Do proxy baptisms inflate Mormon membership figures?
Published on Feb 22, 2012 02:11PM
With the flurry of recent news stories about Mormons performing ritual baptisms for Holocaust victim Anne Frank and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's deceased parents, many readers believe that those millions of people who have been posthumously baptized in LDS temples are now considered Mormons and are counted as such.
Wrong.
“The names of deceased persons are not added to the membership records of the [LDS] Church,” it says on the Utah-based faith's official
website.
Nor is the ritual, in any sense, complete or coercive in Mormon eyes.
“By performing proxy baptisms in behalf of those who have died, church members offer these blessings to deceased ancestors,” the website says. “Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.”
If the LDS Church tallied all those who have been posthumously baptized as members, membership figures would balloon by tens of millions beyond the current 14 million.
Peggy Fletcher Stack
