Baptisms for the dead - an early Christian practice?

It remains on my mind that the Bishop said to me with a degree of emphasis on it being in the bible (he knows I have a strong leaning towards biblical text which I consider to be the gospel, having not yet fully embraced the BoM, D & C, PoGP as 'gospel') so much so, that I wanted to do my own follow up and see what I think the bible verse, chapter and context is trying to say.  Verse; 1 Corinthians 15:29  ²⁹Else 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? 


Given that I am not taken to use of one verse as a methodology to create an entire concept or doctrine based on that verse, I was curious about the entire chapter and what was being said, to whom, by whom, along with some sense of the era or period of time in which it was being said as well as some of the customs/practices of that time.  It is a given that I cannot possible know what were customs/practices of an era of antiquity and must rely on scholarly studies, which of themselves are seldom in agreement.  More sorting, more puzzle pieces and I've long since abandoned an idea that with enough puzzle pieces I would be able to piece together an entire picture, rather a composite of fragments of customs/cultures and belief sets that have been shared, borrowed, confiscated, supplanting and/or augmenting the existing cultural belief sets.

It is my belief that it is impossible to gather enough information or ideas or concepts to glue together an overarching belief set thus having at last driven down to the 'truth' as a singular foundational underlaying of the many years of layers upon layers.  I think my mental approach wants to be a bit like an archaeological dig, getting down beneath the surface to find out what was buried over the eons.  And even then knowing whatever is found will still be subject to interpretation based on the finder's perspectives given his/her period in history. 


excerpt at ORB    (more closely matches my understanding of the Christian narrative, and I appreciated  as well as recommend reading the entire article)

Early Christian doctrines developed and were shaped over time; they were neither fixed nor stable. Once a doctrine was established it often necessitated a subsequent doctrine to define more precisely what was meant and to clarify the subtle nuances. Lived experience and understanding was the basis for the emergence of forming and re-forming doctrine. In other words, the need to develop doctrine about Jesus Christ emerged from the need to sort out what was truly Christian experience and life. In the words of the early church historian, Joseph Kelly:

The story of the Church begins at Pentecost with a frightened group of disciples wondering what will happen to them; it progresses through an almost frenetic attempt to win over the outside world before the Second Coming; it focuses on an epic struggle with the most powerful empire of the ancient world; it reaches its high point with the conversion of that empire to the new faith; it closes with the gradual decline of a great civilization and the emergence of a new world. It has a large canvas and broad brush strokes. While we must pay meticulous attention to the particulars, we must never forget the generalŠ(Kelly, "Why Study Early Church History?" 5)

I read the entire chapter of Corinthians for context, and continued to be nagged by the sense that this one particular verse pointed to something I had not yet explored for myself.  Further that it is not of substantive value to be mentioned in the Protestant narratives to which I had been exposed, nor the Episcopal narrative, meaning to me that it has been discounted as not relevant to the Protestant or Episcopal narratives.  If I bypass Protestant and Episcopal narratives, what do the religious studies have to say about this verse, being that it does point to some kind of custom being practiced in that time.  What practice, why, and from where does that practice stem? 

Chasing it down, I gain some knowledge of what is believed among some scholars to be the custom pointed to in the verse (along with a lot of sifting through the usual and typical finger pointing to the Mormon belief as heretical, false, misguided, etc.).  That is not what I'm after, I'm after some concrete sense of what custom, what practice, for what reason, why is Paul pointing it out at all unless it was being practiced and he knew of it.  And if so, is he finding a commonality he can point to in preaching the Christ resurrection or is he admonishing against something suggesting a replacement of belief sets, what he is preaching instead of the practice of what they are doing?   

It would be presumptuous for me to write that I found answers to what I was looking for as if that is the explanation.  Rather I would state that I did find thoughts about what I was looking for that cause me to pause a bit and let that information percolate a while.  Nonetheless, it becomes evident to me that somewhere in the Mormon history, the meanings attached to this verse, whether from Gnostic or otherwise belief sets, this verse brought the Mormon practice of baptisms for the dead alive as a ritual practice imbued with sacred meanings for those who teach it as well as those who believe it as well as those who practice it.  Iconography has sprung up with it to further imbue sacred meaning to the practice.  It is therefore real enough as it is practiced in the LDS church among the membership.

 I'm not having a problem with approaching it from that perspective.  I'm still stuck though on the a,b,c  element that ties tithing to temple, therefore ties tithing to the Mormon sacred ritual practice of performing baptisms for the dead, as it is performed only in the temple, not in the chapels and access to the temple requires a temple recommend which requires approval from a bishop which means responding with an honest degree of integrity to the questions posited by the bishop in which the question of 'do you pay a full tithing' requires an answer of yes or no.  The matter of defining what is a full tithing, as in one tenth of your personal increase has considerable wiggle room, and were we agreeable to paying some part of a tithing, could easily respond to the question with a yes with a personal degree of honest integrity.  The church has not been unclear in restating repetitiously it's requirements of members to pay tithing at a rate of ten percent or 1/10th of their income/increase.

It seems that I do not yet have a testimony of tithing, which is in fact prohibiting and impeding gaining a testimony of the temple, a testimony of baptism for the dead, a testimony of sealing, and as yet unknown to me other testimonies that involve temple, ie, personal endowments, ordinances and in truth because it is absent in my experience, I really don't yet know what else will be kept from me for the lack of temple experience.

It's an odd thing, because I have a belief in sharing, compassion, generosity of spirit, empathy for humankind, community, communion, and belonging.  While I recognize there is usually some sort of price to be paid for admittance to the tribe, be it initiation rituals, practices, customs as shared among the tribe, I have not yet encountered a must pay cash contribution situation.  Appreciating that it does take funding for most organizations, religious or otherwise, to function well, I'm not opposed to contributing for the sake of well being of the organizations ability to function.  I am not sold on a specific contribution amount being set as the price of admittance though - that concept troubles me.  

Tithing/Temple, a barrier - either/or - not much gray here

Well we knew this time was going to come, and we thought it would be when Arthur and I had our one year interview with the Bishop, me the newcomer, him the returnee.  And something came up sooner -- for me.  It had been suggested that it would be time for me to accompany the young people and new converts in the various Wards in our Stake in their trip to the Temple to perform baptisms for the dead.  And it was set up for me to go with them this month, Oct 29.   I've heard and read about this ritual, performing baptisms for the dead, and the reasons for it, and I have to say it has a sound of peculiar to many who are non-mormons, myself included.  So close to Halloween, and the very name of the ritual, and images do float across my mind, even though I know that is not the aim or intent of the practice.  It is though, one of the unique features of this church, as there are not many other Christian based churches that have this kind of a ritual.  I do know when we lived in Japan, in a Japanese village, not on the military base, that I learned of an annual practice required of the families which involved going into the tombs that dotted the hillsides to perform the ritual of washing the bones of their dead ancestors buried in those tombs.

Later in my life experiences, learning of other faith belief sets that honored ancestors as part of their spirituality.  Putting these together, I don't see the Mormon practice of performing baptisms for the dead as bizarre as it might seem at first glance.  Further that the members feel it is with a great degree of a sense of sacredness that this practice is performed and observed.  In that regard when I was invited to participate, I did feel it was intended as an invitation to participate in an honored and sacred ritual practice.  I would liken it to be invited to participate in a Sweat Lodge ceremony or something along those lines that is a intended as a welcoming gesture to enable a person new to the culture to become more fully part of that culture.

The LDS church has tied Tithing to Temple in a way that affords no or seemingly no wiggle room.  My reaction to it has been strongly in opposition.  My husband's reaction, while somewhat different from mine for different reasons is also strongly in opposition.  While I'm favorable to the concept of generosity, supporting the organization/church/affiliation doing outreach in an effort to help humankind, I'm not comfortable with the monetary amount being identified as an exact amount.  I'm very much not comfortable with tithing being a requirement to enter a temple.  I've had too many years within other faith beliefs, and organizations which also need to be funded and those contributions being both voluntary with the amount being voluntary.  Although, having said all that, I was so very taken and impressed when we visiting the Bishop's tithing house many years ago in Chesterfield, Idaho (a restored and preserved historic town of the Mormon pioneer era).  The building was were food products and such were stored,  intended for use by the community.   It was such a beautiful concept, a concept which lifted my heart and a practice that certainly seemed somewhat lost to this time gone by period in history.  Actually is is not a bygone concept, in historic times, members who could not pay in cash could pay their tithing in kind ie, milk, butter, eggs, produce, meat, grain, hay, etc.  In it's more modernized form, it feels much more industrial and organizational although the generosity underlying the concept remains the same.  Thus is the value of tithing among the membership.

