1. A blog I regularly read linked to, what I though was a Mormon article about the mountain meadows massacre. I perused the website until it realized that, actually, it was an anti-Mormon website.
At first, I was irritated, and thought about trying to write a few scathing comments. But then I realized that these people have spent days of their lives writing and thinking about the church, and how wrong it is. And despite their dedication, the church continues to grow. I decided the church's mere existence already annoys them more than any comment ever could.
Who are these people that spend their lives writing anti-Mormon literature? Isn't it strange to devote so much of your time to attacking someone else's religion? I find it particularly odd because, more often than not, the attacker is usually an evangelical Christian. Ironically, there probably is less daylight between the teachings of Mormons and evangelicals than between Mormons and most other Christians (e.g., Catholics).
Maybe there are similar anti-religous groups out there, and I'm just not aware of them because I don't belong to those other religions. I could never see dedicating huge amounts of my life to writing anti-Seventh Day Adventist or Jehovah's Witness literature, though. Of course, maybe that's because I respect those religions, and I frankly don't have the drive.
Could there be money in it? Why else would any sane person dedicate so much time and effort to attacking a peaceful religion?
2. For some time I've been thinking about the question: why do we need priesthood authority. You don't need the priesthood to do certain things--praying, for instance. Mormon's recognize that God will countenance the prayers of Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Yet, to perform ordinances we do need priesthood authority.
An example I used frequently on my mission to illustrate this principle was a police officer. I would say to investigators, if I personally stopped you on the street and tried to give you a ticket, would you stop and pay the ticket? This example was usually more confusing than helpful at first. But the analogy eventually became clear enough. No, they wouldn't pay the ticket because I'm not a police officer and I don't have authority to give out tickets.
But that sort of begs the question: what is is about police officers and priesthood holders that makes it so not just everyone can do it? Why does this particular job require authorization?
I don't know if there are any official answers, but you can think of some logical ones. One answer is order. Priesthood leaders like police officers, have significant power. You want to make sure that they are using that power appropriately and that there is some organization to how it is used.
Related, is training. Police officers need to know how to identify bad guys and shoot guns. Priesthood holders need training so they can perform ordinances properly. Ordinances are symbolic and slight changes can destroy the symbolism.
Worthiness. You don't want crooked police or unworthy priesthood holders. We need a filter.
Accountability. If a priesthood holders, like a police officer, misbehaves you want some kind of system of accountability and priesthood structure gives you that.
When this topic came up a couple of weeks ago a member of my ward used another analogy: a person selling insurance. An insurance company would not honor an insurance contract sold by someone who did not represent the insurance company. God will not honor ordinances performed by people who are not authorized.
Initially, I thought this analogy suffers from the same problem as mine. Why doesn't the insurance company honor the agreement, and how is that similar to the reasons for why God will not honor an unauthorized ordinance? Then it occurred to me that this is probably a better example because the insurance contract is like the covenant, we enter into when we perform an ordinance. It makes complete sense that God will only give the blessing of the covenants to those who accept his terms, just as an insurance company will only agree to a contract on acceptable terms.
There are also some similarities between agency law--the law that determines when a person is an agent for another, called a principal, and can bind the principle in contract--and priesthood holders. By common law, you can be an agent in at least two ways: by actual authority and apparent authority. Actual authority is when the principle authorizes you to perform an ordinance. This is kind of like a worthy priesthood holder authorized to perform an ordinance. Apparent authority is when the principal represents that a person has authority to do something, without ever actually authorizing the agent to act. For example, if you are the president of a corporation, you have apparent authority to do certain things--hire, fire and sign contracts--by virtue of the position you hold. Even if the president's corporate bylaws prohibit him from executing a certain contract, if he does execute it, the corporation will likely have to honor it because the president has apparent authority to so act. Apparent authority is similar to how God treats an unworthy priesthood holder performing ordinances. The priesthood holder doesn't have God's actual authority to perform the ordinance, but God will be bound to the ordinance because the priesthood holder appears to be acting for God.
