those rites and rituals for Jacobus in the LDS temple over the course of time.
Where Christians trust that
The Concept of Baptism for the Dead
The thief on the cross went directly to paradise without water baptism, the LDS reconcile the Lord’s words to the thief that “today you will be with me in paradise” with the idea that the thief had to wait for all these rites and rituals to be done on his behalf before he could actually enter into heaven.
How important is this “work for the dead” to the LDS?
Where Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” Joseph Smith Jr. said: “The GREATEST responsibility in this world that God has placed upon us is to seek after our dead.” In a world where many people struggle just to help, serve, and love the living, the LDS have the added responsibility of saving everyone who has EVER died! And the yoke is not easy nor the burden light.
Teaching from Joseph Smith
Listen to another more ominous teaching from Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith relative to baptism for the dead: “This doctrine presents in a clear light the wisdom and mercy of God in preparing an ordinance for the salvation of the dead, being baptized by proxy, their names recorded in heaven and they judged according to the deeds done in the body. This doctrine was the burden of the scriptures. Those saints who neglect it in behalf of their deceased relatives do it at the peril of their own salvation.”
So this is the situation. Latter-day Saints are told that they must do and receive a number of “things” for their own person in order to be accepted of God. That list is LONG. But it doesn’t end there. Joseph Smith himself said that the MOST important work for a Mormon is the work they do for the dead – which, if neglected – places their very salvation in peril!
Requirements for LDS Members
And what is required for a member to do the work for their dead? More requirements, including the payment of a full tithe, which has been determined to be 10% of a member's gross income. And Jesus said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” Rest. Peace. Rest. Ease. Joy.
Now, when LDS missionaries knock on an investigator's door and share the “Message of Mormonism,” they have a really nice method of justifying and supporting their practice of Baptism for the Dead – a single, solitary reference to it found in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 29. The method is effective as the missionaries will first teach about the unique LDS practice of baptism for the dead, and then they will say: “Mr. Investigator, will you please turn to first Corinthians 15:29 and read it?” And opening the Bible, the investigator reads, wholly out of context, a question Paul asks the people of Corinth: “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”
With the missionaries having planted a pretext in mind that the LDS are the ONLY ones who do and teach this unique concept, and then to actually open the Bible and read a passage out of the New Testament that refers to it specifically, many investigators of Mormonism are at least minimally intrigued – if not completely convinced – that Baptism for the Dead makes sense and is of God.
At the Salt Lake City LDS Headquarters Visitors Center there is a plaque titled Baptism for the Dead. It reads:
