silentkid wrote:The Hiltons were set apart, yet DCP claims he has never heard of it happening. Weird.
I knew the Hiltons well. They were members of the Cairo Branch while I lived there; I was his home teaching companion.
They were given a blessing prior to a long trip in a remote, foreign, and sometimes risky place. (College students are often blessed by their fathers prior to a new semester. I've often given blessings to members of my ward, at their request, when they're starting a new job.) They were not, to the best of my understanding, "set apart."
silentkid wrote:I actually find it more interesting that certain apologists want to claim that the brethren have nothing to do with apologetics...no connection at all.
"Nothing to do with apologetics"? "No connection at alI"? don't know who's claimed that. I haven't.
But the connection is only occasional, distinctly slight, and mostly on an individual basis.
But does the Church set apologists apart or ordain them? No. Does it fund them directly? No. Does it fund them indirectly? In the sense that BYU partially supports the work of the Maxwell Institute, I suppose it sort of does. But much of the work of the Maxwell Institute is volunteer work, in any event. It isn't paid at all. Do the Brethren give us orders or micromanage our work? No. Do they read what we produce? Some do. Some don't. Probably most don't.
silentkid wrote:Who cares if the church finances and endorses apologetics? I don't. But certain apologists do. That's what I find interesting.
Oh, I
definitely care. Life would be much, much easier if the Church financed apologetics. As it is, FAIR gets no money from the Church at all. And the Maxwell Institute, the work of which is only partially (considerably less than a quarter) apologetic in character, receives a relatively small portion (considerably less than half) of its basic funding -- e.g., to partially support office functions, but not to support projects -- from BYU, which is largely (but not entirely) funded by the Church.