Ex-Mormon Australia native Helen Radkey is a spiritual consultant and educator, soul reader, past-life therapist, prayer therapist, marriage celebrant, writer and researcher, but is best known as that rabble-rouser who’s been keeping close tabs on the LDS Church’s temple ordinances for the past 18 years. City Weekly caught up with Radkey to find out what she's been keeping tabs on lately.
Why do proxy baptisms matter to people who don’t believe in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
Alive or dead, people deserve to be treated with respect. Proxy baptism is a disrespectful attempt to reframe a person’s life and negate the religious choices they made when they were alive. Jewish Holocaust victims were killed by Nazis because they were Jews. They should always be memorialized as Jews. Ideally, Mormons should not be treating the memory of murdered Holocaust victims as though Judaism is a halfway house to God. Mormons claim they are only offering the dead person the option of becoming Mormon. However, the wording of the baptismal rite itself says nothing about choice, and the subsequent confirmation declares the deceased is now a member of the LDS Church.
Every couple of years, it’s reported that the proxy-baptism dispute between Jewish leaders and the LDS Church has come to an end. How accurate is that?
News media reports on the Mormon-Jewish controversy are usually not accurate. As far as I know, the failed 1995 Mormon-Jewish agreement was never kept on the Mormon end. The key element in that arrangement was the LDS Church’s promise to cease the improper posthumous baptisms of Jews, with special emphasis on Jewish Holocaust victims. That never happened. Even the newer pact between Mormons and Jews—which was announced on Sept. 1, 2010, and is little more than a year old—has been violated. LDS officials say they have “fixed” the problem of the posthumous baptism of Jewish Holocaust victims, but this is not the case.
LDS temple workers conduct proxy baptisms and endowments based on genealogical data submitted via a Website, New FamilySearch. How secure is it?
Only Mormons can enter names for temple rites for the dead in New FamilySearch. Outsiders cannot access it. New FamilySearch appears to offer few safeguards against illicit submissions of Jewish Holocaust names. Claims that this relatively new program offers surefire security measures against the wrongful submissions appear to have been exaggerated—it does not appear to be working anywhere near as well as claimed.
What are your top three favorite entries you’ve found in the proxy database?
Jesus Christ, Mickey Mouse and Ted Bundy. I’d also like to mention the 9/11 hijackers. I found most of their names in New FamilySearch. These discoveries freaked me out, and I began muttering that the submitter should be deported from the USA.
What else have you been up to lately?
Since December 2010, I have been researching the polygamous ancestry of Mitt Romney. I have added Jon Huntsman’s polygamous ancestry to the mix (Huntsman shares some common ancestors with Romney). But most of my focus is on Romney. Plural marriage was the chosen lifestyle of many of his Mormon ancestors—yet Romney has tried to distance himself from polygamy, calling the practice “bizarre” and “awful.” If he is sincere, Mitt Romney should acknowledge that polygamy is still an inherent part of the Mormon faith.
Radkey is obsessed with this, as if the LDS Church was some Stalin-esque creation that could dictate the actions of every single one of its millions of members, or guarantee a few won't act up. Who the hell cares? If you don't believe this stuff, then it means nothing more than throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. If you believe it, then the intent must be good -- you know, salvation and all that stuff. It's not like they're digging up corpses and splashing them with Holy Joe Juice. It's proxy baptism.
