A Lutheran bishop's perspective on Mormon baptism for the dead

The Latter-day Saint practice of vicarious baptism on behalf of the dead is once again a focus of controversy. In the past few weeks, it's been portrayed in the news media and on the web as unbiblical, ghoulish, bizarre, shameful, vicious, anti-Semitic, immoral, hateful, an exercise in "black magic" and (by some extremists) possibly even illegal. A national television commentator recently named President Thomas S. Monson among "the worst people in the world" for presiding over the practice.

It's high time for the view of a very respected non-Mormon scholar to be heard above the noise.

Around 1990, on behalf of his fellow editors for the then-forthcoming "Encyclopedia of Mormonism," the late Truman Madsen contacted an eminent New Testament scholar named Krister Stendahl. Professor Stendahl had served, by this time, as chaplain and dean of Harvard Divinity School and as the Lutheran bishop of Stockholm (i.e., effectively, as the head of the state church of Sweden), and was also known for his contributions to Jewish/Christian dialogue. Professor Madsen invited Stendahl, a personal friend, to contribute a brief article on baptism for the dead in early Christianity.

Stendahl declined, pleading the demands of a heavy schedule. But Madsen persisted and, already knowing his friend's general position on the matter, offered to draft something himself and send it to Stendahl for revision; once the article was satisfactory, it could appear under Stendahl's own name. Eventually, Stendahl agreed to the proposal.

But when the draft arrived, Stendahl wasn't at all happy with it. Madsen's proposed article, he said, was too noncommittal; the Mormon position was stronger than the draft had suggested. So Stendahl wrote an entirely new article, after all.

This is the entry that now appears in the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism."

Referring to 1 Corinthians 15:29, Stendahl briefly alluded to a number of conflicting explanations of the passage. However, he wrote, "the text seems to speak plainly enough about a practice within the Church of vicarious baptism for the dead. This is the view of most contemporary critical exegetes." And, he concluded, such a position is "quite reasonable."