An unending chaing of flesh-craving ancestors

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So, imagine for a moment you've baptized your ancestors by proxy. All is kosher and recorded, and they accept it and all that jazz. If the same folks have their corpses re-animated as zombies, would they be members of the church? Would we give them callings? What sort of first presidency missives would we see?

The theological concerns aside, I smell a good Mormon gothic novel here. A mysterious source turns the dead into zombies, but only the dead who haven't had their work done for them. What's that you say? Let the dead bury the dead? Well, if you don't get your genealogy done, it'll be more let my dead eat you! That'll light a fire under the saints' complacency, won't it?

Relatedly, I wonder if this is the real reason the church won't let us do ordinance work until one year after a person dies. I mean, surely the zombie window expires once the corpse isn't a fleshy creature. Granted, what with sealed coffins and embalming fluid, bodies stay bodies far longer. Thus, maybe the lesson we should learn here is that modern mortuary practices are a tool of the adversary.

They, monogamy, and extending the priesthood to all races is pretty much a sign of the apocalypse.

8 comments:

Nathan said...

Man, I love you.

Fact of the matter, I'm pretty sure that (a) zombies in the modern sense would not be animated by a spirit, and not being souls would be no more eligible for Church callings than rocks are, (b) zombis in the classical sense, being controlled by a never-embodied spirit, would be way ineligible for church callings, and (c) modern mortuary practices are creepycreepycreepy. IMO that thing ceases to be a real corpse when we deprive it of the capacity to rot.

No, really, dude. That ain't a body. It's a plastic pickle, injection-molded within and throughout the body, a parody of a body, an artificially colored Maraschino body, and it's kind of freaky that we insist on creating an indestructible likeness of our dead out of their own corpses, and then locking that in a box and putting a ton of dirt on it so it can look just like them forever. That is some freaky devil funeral right there.

Me, I want my raw remains in direct contact with dirt, and if the climate allows I want a bodhi tree planted where it can suck them up through its roots and construct leaves of them and let them drop off and blow away.

Now, back to plotting the secret apocalyptic Danite/Masonic/Zombie conquest of the world. After I add "Maraschino Bodies" and "Danite Masonic Zombie" to my list of good band names, that is.

alea said...

Actually, I think someone should start a graphic novel series on the fantastic adventures of a rouge Danite. Have him track down the adulteress in one volume and in the next, fight back against the wave of zombies. He'd be like a morally questionable superhero, backed by a shadowy religious organization

annie (the annilygreen one) said...

maraschino bodies, hahahaha. awesome. and just to be difficult, do you really have to wait a year? a family in my grandma's ward did their daughter's endowment about a week after she died.

alea said...

I don't the actual rules (blast my lack of access to a general handbook of instructions!). But, I think, if I remember correctly, the one year rule is only for non-members to have their work done. If a church member in good standing dies prior to getting their own endowment, I don't think it requires the year period.

Nathan said...

Technicality: "General Handbook of Instructions" is the title of an obsolete volume. "Church Handbook of Instructions" is the current authority, and I believe you'd need Part 1 (a.k.a. the Red Book) in particular.

Rumour has it there's a new handbook in the works, and I wouldn't be surprised; there have been enough organizational changes and policy clarifications since 1996. (1998? Either way.)

I personally believe that when they send a letter that changes policy or organization, the letter should not only say, "Keep this letter on file," as they do now, but "Please make a note of the change in your handbook. This affects pages 17, 23, 42, and 76." And they should print and distribute an updated index every couple years that cites those letters. In my last mission area, it would have helped a lot: The branch was understaffed, we didn't have a meetinghouse of our own with lockable offices or a library, the Church Handbook had only just been translated into Ukrainian and was already out of date in a few respects ... and four guys under 21 were supposed to be the authoritative advisers on How the Church Works. Of the four, one actually had a handbook -- the branch clerk/executive secretary/unofficial 2nd counselor (in the branch and quorum presidencies, which were the same). Which he and the branch librarian/Primary teacher had enough Ukrainian to read, and their companions, the branch home teachers, did not. It was exactly as much fun as a barrel of monkeys, which it also resembled in some other ways.

Petra said...

You can get a CHI online. I have one; why don't you?

(Is that inappropriate? I always wonder. I think it is.)

alea said...

nathan-

I don't know why they don't just create an electronic version that is most up to date and then change it as needs be, rather than undertaking the onerous task of printing and letters (obviously, in some parts of the world, online isn't feasible, but surely we could pony up, as a church, to print out updated handbooks every couple of years for those areas, right?)

petra-

I feel like it's inappropriate. I have no reason to substantiate that gut feeling. And I don't have one because a. I've never gone looking and b. It feels illicit to read the CHI.

Craig said...

It feels illicit to read the CHI.

Which is why it is so wonderful.

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