This post may be unkind, but sometimes ya gotta rant.
I have a family member I’ve struggled with for many years. For saying really dumb things.
A mutual friend just told me about her testimony in church about another family member who passed away in poor standing with the church, who had never received her temple endowment.
So this family member has now done the temple work for this deceased woman, and bore her testimony saying “Now there are no empty seats at the table (in Heaven).”
First of all, that doesn’t make sense because this was not the only family member is poor standing with the church. There are still “empty seats.” But I guess those don’t count because those people are still alive, so the heavenly table must not be set for them yet.
But the deeper issue is what it reveals about the LDS doctrine of works for the dead — that you can do whatever you want in life, believe anything, go apostate, what have you, and as long as a Mormon does your temple work, you’re good to go.
And it was implied that we will just do the temple work of all the other family members in poor standing, once they die, so that there will be no empty seats in heaven.
Even though the Book of Mormon says “this life is the time to prepare to meet God” and “the same spirit that possesses your body in this life will possess your body in the next life.” So if you didn’t repent here, why would you repent there?
It’s like they have no more agency to choose for themselves. If their work was done, we just assume they’re good now.
Which is ironic, because this family member was one of the most judgmental of the deceased, saying “she wasted her life” and telling us not to talk to her. We were supposed to cut her off, due to her “poor choices.”
So reject them while they’re alive, and then do their temple work once they’re dead and forget it ever happened! Every thing is all good now!
It just doesn’t make sense. The hypocrisy is astounding.
And I’m really not excited for this family member to find out that my seat in her Mormon “heaven” will definitely be empty.
All I Possess 