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Entry: The Beginner's Guide to Proxy Baptism - A87752901
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Post Editor, Guide Editor, allergic to self - U1590784

This entry aims to be factually accurate and completely non-biased. If it offends, it is to be hoped it offends all equally.

If the author has succeeded in doing this, he feels he will have performed a mitzvah. If you don't know what a mitzvah is, read the entry.

DG

That lives up to its title Dmitri - it is enough information to be factual without getting too dry and dusty. I didn't find it offensive, but then nothing much really offends me. I thought it was a well balanced description of this practice.


I want to ask 'Where do you get your ideas for Entries from?'

We-ell...this one came from the fact that due to the resignation of a certain politician from the US presidential race, the GOP front-runner is a gentleman who has had to answer questions about his partipation in proxy baptisms.

So I thought maybe h2g2ers and others might want to know what it was.

Usually, I just look for odd stuff I run across that's missing from the Guide.

Interesting that the Mormons take their inspiration from a verse that, on the face of it, would appear to question whether the practice is valid at all.

Curious.

Another interesting and informative entry, Dmitri. Keep them coming.


Geggs

Thanks, Geggs. John Calvin is scathing on the idea that Paul would have supported proxy baptism. He calls it a 'superstition'.

http://christianbookshelf.org/calvin/commentary_on_corinthians_volume_2/1_corinthians_15_29-34.htm

These notes by Calvin were what King James saved us from, by commissioning a Bible translation 'without all those footnotes'.

Didn't Hoovooloo get hot under the collar about this issue recently, because some Jewish person was complaining about these baptisms? Can't remember the details, but it might make an addition to the entry.

Good thought. Maybe Hoovooloo will come by and give us a link.

F19585?thread=8290293

But the Guardian article it quoted seems to have expired.

Ah. I see what started the discussion over there. (Full disclosure: I only read the first page of the thread.)

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre objected publicly. I believe it was because they found out that someone had performed posthumous proxy baptisms on Wiesenthal's family. The LDS have put out a directive telling their members to stop proxy baptising Holocaust victims.

I thought I'd covered that in the last section by explaining, as best I could, why some people were offended at this intrusion into their privacy. I didn't want to get into topical discussions - as I said, there's also the question of Mr Romney's publicly admitting that he's done proxy baptisms, although not 'recently'.

What do you think?

Good stuff, well written.

But ...

Do you really have to point out the inaccuracy in 'the Millerites, who predicted the Second Coming (inaccurately) in 1844, and later gave rise to Adventism'?

After all, the Second Coming may have come and gone relatively unnoticed. 'Oh, that's what you're up to now? Carry on, Comrades!' Think about it: the First Coming only became world headline news some three hundred years after the event.

Do you write in US English? Am I wrong in thinking that in that convention 'practice' is the verb and the noun is spelt 'practise'?

You're right. But I was trying to write UK English. Did I get it wrong (again)?

Hm, that's a good quesstion about the Millerites. They accepted that their prediction was incorrect, because they were all ready to be raptured and it didn't happen.

The other view, though - that the event *had* already happened, on some spiritual level, and just hadn't been noticed - is a component in some belief systems. I believe there is something similar in the reasoning of Jehovah's Witnesses.

I can take out that unnecessarily snarky adjective, though.

Cool.

In British English, this is right: "the origin of baptism as a religious practice goes back to St John the Baptist" and this is wrong: "as do those who practice adult, or believer's baptism"

Rule is,

noun: practiCe, like propheCy

verb: practiSe, like propheSy

The question of the -ise or -ize ending is a curious one. As you show, the Greek etymology suggests 'baptize' and indeed that is the *only* spelling given in SOED (the arbiter of correctness). Some British people take the -ize ending as an Americanism, but it is actually the correct British English, even if not many use it. Maybe the hootoo ground rules are different, but OED recommends baptize, baptist, baptism.

I fancy a hyphen in proxy-baptized, though not in proxy baptism. Better still would be to avoid the need for it, by using e.g. "Holocaust victims, including Anne Frank, have been baptized by proxy"

On a personal level, I find this good: "Everybody was sure Plato was saved because the ideas he expressed were acceptable to Western thought. (Largely because these ideas were part of the foundation of Western thought.)"

Perhaps I would be tempted to say "these ideas were part of the foundation of Christian thought" but hey, it's your Entry!

Sorry, rereading that I should add: an -ize ending is not suitable for 'practise'. Don't know why, it just isn't.

Hey, great. Thanks for the close reading. I'll fix practice/practise, and let Gnomon and Icy decide how they want to spell 'baptize'.

The hyphen idea is good, also.

Not until they make up 'practicize'. Believe me, people who can say 'orientate' will say anything.

Okay, changes made. And I went with Plato and Christian thought. When you're right, you're right.

Good piece! A simple and straightforward overview.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2011/06/baptizing-dead-quakers.html did a very good job at explaining exactly why this practise is so contentious (see also Mary Kaye's comment on page 2ff, which expands on that a little).

TRiG.

Oh, thank you for that link. What a thoughtful essay. I've got to work it in the entry somewhere.

I can sympathise. My Quaker ancestors would probably not have been thrilled by being subjected to proxy baptism, either.

Another good and informative entry. It highlights why I despise religion.

This is a very good article, because it informs you, makes you laugh and makes you think at the same time, more or less. A Dmitri special.

One question: do the other monotheisms believe in Hell? As in 'going to Hell just for being born before [insert name of Prophet here] came along.'

> Do the other monotheisms believe in Hell?

Some do, some don't. And some who do have very different ideas about it, ranging from "most people go to Hell" to "it's quite possible no one actually ends up in Hell", and that's just within Catholicism.

Or take the J. Witnesses. Technically, they believe in Hell, but (a) they don't call it Hell (Hades or Sheol are the preferred names), and (b) their beliefs about what Hell is are completely unlike any "standard" conceptions of Hell. So it would probably be more accurate to say they don't believe in it, which is indeed what they'd tell you if you asked them.

TRiG.