http://goodoman.blogspot.com/2002_12_08_goodoman_archive.html#85894696

Respect the theology of our friends

Shmuley Boteach
Dec. 25, 2003

Jewish officialdom is up in arms, the Mormon Church is on the defensive, and frankly I don’t give a damn. I refer of course to the controversial Mormon practice of baptizing deceased non-Mormons into their faith.

In 1995, the Mormon Church agreed to stop posthumously baptizing dead Jews. But according to Ernest Michel, a former executive vice president of UJA-Federation of New York who helped broker the 1995 agreement, the church has rebuffed attempts to remove Jewish names from its 400-million-strong database and thus violated the agreement.

That may be so. But what a waste of time for everybody involved.

I could not care less if the Mormons baptize me after I’m dead.

It won’t affect me. I’ll always be a Jew, in this life and the next. If this is part of Mormon practice and belief, and they do it in the privacy of their own ritual, and it doesn’t affect me in the slightest, why should I care?

People’s beliefs are their own business. It’s how they treat others that is everyone’s business. What I care about is how much the Mormons support Israel today, not what they do with Jewish souls in what they regard as the afterlife. Far from being my sentiment alone, this is a pivotal Jewish teaching: “It is the action [and not dogma] which is most important.”

In my first few years as rabbi at Oxford University, I befriended a doctoral student by the name of Michael Taft Benson, whose grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, was at the time president and prophet of the Mormon Church. Not only did Mike become and remain one of my dearest friends, he served as vice president of my L’Chaim Society and regularly brought groups of hundreds of Mormon students to our Sabbath dinners to learn more about Judaism.

A great lover of Israel who has visited there more than 10 times, Mike chose to write his doctoral thesis on Harry Truman’s support for the creation of the Jewish state. Through Mike, I was granted a meeting with the current president and prophet of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, who is Mike’s grandfather-in-law.

We spoke about Israel, his admiration for the Jewish people, and the Mormon dedication to Israel’s prosperity and survival. I am regularly invited to address Mormon audiences in Utah who thirst for knowledge of all things Jewish and who treat me like a wise elder brother. Mike even arranged for me to launch my book Judaism for Everyone at the University of Utah, and he and I are currently planning a Jewish studies center for Snow College, where Mike serves as president.

After meeting with Jonathan Pollard at the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, it was Mike whom I called to ask for his support in meeting the two Utah senators on Pollard’s behalf. He quickly arranged for me and Esther Pollard to meet with senators Hatch and Bennet of Utah, who received us most graciously.

The Mormons are our brothers, the Christians are our kin. So long as they support and defend the Jewish people through their current persecution, that will always be so, whatever their beliefs, and we owe them our gratitude.

The same is true of those righteous evangelicals who love Israel like it is their own country. Many Jews are alarmed at the steadfast support of evangelical Christians for Israel claiming it is insincere. It’s an end-of-days strategy, they say. Jesus can’t come back until the Jews have returned to Israel. The evangelicals aren’t real friends because at the Second Coming, they believe, all Jews will become Christians.

What an absurd complaint. To tell people who send tens of millions of dollars to poor Israelis and who place enormous pressure on the Bush administration never to abandon Israel that they are not real friends is to be ungrateful at best and treacherous at worst.

Who cares what their beliefs are? They are our greatest friends in the world. What will happen when Jesus comes back? Hey, we’ll talk about it then.

In the meantime we’ll show them unstinting appreciation for their love and support against an insurgent Islam that wants to wipe Israel from the map

I of course don’t mean to be flippant about any of this. My point is a very serious one. Friendships are not based on creeping into the innermost sanctums of the other’s heart and discerning their motivation. Friendship comes down simply to the affection with which people treat each other.

If Jews are troubled by Mormon and evangelical Christian theology and propose to focus more on these groups’ beliefs than on their actions, the logical outcome would be for the Jews to be far closer to the Muslims than to Christians.

After all, theologically speaking, Islam and Judaism are closer than any two other religions. Both are pure forms of monotheism which utterly reject the deification of a man as God, neither accepts any division in the Godhead, like a trinity, and both are based on a written law and on an oral legal tradition (Halacha and hadith).

So why aren’t we as close to the Muslims as we are to the Christians? Simple. The Christians, whatever their belief, treat us as beloved brothers; the Muslims, however monotheistic, murder our children.

Let’s stop with the silly insecurities that have us looking to scratch the skin of a friend and find underneath a closet anti-Semite.

The writer is author of 14 books. His latest is The Private Adam: Becoming a Hero in a Selfish Age.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1072239539026

Copyright 1995-2003 The Jerusalem Post – http://www.jpost.com/

In fact, I would say the only reason the LDS Church even considered this agreement is the religious belief that Jews are off-limits to preaching anyway as a whole. In our trying to be seen in better light is the Church giving away our souls for solice?

To Brother Gordon Smith and Brother Nathan, When I read your comments I get the feeling that efforts to steady the ark are at play.

I’m sure you feel, as I do, that this church is led by the living God through His living prophet. God knows what’s up and how best to deal with what’s going on. And “surely [He] will do nothing but he reveal his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7) So His prophets also know what’s up and how best to deal with what’s going on.

God speed Brethren. Have faith in the capability of God’s kingdom and its priesthood leadership to keep doing things the Lord’s way:)