Using Priesthool Authority for practical jokes?

[_JoetheClerk]

You have someone who is a highly respected, high level LDS General Authority. He goes to a group and proceeds to officiate in ceremonies as a GA, but does so knowing it is a joke, the deal isn't real and that he is laughing about it secretly while not letting the others in on the joke during the ceremony. He goes through with the whole thing even to the point of dedicating the thing 'in the name of Jesus, etc." and using his office to seal the deal.

What happens to this GA when it comes out he was pulling a practical joke? That it wasn't real at all and he was just pulling everyones leg even though they all thought it was serious and sanctioned by The Lord?

Does anything happen to him at all?

[_Yong Xi]

You have someone who is a highly respected, high level LDS General Authority. He goes to a group and proceeds to officiate in ceremonies as a GA, but does so knowing it is a joke, the deal isn't real and that he is laughing about it secretly while not letting the others in on the joke during the ceremony. He goes through with the whole thing even to the point of dedicating the thing 'in the name of Jesus, etc." and using his office to seal the deal.

What happens to this GA when it comes out he was pulling a practical joke? That it wasn't real at all and he was just pulling everyones leg even though they all thought it was serious and sanctioned by The Lord?

Does anything happen to him at all?

Are you saying this did happen?

[_The Nehor]

You have someone who is a highly respected, high level LDS General Authority. He goes to a group and proceeds to officiate in ceremonies as a GA, but does so knowing it is a joke, the deal isn't real and that he is laughing about it secretly while not letting the others in on the joke during the ceremony. He goes through with the whole thing even to the point of dedicating the thing 'in the name of Jesus, etc." and using his office to seal the deal.

What happens to this GA when it comes out he was pulling a practical joke? That it wasn't real at all and he was just pulling everyones leg even though they all thought it was serious and sanctioned by The Lord?

Does anything happen to him at all?

We said we're sorry and did you really think Priesthood authority was going to summon up Chuck E. Cheese for your birthday party?

[_silentkid]

One of my TBM friends (my first roommate at BYU) told me a story about how, as a newly ordained elder, he gave his family's new kitten a name and a blessing. "I give this feline a name and blessing. And the name by which he shall be known in the records of the church is Puff", etc. He did it in front of his family in mock sincerity. This guy is as TBM as it gets. I think the story is funny as hell, but I wonder what other TBM's would think about his mockery of the priesthood. God didn't smite him or anything, so I think he's okay.

[_JoetheClerk]

Isn't this the current story of what Joseph Smith did with Zelph, the Great White Lamanite Warrior?

[_cinepro]

I think the standard LDS position is that if the members are sincere, the attitude and worthiness of the person performing the ordinance are irrelevant. If the "GA" were performing area ordinance, it still counts. If he were making something up that didn't exist, I'm sure the Lord would bless the members for their faith, and bring condemnation down on the GA.

A similar question was recently discussed over at MAD. Turns out, when the chips are down, "authority" may not be as concrete as we previously thought.

[_Sethbag]

Turns out, when the chips are down, "authority" may not be as concrete as we previously thought.

Wow, there's a real shocker.

Let's see, authority is not as concrete as we previously thought.
Revelation is not as concrete as we previously thought.
Scripture is not as concrete as we previously thought.
Truth is not as concrete as we previously thought.
Prophets' teachings are not as concrete as we previously thought.
Etc. etc.

The apologists want to give the church as much slack as it needs, in any area whatsoever, to rationalize and excuse away the evidence that ought to show people that the church is really just a manmade institution like every other church out there. Just so long as the Church remains "true" (which, however, as we just mentioned, isn't even as concrete as we previously thought).

"The Church is True" is the Prime Directive. Anything else is negotiable (or redefinable).

[_NorthboundZax]

Turns out, when the chips are down, "authority" may not be as concrete as we previously thought.

Wow, there's a real shocker.

I used to think about that as a missionary. If 'Amen to the priesthood of that man' happened, but bishops and whoever didn't know/care, where do such perfomed ordinances by this person land?

