To give a contemporary example, the phrase “listed as enemy combatants” means that the government is making an explicit and positive assertion that the people so named are in fact formally identified by the government as enemy combatants. It does not mean that mean that the government is vague about their status, causing others to think of them as enemy combatants.

It’s not “nothing,” as you state; rather the Jewish dead end up listed in the records of the Mormon church as Mormon, which they find rather extraordinarily offensive, as shown by the quote below:

She’s didn’t say that the church is explicitly claiming the deceased as members, nor is she claiming that the church is making a positive assertion.

Again, _you_ are right in that: the church is NOT making explicit claims or positive assertions of the deceased as members.

She’s speaking in the voice of a non-LDS, or rather giving the situation as it appears to an outsider.

Surely you realize that perception is reality in the eye of the beholder.

The problem is that the internal database of ordinances is now available to the world, and the church goofed by not realizing how outsiders were going to perceive the word “baptized” and conceptualize its implications.

At this point, the church is on the defensive, and can only say: “Sorry, we didn’t mean that kind of baptism. It’s only provisional, and only takes effect if they want it to.” Well, that doesn’t really address the offense to the memory of the deceased among the living, which memory includes one of faithful and devout participation in their religion.

Even understanding that it’s a “provisional” baptism, does not erase the cultural offense on the part of the Jews. We need to find a way to present it better.

As a Jewish/evangelical convert, I see the Jewish position on this (which djinn is describing quite well) as very understandable. The church has done very little proactively to prevent the misunderstanding.

You tell a living Jew: “Hey, we ‘baptized’ Schlomo Lowenstein. But don’t worry, we didn’t dig up his body, we just had two live people do it by proxy”, and the natural reaction is “WTF? How DARE you?!? That’s SACRILEGE! You’ve desecrated his memory as a devout and faithful JEW!”

A point that I don’t think djinn mentioned is that inherrent in proxy baptism (and in the LDS claim to being the only true religion and true church) is the claim that the Abrahamic covenant is not sufficient for salvation of the Jews. Well, technically, that’s true, but Jews get REALLY ticked at being told that. They claim to have gotten their religion from God, through genuine prophets, Abraham and Moses.

(What they’ve collectively forgotten is that Abraham and Moses looked forward to Jesus/Yeshua as the Savior, the Atonement, dieing on the cross, the resurrection, etc. Okay, so yes, in the future, at the 2nd coming, the surviving Jews are going to see the wounds in His hands and feet, slap their forehead and say “DOHT!” But the Savior’s is likely going to be extremely merciful, because for approximately 2000 years, the vast vast majority of alleged “Christians” gave Christianity a bad name. Think of how un-Christian most Christians have been towards Jews throughout history. And when you think how unchristian Christianity has been, it’s almost a good thing for the LDS to be called not-Christian.)

Similarly, among non-LDS Christian religions, they’ve already got Jesus, the Atonement, resurrection, etc. So we seem to be telling them that Jesus, the atonement, etc, is insufficient. What? How DARE you say that beliving in Jesus and the Atonement are insufficient for our salvation?

So out of one side of our mouth, we have to tell Jews “Oh, temple work is not that kind of baptism (that automatically makes you into a Mormon)” but we have to say to other Christians “Our baptism (either live or by proxy) is the only valid baptism.”

So we can’t win for losing.

Personally, when people of non-Christian religions remind me of how perverted, violent, corrupt, and hypocritical “Christianity” has generally been over the last 2000 years, I’m kind of glad that LDS get accused of being non-Christians. Yeah! Don’t lump me/us in with those Christians. We’re, uhh, different.

What I object to is djinn’s claim that the “dead end up listed in the records of the Mormon church as Mormon.” That’s a claim that the church explicitly identifies the dead as Mormon, and the claim is flat-out false. djin didn’t say that they end up listed in a way that makes some people assume they are regarded as Mormon. S/he said that they are listed in the records explicitly “as Mormon.” The fact is that no church records identify the recipients of proxy baptism as Mormon.

I understand that many people might assume that a baptism implies a change in religion, but djinn is claiming that church records make a positive assertion that this assumption is correct. The church records do no such thing.

The Church does not consider those for whom proxy baptisms have been performed to be Mormons.

The church doesn’t consider them to be “Mormons”, but that is the impression given by listing them in genealogical records as “baptized”. Therefore, since the impression is given, that’s the inference taken by non-LDS readers of the genealogical records.

The church and the members have failed miserably in the PR issue here. You guys who are arguing against djinn on this are just going around in circles. You’re right, the church doesn’t consider the deceased as members. But what the _church_ or _members_ think or consider is irrelevant compared to the impressions and implications actually given by the wording used in the databases.

djinn’s suggestion of merely rewording the column heading would go a long way.

In the eyes of the Jews and Catholics, they don’t think we’re actually “making” them or “converting” them into Mormons. They don’t concede the efficacy of the ordinance. But they (mistakenly) accuse of us of _pretending_ to convert them or “make them Mormon.”

They accuse us of this because we have given false impressions by poor word choices used in our genealogical work.

Then, we add injury to insult (sic) by _publishing_ the data, which in effect is saying “lookee here, ha ha, we made your ancestors Mormon! Neener, neener, neener.”

You guys who are arguing against djinn on this point are being bigoted and insensitive to people who are only using the normal meaning and implications of the words “baptism” and “baptized”. And you’re showing ignorance of what the words mean to non-LDS.

I can understand how life-long Mormons don’t “get it” about how our presentation of proxy-work in the temples is misunderstood by outsiders. But those of you who are converts should get it. Maybe you have to be from a persecuted religion (like Jewish) to understand the offensiveness that is implied in our proxy-work publications.