Part of the requirement to enter an LDS temple is an interview with the Ward Bishop in which he has a list of questions to ask and the responses will cause him to make a determination as to whether the person will be given what is called a 'temple recommend'.  In this case, he advised me it would be a one day only temple recommend for the purpose of permitting me to be in that part of the temple in which the baptisms for the dead are performed.  Our Bishop is a loving, compassionate, caring man, and it is obvious in how he handles various sensitive situations.  We moved along through the questions well enough, until he asked me the question about tithing, do I pay a full tithing.  No, I answered.  No, he said with a bit of surprise, but somehow I rather think he would know either outright or subliminally which members are or are not paying a tithing.  He explained that perhaps it was not yet time for me, and that he could not give a temple recommend at this time, that it would be confidential information, and some members might be curious enough to ask him why I was not going to the temple this trip, and that he would indicate that it was just not time yet.  I explained to him that I do respect his sense of confidentiality, and that I have respect for the concept, and that in this instance it was not required.   That I thought it to be a topic of discussion and conversation among the membership as I was not yet satisfied that I had heard enough reasons to justify the practice which I felt was very damaging to some of the membership who were already struggling with the very basic fundamentals of life - shelter, clothing, food.

I wanted this to be a discussion/conversation with the Bishop, not a justification or explanation of why I wasn't in compliance on my part. He asked if I understood the premise of tithing and  I pointed out that I had given a lesson on tithing recently, so my head understands the concept, and my life experiences tell me otherwise.   He spent a great deal of time with me after, and I very much liked that he was not moving in a heavy handed direction, rather was very much attempting to find different approaches that might resonate with me, including some personal experiences of his own.  It felt it was a productive shared discussion and exploration of this particular topic, and I'm fairly sure it will come up again soon.  

I shared some of that conversation with my husband afterwards on our way home, he was quiet and said to me that he was very proud of the way in which I handled myself in this interview, as well as the approach I chose to use.  We spent a great deal of the evening later discussing tithing/temple again; we have discussed it often and many times before.  To me it feels like an absolute - a non-wavering obstacle in the path for me ahead.   It equates one to the other, we don't pay tithing, there will be no temple, and Temple is a Big part of the Mormon/LDS experience.  I'm also intuiting that the path the Bishop, Stake President, and membership would like to see me take leads directly to the temple, capital T.

Can one be a practicing Mormon, a participating member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and not participate in the tithing/temple joining experience, I wonder?  

The experience in my Ward, in communion among the membership has felt to me to date spiritual enough in it's own right without the temple experiences.   As I explained to the Bishop in the ensuing discussion, many other of the religions have beautiful Cathedrals and do not prohibit people from entering that sacred space; this being the only church I know about that has these beautiful sacred building in which people are not permitted to enter without having paid for the privilege via first having a temple recommend, of which tithing is a requirement.   I will leave it at that for now.  It is a thing to continue to ponder and time, Holy Ghost, spirit of the soul will guide me in this one.

Meeting with the Bishop

Sunday, Feb 6, 2011.  We attend the church meetings.  First meeting is what is called Sacrament Meeting, and I enjoy the ritual of the young men preparing and sharing the communion bread and water.  It falls short of the Eucharist services that I am used to at St John's Episcopal Church, and there are some of the elements of the communion in that it is a somber and sacred ceremony.  I don't know about water instead of wine, but the idea of bread (body of Christ) and wine (blood of Salvation) has enough similarity to be comforting, comfortable.   Although Arthur tells me we cannot partake as we are not yet baptized members of this church.  Hmm, well, that seems a bit harsh, as we are assuredly in communion in the body of Christ already, but it's their church rules, so we will go with the flow.

