David Jay » When confronting LDS leaders again, we were told there
was really nothing we could do to guarantee that it would never happen
again. Mormons feel they must do this work, and despite the promises
made, we were just going to have to live with this.
The church has no control over its individual members who are gathering names at random. Unless a way can be found to tag an individual for a hold on baptisms, there's no way to guarantee that they won't be. According to my sister, who's a genealogist, the church has cracked down on which names can be submitted. Sometimes names are submitted by converts to the church who had relatives in the Holocaust, and if the relation is right, they have the right to do so.
Baptism for the dead does not turn dead relatives into Mormons, but we believe that the dead are taught the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world to come. And though their work is done in temples, it is not ratified unless the dead on the other side approve of it.
When Jesus was on the cross, he told one of the condemned, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." The apostle Peter said that when Jesus died, he went to the realm of the spirits and for the first time preached the gospel to those who had not the opportunity to hear it here:
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
-- 1 Peter 3:18-21
The preaching of the gospel to the dead is unavoidable, and with all due respect to both you and your relatives, the work will be done, either now or later, and it's really none of your business. It's between your dead relatives (and mine) and God. If they choose not to avail themselves of the work done here, all they have to do in the next is refuse it. Out of respect I'm willing to halt it for now, but it will eventually be done.
6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. --1 Peter 4:6
The whole idea behind Christian work for the dead is that men may progress and grow in the world to come as if they were still in the flesh, yet they will continue to live on in the spirit. You think you're protecting your relatives and honoring their memory, while you may actually be holding them back.
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto [God], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
29 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?
-- 1 Corinthians 15:28-29
You think we are desecrating the names of your dead, when in fact, no man can see the Kingdom of Heaven without baptism and the conferral of the Holy Spirit. Presently, according to my sister, the church tells members that a person must be dead for more than a hundred years before their work can be done (it used to be one year), but what do you think will happen after a hundred years? Or two hundred? The work will be done because we've been tasked to do it.
If the work we do is based on deception, and Jesus is not the Christ and all baptisms are for naught, none of it will make any difference. But if Jesus is the Christ, then what we do is for the benefit of all mankind.
We're presently in the times of the Gentiles (see Isaiah 11), but when the Gentiles reject the Gospel (and we know they're going to because we've already been told they will), then it will go back to the Jews.
And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel; but they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men. And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
(D&C 45:28–30)
The Jews will not always reject the Messiah, according to our understanding of the scriptures, and upon his return, the times of the Jews will come again, and the first will be last and first again. No offense is intended in our work for the dead and it does not increase our numbers or benefit us in any way.