Why is it that it takes radkey to get the lds church to apologize to the jews of the holocaust? see the latest on mormons baptizing simon wiesentahl's family members.
why does God tell TSM that baptizing dead people
is sacrilegious, that is He does not want them to do that for ANY reason!!!
bill
you are almost hopelessly stalled in the "first half of life"- i will explain later but first, the God i believe in and is the God of all creation loves every person and thing in heaven and on earth since God is Love. Jesus Died and paid the price to eternal life, not just resurrection,for every person who has lived, lives now and will ever live on this planet. What an awesome Savior. listen more closely to the gospel and you will know is savior of ALL, not some! whether you have heard of him or not- His great love is that huge!
our god is not a petty god worrying about worthiness- btw who really is worthy? not you, no t me not the pope not monson-no one! so it is all about grace- a word not often used in lds circles. since we cant save ourselves even though most GC talks we can by working our asses off to get to heaven.
so the first half of life is one where your ego, career, paycheck , toys, power and control , religion, are in control- everyone goes thru it, most stay stuck in it. however where we want to be is in the second half of life where the above mean absolutely nothing. ego is gone, the things of the world are of no value, being right is meaningless in the second have of life, having security in your religion, job, $$$ are first half of life activities and prevent us from becoming whole in Christ Jesus.
the first half of life journey feels secure because one has all the answers, like you knowing for sure what's going to happen to those billion of chinese who die w/o Christ- my God can handle that, yours apparently cant and that's said.
i wish you the blessing of moving from the first half of life to the second- it will make all the difference in your life because God is love and never changes-only we do!
brother bill- for that is how Jesus would address you and me.
i can see Jesus sitting in the temple courts listening to you go on and on with anger in your voice and authority as your mantle, claiming you are doing what he wants you to do. He will probably be shaking his head, hoping you had listened better to the true Gospel-the Gospel that saves with mercy and grace and not the trumpeting of "i have the true faith-i know better than you attitude".
the jesus i believe in and know as Savior and Lord of my life is a merciful, forgiving Jesus who would simply would pray "Father forgive Bill for he knows not what he is doing"
approach the throne of grace and mercy bill when you are ready he is there ready to forgive and give you a big hug, not ask for how much tithing you gave or how many home teaching visits you made or how often you went to the temple"
he will ask you how many cups of water you gave to the thirsty though- i hope you have a good answer.
peace
through Him who gives peace beyond understanding and who wishes peace on his church which are all those who believe on HIm-catholic, mormon, baptist, presbyterian, evangelical and all. and who has not forgotten his chosen people the jews with whom his covenant is everlasting and should not be broken by mormon proxy baptism even when they thk they are doing good!
your brother in christ
redhat
brother bill
first a little homework for you- please count the number of times Jesus Himself uses the word 'believe" in the Gospel of John. you will be shocked hopefully to realize He really means it. second count the number of times He uses the word "love". again you will realize that those 2 words are the foundational words of of Jesus and the gospel he proclaimed. and of course he did not add all the other baggage that manmade religions like mormonism or catholicism added.
second you have no idea what happens at death-none! and if you thk Joseph Smith knew, well you do have his word for it- no one else's.
your thought processes are muddled by the upbringing you had and so you cannot fathom anything but mormonism being true- i do not fault you for that but think of the billions of people who have no connection to mormonism at all being left out in the cold so to speak because you believe they must be like and believe like you to become a god of your own planet-elitist thinking i would say.
unflortunaltely many members are drifiting away because the lds church cannot explain at any level the doctrines of mormonisn- today's temple spiritual polygamy(ala oaks and nelson and perry), curses on blacks, baptism by proxy based on a totsl misreading of paul in corinthinans etc. local and national lds leaders have no anwers for jS marrying other men's wives-men who were stalwarts in the church like orson hyde who went to palestine and came back finding his wife married to JS. JS translating the BOM with his head in a hat using a seer stone /rock and not the urim and thummin- pls feel free to tell me how that was done. and the BOA- JS did not get a single thing right on fac #1 or anything else for that matter.
so members in the usa are walking away-no sin involved just cant understand why the chruch cant explain its doctrinal history-btw chk out the washington post oped today- claire sheffied explains why their is need for major mormon reform.
ok- unless an angel comes to tell you diffferent you will probably be a mormon till you die-OTOH the internet has real answers from lds sources that will give you pause to reconsdier the fate of your immortal soul.
just sayin!