Are the Apologists 'Set Apart' by the Brethren?

[_Daniel Peterson]

They were not, to the best of my understanding, "set apart."

In any event, to quote Lynn Hilton:
"This book grew out of a discovery trip sponsored by the Ensign magazine, and before going, we were set apart by a General Authority for the task."

Whatever. As Lynn once described it to me, he and Hope received a blessing for their trip. He didn't use the term set apart.

Nor did Jay M. Todd, the editor of the Ensign (which sponsored their trip), in his foreword to Lynn M. Hilton and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 9: "Then Elder Robert D. Hales, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve and managing director of the Church's Internal Communications Department, accepted an invitation to give a blessing to the travelers for their safety and success" [emphasis mine]. Nor did Lynn and Hope themselves, at Hilton and Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail, 15, when they refer to "Elder Robert D. Hales, who, upon learning of the assignment given to us [by the Ensign], wanted to meet us and learn of our preparations and expectations, and who then graciously accepted our request for a blessing" [emphasis mine].

It seems that Elder Hales was neither ordaining the Hiltons nor setting them apart, but, in fact, that he gave them a blessing at their request. (Settings apart and ordinations are not optional, merely performed if somebody asks. They're part and parcel of Church callings. But Elder Hales's blessing of the Hiltons occurred because they asked for it.)

As I said above, "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.'"

And a blessing I can understand, but an ordination or a setting apart for this I really can't. What would be the language? "Brother Hilton, I ordain you to the office of Three-Week Traveler in the Arabian Peninsula"? Or "Sister Hilton, I set you apart to serve as a passenger in a Toyota Land Cruiser inland from the Red Sea as well as to the northeast of the Rub‘ al-Khali"?

I'm not sure why this really matters much, to be honest. But if I see Lynn Hilton any time soon (I think he's serving a foreign mission at the moment) and I remember, I'll ask him.

Part of the line of inquiry on this thread has been whether or not the Brethren have given blessings to any of the apologists. Given your comments here--i.e., that blessings occur "often," including for new "jobs"--it still seems reasonable, if not imperative, to believe that apologists were given blessings by the Brethren

I wasn't, and I haven't heard of any of my colleagues having received such a blessing, either. Make of that what you will.

This has been your standard reply for ages, Dan, and it tells us precisely: nothing. Would you care to explain in more specific detail what you mean?

No, I wouldn't.

I've been answering your questions in good faith for nearly three years. It merely feeds your conspiratorial fantasies, and it never ends.

Otherwise, it seems to me that it could very well be interpreted as: the Brethren "occasionally set apart and bless apologists," their "distinctly slight" involvement means that they have tried very hard to maintain "plausible deniability," and they meet with all key apologists on "an individual basis."

No doubt you will interpret it that way.

But I've been neither set apart nor blessed in connection with my efforts as an apologist, and I don't know of anybody who has been. The Brethren don't meet with us to discuss apologetics, neither collectively nor individually. Their involvement with us is genuinely slight, distant, and sporadic. If you want (and I'm sure you will), you'll explain that as arising from a desire to maintain "plausible deniability." My own tentative explanation is that they're really, really busy. And most don't even read what we publish.

will you skulk back to MAD, hoping to quell the inquiries into this matter?

That's my plan, yes.

See? How accurate is this?

See? You ask me questions, and then, when I answer them, you respond that I'm lying or being deceptive.

You've been doing this for years.

What's the point?

There is none.

We know that the Church has supplied the MI with Ed Snow so that funds can be drummed up for more Mopologetic work.

Every college and substantial entity on campus has at least one fundraiser. The Maxwell Institute is a substantial entity on campus.

Were the Brethren contacted about this in any way?

I doubt it. They've got far too much to do to be concerned with such details.

Did the Brethren sign off on production of the FARMS Review?

No.

Were the Brethren consulted when FARMS became part of BYU?

Absolutely. The University's board of trustees has to approve significant changes like this.

Do the Brethren give us orders or micromanage our work? No.

Never, ever?

Never, ever.

In no way, shape, or for whatsoever?

In no way, shape, or for whatsoever.

I find that rather hard to believe

How utterly surprising.

particularly given what you said about them being involved on an "individual basis."

I didn't say that they were "involved on an 'individual basis.'" The word involved is yours, and it's misleading (perhaps, characteristically, deliberately so). Some are interested in apologetics. Most aren't. Elder Maxwell was. Elder Oaks has shown some interest. So has Elder Holland. They've shown their interest by reading some of what we've published. Elder Oaks once wrote to commend something I'd written. Elder Holland once quoted me in a talk to CES teachers or something. Elder Maxwell was something of a friend to me. Has any General Authority ever told me what to write or how the Institute should be run? No. Never.

