SunstoneBlog

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John Remy’s article “Saving the Dead: A Comparative Study of Post-funerary Rites in Japanese and Mormon Culture” in the November issue of Sunstone came to me, rather serendipitously, at a time I had been thinking about the very anti-Reformationist relationship we Mormons have with our dead.  Like the Roman Catholics, we perform an obligation we believe the living owe the dead.  Also like the Roman Catholics, we believe the dead have an obligation to perform for the living.  We base our belief in this reciprocal relationship upon a unique interpretation of Malachi’s prophecy concerning the coming of Elijah. 

After Elijah restored to Joseph Smith the power to seal in heaven that which was sealed on earth, he turned the heart of the children [the living] to their fathers [the dead].  This implies such Mormon works as genealogy and proxy ordinances for the dead so that those who have passed away without the blessings of the priesthood in this life may participate in those blessing in the spirit world.  This activity is similar to the Roman Catholic performance of masses for the dead for the purpose of rescuing them from purgatory.Of course, there are important differences between that which is effected in the Mormon and Roman Catholic post-funerary rituals.  One is a difference in cosmological geography.  While the Roman Catholics view their dead as occupying a space below the earth but above hell, we Mormons reject the existence of hell and think of our dead as residing here on the earth itself, but behind a perceptual veil.  Roman Catholics also believe their dead once saved move from purgatory to heaven; that being a change of location.  We Mormons, on the other hand, view the move from Spirit Prison to Spirit Paradise as being a change of heart or spiritual condition.   Nor do we believe that their post-funerary rituals effect this change as do Roman Catholics, but rather we believe the movement from Spirit Prison to Spirit Paradise is effected through changes in the behavior of the dead themselves, with the proxy work performed in the temple empowering the dead further once they have made the requisite changes in themselves. 

Malachi’s prophecy also speaks of the heart of the fathers [the dead] turning to the children [the living].  This implies that the dead, once empowered by the blessings of the priesthood through the veil, are obligated to perform work for and on behalf of the living.  What this work is exactly is never clearly defined by Mormon doctrine.  There does seem to have existed within Mormonism the belief that our ancestral dead, once given the priesthood through the veil, become our guardian angels. 

“All people have their guardian angels.  Whether our departed dead guard us is not for me to say.  I can say we have our guardian angels.” (Brigham Young. Journal of Discourses.  Volume 13: December 10, 1868.) **

Here Brigham affirms a personal belief in guardian angels and acknowledges an extant belief among the Mormons of his time that such angels are our “departed dead” without supporting or denying such a belief.  This belief continued into the 20th century.  Church Patriarch, Hyrum G. Smith, said the following during the afternoon session of the October General Conference of 1928:

“I have been asked many times concerning a promise that is frequently given in blessings to the effect that the person would be guided by the influence nd promptings of his guardian angel.  These people have said: ‘Brother Smith, who is our guardian angel?’  These spirits of our departed loved ones, as well as other spirits, may be appointed to act as our guardian angels, but they are special and come by appointment, while the Holy Spirit yields a constant influence over our lives for our guidance and protection.” **

In a Gospel Doctrine class sponsored by BYU extension services during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, I heard this belief explained in greater detail.  The guardian angels are, in fact, our ancestral dead being the spirits of just men made perfect through the administration by proxy of temple ordinance work.  With the power of the priesthood through the veil, these spirits can then act on our behalf as agents under the authority of the Holy Spirit.  Thus, these “departed dead” are able to act as the “still, small voice” delivering to us promptings of warning or spiritual confirmation when appointed to do so.  They can even appear to us in the capacity of messenger or minister.  Though this does not approach anything like official church doctrine, it does appear that a belief still exists within Mormon culture today that the dead have an equal obligation to the living and that that obligation is acted out through the office of guardian angel. 

The Roman Catholic concept of guardian angels is quite different from that percolating through Mormon culture.  The Roman Catholic doctrine of angels holds them to be a creation distinct from that of the race of men and that each human child is born with a guardian angel.  (It is not the existence of guardian angels that Bruce R McConkie denies in his Mormon Doctrine, but rather the Roman Catholic notion of guardian angels.) 

It is the Roman Catholic notion of saints that bears a greater similarity to the Mormon understanding of guardian angels.  Saints are the spirits of once mortal men and women whose lives were so pious and exemplary that they were spared the justice of purgatory and are granted immediate ascension to heaven.  Like the Mormon spirits of just men made perfect, Roman Catholic saints perform an intercessory function on behalf of the living.  There is still the geographical difference involved here.  Roman Catholic saints are in heaven, while the departed “fathers” are, as far as Mormons are concerned, still resident upon the earth.  There is also a difference in protocol.  While Roman Catholics may petition a saint directly, Mormons may only petition God the Father.  Such is in accordance with the Mormon view of both the spirit world and heaven as being organized and administered in a hierarchal and corporate fashion similar to that of the institution of the earthly church. 

