Hemings and Jefferson Together Forever?

[Jetavan]

On April 21, 1991, two members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered a baptismal font. One laid hands upon another and proclaimed, “having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and in behalf of Sally Hemings, who is dead.”

It is critical to note that Mormons believe that this ceremony did not make Hemings a Mormon. Instead, Mormons assert that it gave Hemings the opportunity to obtain salvation. Even in the afterlife, Hemings maintains her “agency” (a key theological concept for Mormons) to decide whether or not she accepts this invitation.
....
What is surprising is that the LDS Church, according to its Family Search registry, considers Hemings to be Thomas Jefferson’s wife. (One of two—the other of course being Jefferson’s legal wife, Martha, who happens to be Sally Hemings’s half-sister; she and Hemings were both the daughters of Virginia plantation owner John Wayles.) Jefferson is also listed as the father of Hemings’s children. This means that the LDS Church recognizes Jefferson’s paternity of a sizable number of his own slaves, something that Jefferson himself refused to do when it became a campaign issue during the 1800 presidential race.* (Jefferson also failed to acknowledge he fathered Hemings’s children in the detailed logs the president kept of the births and deaths among Monticello’s slave population.)

Why does this matter? Because Mormons not only believe in baptizing non-Mormons who have died—they also believe in “sealing” families so they can spend eternity together.

[biro]

Why should we care about this garbage?

[Jetavan]

Why should we care about this garbage?

Mormons are always doing something interesting. Believing that Jefferson and others were inspired by God to write the founding documents of the Republic, and then viewing the prophet Jefferson as a practitioner of polyuxorialism in the manner of Moses, is icing on the cake.

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