A few years ago, I wrote a version of the following:

The Kolobian bureaucracy will be excluding a number of people who thought that they had checked off all the required boxes to enter the Celestial Kingdom, as many ordinances require exact wordings and actions to be valid. Using probability analysis we can estimate the number of erroneously performed ordinances to find the number of people that will be doomed to lower kingdoms than they otherwise would have achieved.

For example, baptism can be checked off in heaven only if the prayer is recited verbatim with the correct hand gesture and the baptizee is entirely immersed in the water at some instant in time shortly thereafter (exposed toes, knuckles, or incompletely immersed hair requires a do-over). Two witnesses are required at each baptism to verify its suitability. Confirmation, initiatory, and endowment also require exact standards, but are trickier and not always as thoroughly policed as baptism. So these ordinances likely have been botched even more often than for baptisms.

It is not uncommon for one or both of the witnesses to ask that the baptism be redone for the one or more of the following reasons (but not limited to): verbal deviation from the written standard, arm not fully to the square or fingers extended correctly, or the bapitzee not fully immersed. A little probability analysis can be illuminating regarding how reliable this process is. Whether or not false negatives are theologically significant or not (causing a properly performed ordinance to be re-performed) should probably also be explored as there are undoubtedly even more of those.

Suppose a slightly erratic priesthood holder performs baptisms correctly only 75% of the time, but has two witnesses that are each correct 90% of the time (wrong 10% of the time). With two witnesses the rate of false positives will be about 1 in 400 ((1-0.9) ´ (1-0.9) ´ (1-0.75)). Estimating from the number of baptisms attended by the author in the last decade and a half (~40) that needed to be re-performed (~4-7) I would guess that 80-90% accuracy for those doing the baptizing. For the sake of argument, suppose 95% accuracy on their behalf. For the witnesses, 98% accuracy seems sufficiently conservative. Assuming that witness fallibility is independent is a best-case scenario, although not entirely realistic (a mistake may be missed by both witnesses for the same reason such as an inopportune sneeze). These values suggest false positives with the chance of 1 in 50 thousand. For matlab reasons, let’s use an even more conservative estimate of 1 in 100 thousand.

The probability, f, of having at least one false positive (unnoticed mistake) in a population of size s is given by f = 1 - (1-p)^s, where p is the probability of a mistake not being noticed (e.g., 1/100,000). f ranges from 0 (impossible) to 1 (certain). As f becomes larger, the likelihood that more than one also increases. The probability, q (again ranging from 0 to 1), that there will be any particular number, g (0, 1, 2, …), of false positives in a given population is found by

q = k * (1-p)^(s-g) * p^g,

where

k = s!/(g!(s-g)!)

and ! means factorial.

With a current pool of 12 million members, f > 0.999999999999, meaning that there is a greater than 99.9999999999% chance that one or more souls are eternally oopsed because their ordinance was unknowingly botched. Just among the 4 million, or so, actually striving for the CK, there is probably between 30-50 oopsed souls. With a quick extrapolation to the roughly 20-50 million baptisms occurring in the church since 1830 (not counting all the proxy work), there is a greater probability of someone winning the Missouri Mega Millions Powerball Lottery twice in a row than in having everyone’s ordinances who wanted them done to the bureaucratic standards of Kolob.

These problems could actually be even worse than shown above. What if an eternally oopsed person baptizes someone else? Since the baptizer couldn’t have the proper authority, that baptizee is also oopsed and the witnesses definitely aren’t going to catch it. Since Joseph and Oliver didn’t have any witnesses to make sure they did it right, there is a good case that we are all doomed to lesser kingdoms anyway, even if Mormon mythology had any truth to it.

[_Scottie]

That was great, NBZ!!

However, you forgot the LDS mantra... it will all work out in the end.

[_John Larsen]

The restoration movement was built on the idea of apostasy. It is rather fascinating that leadership has made apostasy impossible. One is left to wonder why the Church in the past fell into apostasy. When pressed in debate, I have heard apologists admit that it was by the choice of God that the primitive Church apostatized.