No. Never.

That's probably not clear enough for you, but I'm afraid it's the best I can do.

Apologetics is one of the primary activities listed in the Mission Statement.

An inadequate mission statement, incidentally, that is in the final stages of being replaced by a much more carefully formulated and much more accurately descriptive one.

But the mission statement, in any event, is pretty weak evidence when compared to the evidence of what we actually do, which includes the utterly non-apologetic Middle Eastern Texts Initiative and the utterly non-apologetic Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, alongside FARMS, which is only partially apologetic in character.

But we've been over this many times, and there's no point in going over it yet again.

O, what a tangled web we weave!

I've always been forthright and accurate in my responses to your Scratchoscopies. That you would prefer to trust your own conspiracy fantasies and to label me a liar is your problem, not mine.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Let's assume that Scratch is right, that apologists really are "set apart". Is that really so embarrassing that DCP would spend pages and pages denying it? I really don't think so.

[_Ray A]

Let's assume that Scratch is right, that apologists really are "set apart". Is that really so embarrassing that DCP would spend pages and pages denying it? I really don't think so.

I get the gist of what DCP is saying. Frankly, I can't believe that any apologist is set apart as members are for callings, or priesthood offices.

But I can understand how a GA, possibly one who knows DCP, and I'm really into a hypothetical here, might in the course of a blessing say something like, "may your understanding continue to increase as you protect and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may you have patience with Mister Scratch".

Okay, that last bit was just a joke I could resist.

No offence to Scratch either.

[_Yong Xi]

I've always been forthright and accurate in my responses to your Scratchoscopies. That you would prefer to trust your own conspiracy fantasies and to label me a liar is your problem, not mine.

Daniel, I had hoped (seriously) for success in your twelve step program as you fought your apparent drug of choice, Scratch. It appears that you have incurred a major relapse. Perhaps a brief stay at the Utah Boys Ranch would be helpful. If you are too busy for that, may I suggest that you tie your hands to your bedpost and refrain from using your laptop while lying in bed.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Let's assume that Scratch is right, that apologists really are "set apart". Is that really so embarrassing that DCP would spend pages and pages denying it? I really don't think so.

Exactly. If we were, I would freely admit it. It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other.

But we aren't, and I care about accuracy.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Daniel, I had hoped (seriously) for success in your twelve step program as you fought your apparent drug of choice, Scratch. It appears that you have incurred a major relapse. Perhaps a brief stay at the Utah Boys Ranch would be helpful. If you are too busy for that, may I suggest that you tie your hands to your bedpost and refrain from using your laptop while lying in bed.

Don't worry.

I just didn't want the supposed setting apart of the Hiltons to go uncorrected. I suspect that Lynn's reference to a "setting apart" was a careless slip of the pen, perhaps made easier by the passage of three decades. (His wife Hope is dead.) It doesn't make sense, it doesn't coincide with what Lynn told me, it doesn't accord with what Lynn and Hope wrote elsewhere soon after the event, and it doesn't agree with what Jay Todd, the sponsor of their trip, also wrote soon after the event.

[_Yong Xi]

Daniel, I had hoped (seriously) for success in your twelve step program as you fought your apparent drug of choice, Scratch. It appears that you have incurred a major relapse. Perhaps a brief stay at the Utah Boys Ranch would be helpful. If you are too busy for that, may I suggest that you tie your hands to your bedpost and refrain from using your laptop while lying in bed.

Don't worry.

I just didn't want the supposed setting apart of the Hiltons to go uncorrected. I suspect that Lynn's reference to a "setting apart" was a careless slip of the pen, perhaps made easier by the passage of three decades. (His wife Hope is dead.) It doesn't make sense, it doesn't coincide with what Lynn told me, it doesn't accord with what Lynn and Hope wrote elsewhere soon after the event, and it doesn't agree with what Jay Todd, the sponsor of their trip, also wrote soon after the event.

by the way, it just occurred to me that if Scratch is the drug and DCP is the Junkie, does that make Shades the dealer?

[_Ray A]

by the way, it just occurred to me that if Scratch is the drug and DCP is the Junkie, does that make Shades the dealer?

LOL.

[_Mister Scratch]

I just didn't want the supposed setting apart of the Hiltons to go uncorrected. I suspect that Lynn's reference to a "setting apart" was a careless slip of the pen, perhaps made easier by the passage of three decades. (His wife Hope is dead.) It doesn't make sense, it doesn't coincide with what Lynn told me, it doesn't accord with what Lynn and Hope wrote elsewhere soon after the event, and it doesn't agree with what Jay Todd, the sponsor of their trip, also wrote soon after the event.

