{"id":30900,"date":"2012-02-17T16:45:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/rns_why_do_mormons_baptize_the_dead\/"},"modified":"2012-02-17T16:45:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:45:36","slug":"rns_why_do_mormons_baptize_the_dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=30900","title":{"rendered":"(RNS) Why Do Mormons Baptize the Dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mormons believe that vicarious baptisms give the deceased, who exist in the afterlife as conscious spirits, a final chance to join the Mormon fold, and thus gain access to the Celestial Kingdom. To Mormons, only members of the LDS priesthood possess the power to baptize.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter if you&#8217;re a Baptist or a Buddhist,&#8221; said Kathleen Flake, a Vanderbilt University scholar who has studied the church, &#8220;it&#8217;s about who has the authority to perform the sacrament.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Flake said Mormons are encouraged to baptize at least four generations of forebears to seal the family for eternity. So the LDS church has built the world&#8217;s most extensive genealogical library in Salt Lake City with 700 employees and more than 2 billion names.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ethicsdaily.com\/why-do-mormons-baptize-the-dead--cms-19267\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mormons believe that vicarious baptisms give the deceased, who exist in the afterlife as conscious spirits, a final chance to join the Mormon fold, and thus gain access to the Celestial Kingdom. To Mormons, only members of the LDS priesthood<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=30900\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,39,42,438,178,428,155,184,108,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-religion-news-commentary","category-death-burial-funerals","category-eschatology","category-mormons","category-other-faiths","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}