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Show 207 A number of religious groups have politely asked the church to stop baptizing their dead. There was particular uproar when it was discovered that the church was baptizing victims of the Holocaust. Normally the church's response is to say that the dead have the free agency to accept the baptism or not, and if they don't, if s just a twelve year-old being dunked underwater, but even Mormons agreed not to baptize Holocaust victims any more. I can understand that if someone dies for a particular religion it is a bit disrespectful to baptize that person into another, and certainly it's a presumptuous practice of the Mormons. I might feel the same indignation if corpses close to me were being baptized into something strange. But I still remember Brother Anderson closing his eyes and lowering his head, placing one hand between my shoulder blades and clasping my hand in the other. It remains one of the clearest visions I have to see him lift the other girls and boys back into the air, water dripping, pouring, off their garments and hair. Mormon kids get baptized for their own bodies at the age of eight, and I was too preoccupied with the idea of losing the ability to wash away my sins to enjoy it. I don't know what changed at age twelve except the bodies were growing up and the baptism was for someone else, someone who had already reached the end. I know the process is creepy to a lot of people but to me that felt like a blessing to whatever the limits of Mormon powers are. I'd have gone through all the years of church and seminary and broom hockey and whatever other Mormon activities to see Steve's long hair dripping with water as he crossed over to the |