Obama's momma a Mormon?

On June 4, the day after Obama secured the Democratic presidential nomination, a church member baptized by proxy the president’s mother Stanley Ann Dunham inside a temple in Provo, Utah. 

Though it’s still unclear whether the submission of Dunham’s name was a prank or sincere gesture, church spokeswoman Kim Farah said baptizing someone who is not related is a “serious breach” of church policy.

“The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related,” Farah said in a statement. “The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such.”

Mormons trace their unique custom of baptizing the dead to the New Testament. In one of his letters to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote: "Else 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?"

Mormons believe a just God would not deny the opportunity for salvation to previous generations. So to be fair, everyone should get another chance in the next life to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That opportunity is proffered through baptism.

But Mormons insist that does not translate to forced conversion. Quite the contrary. They believe that people baptized by proxy have a chance to accept the gospel. But they also have a chance to decline it.

“According to Church doctrine, a departed soul in the afterlife is completely free to accept or reject such a baptism — the offering is freely given and must be freely received,” Farah said. “The Church has never claimed the power to force deceased persons to become Church members or Mormons, and it does not list them as such on its records. The notion of coerced conversion is utterly contrary to Church doctrine.”

Still, for some, the practice smacks of forced conversions, which is one of the reasons Jewish groups  object to the baptism of Holocaust victims. Mormons put in place a policy that forbids the baptism of people who are not related to them.

But occasionally baptisms are performed that do not comply with the policy.

“These rare acts are contrary to Church policy and sometimes cause pain and embarrassment,” Farah said. “They are also extremely difficult to prevent because the temple baptism process depends on voluntary compliance by millions of Church members around the world. The Church nearly always learns about problems after the fact."

I tackled the issue of posthumous baptism last year when I discovered my grandparents had been posthumously baptized by my Mormon cousins. Read my blog post here. Though they were related, they did not seek permission from other family members or advertise that they had done so. READ SOURCE