February 24, 2012, The Wall Street Journal, Editorial, Mormons and Baptism by Proxy, by John G. Turner,

February 24, 2012, The Wall Street Journal, Editorial, Mormons and Baptism by Proxy, by John G. Turner, 

Some Jewish leaders are outraged by a practice they say echoes the forced conversions of centuries past.

What do George Washington, Albert Einstein and Stanley Ann Durham (Barack Obama's mother) have in common? Mormons have baptized each of them by proxy, performing a temple rite they believe gives human beings a posthumous opportunity to obtain salvation.

Researchers recently discovered that Mormons had similarly baptized the parents of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, whose mother died in a Nazi extermination camp in 1942. And one Mormon recently proposed for proxy baptism the still-living Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

This esoteric practice doesn't always provoke complaints—President Obama refused to comment on his mother's case, for instance—but it has strained Mormon-Jewish relations over the past two decades.

Both Mr. Wiesel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have denounced the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims as an outrage, with Mr. Wiesel specifically calling upon Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to "speak to his church and say they should stop." Actually, Mr. Romney should ignore this controversy.

Baptism by proxy has its roots in early Mormonism, when adherents were troubled by the fact that their ancestors had died before the 1830 founding of what became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormon prophet Joseph Smith taught that baptism was necessary for salvation and that only those baptisms performed by the true, restored church counted. That left the vast bulk of humanity on the outside looking in.

Smith wanted to offer a second chance to those who had died. Bringing to life an obscure New Testament passage about believers being "baptized for the dead," he announced that his followers could seek baptism on behalf of their departed kin.

Early Mormons, then in Illinois before their exodus to Utah, embraced this teaching with great enthusiasm. Even before the completion of a temple font, Mormons plunged into the muddy waters of the Mississippi River to bring salvation to their dead.

Over time, the doctrine of baptism for the dead turned the Mormons into fanatical genealogists. It also created a desire to save other deceased persons beyond direct ancestors.

Only in recent years has the church more strictly emphasized that members should submit only the names of their own ancestors for baptism. Thus it is not surprising that Mormons have been baptized for everyone from Anne Frank to Adolf Hitler. Theologically, it would have been quite callous for the Mormons to exclude any group.

But the proxy baptism of Holocaust survivors struck many Jewish leaders as a repugnant echo of forced conversions in past centuries, and as an attempt to deny or undermine the Jewishness of the victims. In response, the Mormon Church has promised to remove the names of Holocaust victims from its registers and has made attempts to prevent further baptisms from taking place. Nevertheless, those attempts have not entirely succeeded, as seen by the recent report about the Wiesenthal family.

The Mormon Church promptly apologized for the Wiesenthal case and the submission of Mr. Wiesel's name. Given its technocratic reputation and genealogical databases, there are probably further steps the church could take to reduce the likelihood of unwanted proxy baptisms. The crux of the problem is that the church does not carefully research the names that members submit for proxy baptism (which is carried out either by the person who submits the name or by another church member). And without a much larger devotion of resources to the matter, further unwanted baptisms of Jews will undoubtedly occur.

But Mr. Romney can't take responsibility for all the members of his church or its hierarchy. To be sure, one might reasonably ask him to comment on his church's century-and-a-quarter denial of full membership to persons of African descent, a ban that did not end until Mr. Romney was 30 years old. Like most any human institution, the Mormon Church has a great deal of explaining and apologizing to do for its past mistakes. In this instance of proxy baptism, though, the level of outrage simply does not match the purported offense.

The Mormon desire to bring Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Catholics and others into their heaven is merely quirky and quixotic—not "scandalous," as Mr. Wiesel says. When Mormons are immersed in water in an attempt to offer salvation to our deceased ancestors, they do no harm to the living or the dead.

Mr. Turner is professor of history at the University of South Alabama and author of "Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet," forthcoming in September from Harvard University Press.

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