If we were [set apart], I would freely admit it. It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other.

ROFL!

[_Mister Scratch]

Nor did Jay M. Todd, the editor of the Ensign (which sponsored their trip), in his foreword to Lynn M. Hilton and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 9: "Then Elder Robert D. Hales, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve and managing director of the Church's Internal Communications Department, accepted an invitation to give a blessing to the travelers for their safety and success" [emphasis mine]. Nor did Lynn and Hope themselves, at Hilton and Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail, 15, when they refer to "Elder Robert D. Hales, who, upon learning of the assignment given to us [by the Ensign], wanted to meet us and learn of our preparations and expectations, and who then graciously accepted our request for a blessing" [emphasis mine].

It seems that Elder Hales was neither ordaining the Hiltons nor setting them apart, but, in fact, that he gave them a blessing at their request. (Settings apart and ordinations are not optional, merely performed if somebody asks. They're part and parcel of Church callings. But Elder Hales's blessing of the Hiltons occurred because they asked for it.)

Not necessarily. It could very well be that they were set apart to do this work, and, subsequently, that they requested a blessing in order to do it. And by the way: I'll not in passing that this is one of the most substantive, well-researched (and, frankly, anxious) posts I've ever seen you write. It leaves me with the impression that a lot (at least in your own mind) is at stake in persuading (well, pretty much EVERYONE) that *NOBODY* ever gets blessed or set apart to do apologetic work. Why might you be so anxious about that, I wonder?

As I said above, "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.'"

Hence why it seems more than reasonable why they'd be blessed or set apart for this very important work. C'mon, Professor P.---do deny that their work was important for Mopologetics would be the very height of equivocation.

And a blessing I can understand, but an ordination or a setting apart for this I really can't. What would be the language? "Brother Hilton, I ordain you to the office of Three-Week Traveler in the Arabian Peninsula"? Or "Sister Hilton, I set you apart to serve as a passenger in a Toyota Land Cruiser inland from the Red Sea as well as to the northeast of the Rub‘ al-Khali"?

Wow. I mean: Wow. I am blown away to see you ridicule the blessing and setting apart process in this way. Honestly--and Dan, I know we have a lot between us---this blows me away. I never, EVER, thought I would see you doing something like this. To be frank, I would imagine the GA in question saying, "May you seek out the Lord's will" or "May you discover Heavenly Father's truths," or something like that. I find it stunning that you would so totally try to undermine the process in this regard. It raises the question: Why?

I'm not sure why this really matters much, to be honest.

Given your lengthy response, I'm certain it does matter.

But if I see Lynn Hilton any time soon (I think he's serving a foreign mission at the moment) and I remember, I'll ask him.

Since, you know, it doesn't matter or anything. (Keep trying to cover it up, Dan. Believing LDS don't care about the truth, after all.)

Part of the line of inquiry on this thread has been whether or not the Brethren have given blessings to any of the apologists. Given your comments here--i.e., that blessings occur "often," including for new "jobs"--it still seems reasonable, if not imperative, to believe that apologists were given blessings by the Brethren

I wasn't, and I haven't heard of any of my colleagues having received such a blessing, either. Make of that what you will.

Which such "blessing"? I never specified, after all. I merely asked whether or not you or any other of the apologists were--very generally speaking--given blessings. That's a question you've very noticeably avoided answering.

This has been your standard reply for ages, Dan, and it tells us precisely: nothing. Would you care to explain in more specific detail what you mean?

No, I wouldn't.

I've been answering your questions in good faith for nearly three years. It merely feeds your conspiratorial fantasies, and it never ends.

No, you haven't been answering my questions "in good faith." Unless your "faith" entails something other than what the Church teaches. (Then again---in all fairness--you *have* said that you see a lot that's "wrong" about the Church.)

Otherwise, it seems to me that it could very well be interpreted as: the Brethren "occasionally set apart and bless apologists," their "distinctly slight" involvement means that they have tried very hard to maintain "plausible deniability," and they meet with all key apologists on "an individual basis."

No doubt you will interpret it that way.

But I've been neither set apart nor blessed in connection with my efforts as an apologist, and I don't know of anybody who has been.

Who's to judge? If I am given a blessing and I am instructed to be fair in my dealings, and I happen to be a lawyer, does that mean that I have been blessed to be a lawyer? I believe that your answer does not account for loopholes such as this. You say, "I have not been blessed to be an apologist." Well, have you been blessed to "defend the Church"? Or to "do scholarship that is favorable to the Church"? Or anything remotely like that? Of course, I know you won't say. I think we both know why that is.

The Brethren don't meet with us to discuss apologetics, neither collectively nor individually.

Is that according to protocol? The 1995 protocol, perhaps?