With the Reformation, most of northern Europe abandoned the Roman Catholic obligation to the dead.  In his 2006 Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture: “Spiritual Apartheid: Protestantism and the Reformation of the Hereafter” (delivered at the Tanner Humanities Center Conference “Hell and Its Afterlife: Comparative and Historical Perspectives”), Carols Eire, the Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale, attributes this to, among other things, a revolt against the financial burden such an obligation imposed upon the faithful.  The Church proposed that thousands of masses needed to be said for each loved one before he or she could be freed from purgatory.  The cost born for such post-funerary rituals could become trans-generational through the donation to the church of tracts of land.  By the end of the Middle Ages, as much as one quarter of all the real estate in Europe belonged to the Church through this mechanism of payment.  But Reformation leaders did not only see this practice as the sin of simony, they also saw it as evidence of a corrupt theology, an accretion to the Church of pagan magic and superstition.   Reformation leaders acknowledged that spirits might appear to men from time to time, but that such could not be the disincarnate ghost of a loved one but rather an un-incarnate demon posing as a ghost.  (So it would be that the Witch of Endor could not have conjured for Saul the ghost of the prophet Samuel, but instead called forth a demon taking upon itself the appearance and voice of Samuel.) 

Although a product of Protestant culture, Joseph Smith’s installation of post-funerary rituals in temples reversed this aspect of the Reformation and gestured back toward Roman Catholic practice.  In the medieval Church as well as in Mormon doctrine, not attending to the dead was a sin.  This innovation complicates our understanding of Moroni 8:22 where the Nephite prophet addresses himself to the spiritual condition of those who live without the law of God. 

“For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, he that is not condemned, or he that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing—“

If such are under no condemnation, then why should those who have died without the law be in need of baptism?  Joseph’s thinking on this subject evidently evolved over time and no clear reconciliation with earlier teachings seems to have been made. 

Some Mormons will certainly see this Roman Catholic obligation to the dead as a vestigial remnant of primitive or Apostolic Christianity, but such a practice could not have come to Christianity through the Pharisaical Judaism or the Levitical temple cult of Christ’s day.  In Understanding Genesis, Nahum Sarna, the Dora Golding Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University, convincingly establishes Second Temple Judaism’s utter rejection of the ancient gods of magic and access to the dead. 

Of course, there is Paul’s enigmatic reference in 1 Corinthians to the practice of baptism for the dead, but of whom is he speaking?  It is unclear who exactly is practicing this ordinance.  Despite how we Mormons like to employ this passage of scripture, Paul’s central argument intends to establish the reality of the ressurrection and not the validity of baptisms for the dead.  He is demonstrating the logical inconsistency in following such a practice “if the dead rise not at all.”  But we are left to guess at the identity of “they” or “those”who are baptised for the dead.  The Greek demonstrative pronoun used in this verse seems to indicate that Paul was speaking of a group outside that of his followers. 

Interestingly, John Remy’s article demonstrates similar post-funerary practices within a non-Christian context suggesting a reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead similar to that of Mormonism.  In Japanese culture, the living aid the dead in their progress toward perfection:

“Through a series of rites, the spirit moves from impure association with death to ultimate assimilation into the pure and godlike ancestral spirit.” (Remy. “Saving the Dead” Sunstone November 2006)

Reciprocity is achieved when the perfected ancestors aid the living:

“By taking care of their dead, the living Japanese are entitled, in return, to the protection and helpful intervention of their empowered predecessors.” (Remy. “Saving the Dead” Sunstone November 2006)

Again there will be Mormons with a proclivity for tying back to Adam everything that was “restored” by Joseph Smith.  Such will assert that these Japanese post-funerary rituals are the inheritance of a cultural transmission through contact with a remnant of one of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.  I believe this kind of theorization involves the logical fallacy of “presentism,” that is enforcing on the past patterns of thought or behavior common in the present. 

It is much more likely that a concern for the dead and/or with the dead is rooted in human nature.  Nevertheless, the reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead envisioned by these three distinct cultures involves a remarkable sophistication of thought.  We are not witnessing in these cultural practices a simple fear of death which usually produces an aversion for the dead as with the Navajo chindi and its threat of “ghost sickness.”  We are seeing something richer and more complex. 

John Remy expresses the belief that this subject is a ripe one for students of Mormon Studies.  I agree and appreciate John’s opening the subject up for discussion.

I am not disinterested in the debate over whether such similarity of custom is the product of cultural contact or of the wellspring of the human unconscious.  I am simply more interested in what such customs mean for us as Mormons: psychologically, socially and culturally. 

* My apologies to Stephen for the huge image that shoves his post off the edge of the earth.  I just couldn’t bear to shrink Blake’s amazing work any further.

** My thanks to Mark Carter for his contribution to this article in providing me with the two quotes concerning guardian angels.

January 11th, 2007 | Category: Mormon Studies, Rotation, Sunstone | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL