May 23, 2021 6:30pm PDT
Carter Charles on “Let the Living Rejoice and ‘Let the Dead Sing Forth Anthems of Eternal Praise’: The Relevance of Joseph Smith’s Revelations on Baptism for the Dead in Haiti and Madagascar”

On October 1, 1842, about two years after revealing that “the Saints have the privilege of being baptized for those of their relatives who are dead,” the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote an epistle to them in which he addresses procedural matters regarding the doctrine. Towards the end of the epistle, which is now Doctrine and Covenants 128, the prophet opens up and exults, “Let your hearts rejoice… Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prisons.” Having personally lost loved ones, including children in infancy, Joseph had every reason to be ecstatic. That unique doctrine in the Restoration was “good news” for him, for the Saints, and for the world. Indeed, is illustrated in this presentation with beliefs from Malagassi and Haitian cultures, it is a doctrine that resonates the innermost desires of people across the world and their efforts to offset the problem of death, to collapse the distances occasioned by death in an attempt to ensure “sociability” or togetherness in this life and beyond.

View Carter Charles’s PowerPoint slides [PDF]. 

View this recorded Fireside.