Their involvement with us is genuinely slight, distant, and sporadic. If you want (and I'm sure you will), you'll explain that as arising from a desire to maintain "plausible deniability." My own tentative explanation is that they're really, really busy. And most don't even read what we publish.

Right. Only the politically advantageous ones "read what [you] publish." Such as Merrill Bateman. The spool continues to unravel.

See? How accurate is this?

See? You ask me questions, and then, when I answer them, you respond that I'm lying or being deceptive.

No. This seems to be a deliberate distortion on your part. I ask a simple question like, "Are you paid for your apologetics?" And you consistently fail to give a simple answer: "Yes." Instead, you say, "Well, my salary has nothing to do with it," etc., which isn't entirely true. At least one year, $20,000 of your salary was devoted to your work as Chair of FARMS, which is an apologetic position, I think you'll have to admit.

We know that the Church has supplied the MI with Ed Snow so that funds can be drummed up for more Mopologetic work.

Every college and substantial entity on campus has at least one fundraiser. The Maxwell Institute is a substantial entity on campus.

Yes, I'm well aware of how "substantial" the MI is. It would never have been integrated into the MI if it hadn't been. One can only wonder why the Mayan-style pyramid was never erected. Though I'm sure many of us have a pretty good idea. Would you care to enlighten us, Oh-Stressed-Out One?

Were the Brethren contacted about this in any way?

I doubt it. They've got far too much to do to be concerned with such details.

Gee... That's odd. My understanding is that Merrill Bateman (at one point the President of BYU) was a GA, and that, at one point, he had been a big-wig in FARMS. This would suggest that you guys had an "insider." Would you say that's a fair assessment?

Did the Brethren sign off on production of the FARMS Review?

No.

Oh. Allow me to clarify what I meant: Did the Brethren sign off on production of the FARMS Review during any time whatsoever, either implicitly or explicitly--such as, for example, during the tumultuous times in the mid-1990s?

Were the Brethren consulted when FARMS became part of BYU?

Absolutely. The University's board of trustees has to approve significant changes like this.

Which would mean, then, that they would have had some say in the FARMS Review. Why do you persist in clouding the truth, Professor Peterson? I don't understand that about you. I won't do to you as you do to me, and label you "insane," or "malevolent," or whatever your epithet du jour happens to be these days. But I do genuinely wonder why you aren't more straightforward. I really do.

[

Do the Brethren give us orders or micromanage our work? No.

Never, ever.

Well, come on now. They had to be in on the Protocol of 1995. Has that ever been published, by the way?

In no way, shape, or for whatsoever?

In no way, shape, or for whatsoever.

Lol. "Only Siths deal in absolutes!"

particularly given what you said about them being involved on an "individual basis."

I didn't say that they were "involved on an 'individual basis.'" The word involved is yours, and it's misleading (perhaps, characteristically, deliberately so). Some are interested in apologetics. Most aren't. Elder Maxwell was. Elder Oaks has shown some interest. So has Elder Holland. They've shown their interest by reading some of what we've published. Elder Oaks once wrote to commend something I'd written. Elder Holland once quoted me in a talk to CES teachers or something. Elder Maxwell was something of a friend to me.

Wow! What a dumb admission: "Elder Maxwell was something of a friend to me." I bet he was! I bet that's how you characterize those General Authorities you managed to beetle-brow into submission. Tell me: Was he one of the ones who was suckered by the notion of the FARMS ziggurat?

Has any General Authority ever told me what to write or how the Institute should be run? No. Never.

Right. And we know that you would resign your BYU professorship if they ever did. We know who rules the roost. You told us as much in a thread not all that long ago.

Apologetics is one of the primary activities listed in the Mission Statement.

An inadequate mission statement, incidentally, that is in the final stages of being replaced by a much more carefully formulated and much more accurately descriptive one.

Ah, of course! Of course it's "being revised." Keep walking that tight rope!

But the mission statement, in any event, is pretty weak evidence when compared to the evidence of what we actually do, which includes the utterly non-apologetic Middle Eastern Texts Initiative and the utterly non-apologetic Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, alongside FARMS, which is only partially apologetic in character.

Yes, and presumably all of this was laid out in the Protocol of 1995? That's why you can't tell us the "full truth"?

O, what a tangled web we weave!

I've always been forthright and accurate in my responses to your Scratchoscopies. That you would prefer to trust your own conspiracy fantasies and to label me a liar is your problem, not mine.

Nope. Not true. When asked, "Are you paid for apologetics?" You did not answer "yes." Instead, you equivocated (as you have done here on the matter of setting apart and blessings) and said, "Not one dime of my salary goes to apologetics"---something which is highly debatable.