Priesthood Line of Authority

This last Sunday, Kyle had the Aaronic Priesthood "conferred" upon him and was "ordained" to the office of Deacon. My dad, Kent, provide Kyle a nice card with Kyle's Priesthood Line of Authority. A few years ago I was exploring my own Priesthood Line of Authority and thought that I had come across an error, but had since forgotten about it. This morning, Dad and I were talking about it, so I did a little online research and discovered that there was indeed an error in that Joseph F. Smith was ordained an Apostle by Brigham Young, not by Heber C. Kimball. Anyway, while doing this research I found a blog entry from a guy mentioning that you could request your official line of authority from LDS Church headquarters. I typed up the email with the requested information and fired it off. Within four minutes I received a .pdf file with my official Priesthood Line of Authority. It was somewhat different from what we have been passing along through family tradition. There was some helpful and interesting information included in the letter from Church headquarters. Apparently, the office of Patriarch is not considered on the official line, but rather the office of High Priest. The same goes for Bishop and Seventy.

Here is the L.o.A. we have traditionally used in the family with my recent correction:

• Robert Keith Mortensen was ordained an Elder by his father Robert Kent Mortensen on August 20th, 1995 in Nampa, Idaho 
• Robert Kent Mortensen was ordained a High Priest by his brother-in-law Thomas Kendall Harward on December 3rd, 1989 in Nampa, Idaho 
• Thomas Kendall Harward was ordained a High Priest by his father-in-law Glen Martin Carlson
• Glen Martin Carlson was ordained a Patriarch by LeGrand Richards 
• LeGrand Richards was ordained an Apostle by David O. McKay 
•  David O. McKay was ordained an Apostle by Joseph F. Smith 
• Joseph F. Smith was ordained an Apostle by Heber C. Kimball Brigham Young
• Heber C. Kimball Brigham Young was ordained an Apostle by Martin Harris (three witnesses) 
• Martin Harris was ordained by Joseph Smith 
• Joseph Smith was ordained by Peter James, and John  
• Peter, James, and John were ordained by Jesus Christ. 

Here is the official Priesthood Line of Authority from the Church:

• Robert Keith Mortensen Elder 20 Aug 1995
• Robert Kent Mortensen High Priest 3 Dec 1989
• Thomas Kendall Harward High Priest 30 Sep 1984
• Glen Martin Carlson High Priest 24 Apr 1949
• Joseph Fielding Smith Apostle 7 Apr 1910
• Joseph Fielding Smith Apostle 1 Jul 1866
• Brigham Young Apostle 14 Feb 1835
• The Three Witnesses 14 Feb 1835 Called by revelation and set apart by the First Presidency to choose and ordain the Twelve Apostles: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris
• Joseph Smith, Jr Apostle 1829
• Peter, James, and John Apostle Who were ordained Apostles by the Savior during His earthly ministry.

So why is any of this important?

Some faith traditions claim a direct line of priesthood (the authority to teach and act in God's name) from Christ to Peter down to modern day clerics in an unbroken line. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we claim that the church established by Jesus Christ and Apostles while they lived on the earth disintegrated because of apostasy, martyrdoms, rebellion, unrighteousness, and disobedience. That early Christian church became corrupted to the point that new apostles were not called and the priesthood authority to govern Christ's Church on the earth ended. Without that divine authority, mankind was left to his own devices which lead to further disintegration of doctrine and practices. We claim that the Priesthood and Christ's Church were "restored" in our time through the prophet Joseph Smith. Hence we claim our Priesthood Line of Authority back to Jesus Christ himself to act in God's name and the authority to perform ordinances such as baptism and communion (sacrament).