Off we go now to another meeting they have set up seemingly just for us, as we are the only two in attendance, with two older men who are instructing.  We are reading out of a book, Gospel Principles.  The content structure of the book offers an idea, which includes some verses, followed by some discussion questions.  I liken it to the confirmation lessons we had to take at St John's before becoming confirmed, or a catechism, although I'm fairly sure the LDS people would not appreciate that comparison.

And now off we go in separate directions, he to what is called a priesthood meeting and me to what is called a relief society meeting.  I suppose I should capitalize the first letters in those named meetings.  I'm still struggling a bit though with the gender distinctions, and men being almost automatically in a priesthood while women are what....oh, women, doing what women do best, enduring to the end.  Okay, that was snarky.  I'm a newcomer, I'm permitted to have impressions.  I came from a small local church in our region that had a male and female priest, and across the larger church has a mix of genders who are priests, including women who are Bishops.   Arthur and I had begun the long three year process of training towards becoming priests for the church.  Actually, we hadn't come to that decision, it was a path that we were encouraged to begin to walk, and we were aiming towards becoming licensed preachers, meaning being recognized by the Church to preach, having taken and completed some hermeneutics trainings.   I digress, well not really, as the all male priesthood does seem to me to be a bit of a step backwards, and I'm willing to be patient in learning how this church structures itself, appreciating that while I know some things about this church, I am also in a learning curve with much more yet to learn.

Meetings are concluded and we are off to meet with the Bishop.  He is an engaging and  kindly fellow, with a ready smile, one of our own (by that I mean he has a long history here in the region with it's lumber, fishing industries and his secular career was working in the forests).   We all share some stories about our affections for the area, share some stories about our secular careers, and somewhere in all that friendliness, we shift to the business at hand.  He is in no hurry and pulls out an instruction manual (I assume it is a manual for Bishops and other ranking stewards of the church).  We are amused as it much resembles the RCWs, WACs, and Instruction Manuals we have used in the course of our work with Washington State.

So the bottom line is that when a person such as Arthur, raised in the church, returned missionary, married in the Temple, raised his children in the church, held callings and church offices, and came to point of disenchantment with the church, requesting his name be removed from the church records, is required to go through the same process of return to the church as someone who has been ex-communicated by the church. Go figure.   The night before, with not some degree of anxiety, upon hearing there was to be this interview with the Bishop, while they were reassuring me that I could be baptized, but they were not sure Arthur could be baptized, I had said to the men in the room, that I would not be baptized into this church if my husband was not also going to be baptized.  Once again they tried to reassure me, not fully understanding or appreciating what I was trying to say, which was not that my path to baptism was in jeopardy, but that I had no wish to be part of this church unless it was with my husband, this being a male dominated church structure. They were eager to reassure me that the women had a very active role in this church, and it was at this point that Arthur suggested we all needed some time out from what he described as the train wreck we had just been hit with.

I liked the Bishop, and his approach was inviting, welcoming, but I still took issue with what was seeming to me to be a punitive course laid out for Arthur.  As the Bishop continued to explain, Arthur could indeed be baptized with me, he could not baptize me, and Arthur had already told me he was okay with that, but we had been laboring under the impression that he was not going to be permitted to be baptized until a year had passed.  And I was absolutely sure I had no wish to be baptized into this church if he was not.  As it was explained then, seems it is not nor was it an an issue of baptism.  We both could be baptized.  The issue was the procedure that treated returning people who had their name removal in the same manner as people wanting to return from  an excommunication.  Arthur would have to wait a year for restoration to the priesthood, callings, temple recommend and well, frankly, I don't know what all else.  I was not grasping how this was not punitive, but Arthur was assuring me by that time, that he was okay with it, understood it and wanted us to proceed.

The Bishop explained that he had already sent up his recommendation for our baptism, that it would to to the Stake President, and then up to headquarters (okay that's the word I use, not the word the Bishop used) in SLC.  Or at least that was my impression of the administrative procedure the Bishop was explaining.  He told us the Stake President was going to be at the Ward next Sunday and we could meet with him after the church meetings.

I'm completely happy with the Bishop's handling of the situation inasmuch as it is agreeable to Arthur and he assures me it is.  Next...meeting with the Stake President.