Are the Apologists 'Set Apart' by the Brethren?

[_Mister Scratch]

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.

My Dear Dr. Mill:

You are so right: if this is so "unimportant," why would DCP care? He has said repeatedly that it is "unimportant," and moreover, I am supposed to be some lousy conspiracy theorist. So what's the deal? What's your take on it, Dr. Mill?

[_Daniel Peterson]

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.

Ockham's Razor is a sound principle.

anxious . . . anxious

LOL.

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.

I don't believe that you're really so dense as to have missed my point that completely. Your act isn't convincing.

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.

I've flatly denied it several times.

That would be enough for a normal person.

You say, "I have not been blessed to be an apologist." Well, have you been blessed to "defend the Church"?

No.

Or to "do scholarship that is favorable to the Church"?

No.

Or anything remotely like that?

No.

Of course, I know you won't say. I think we both know why that is.

!!!!!!!

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

I have no idea whatever what "the 1995 protocol" might be. It rings no bell with me at all.

The spool continues to unravel.

???

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.

I've denied it every time you've asserted it, and I deny it yet again. So no, as a matter of fact I don't have to admit it.

This would suggest that you guys had an "insider." Would you say that's a fair assessment?

No, I wouldn't. President Bateman has never been personally involved with FARMS during the years I have been, and I've been very seriously involved with FARMS for two decades -- which includes the period both before and after his presidency of BYU.

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?

No. Never.

Which would mean, then, that they would have had some say in the FARMS Review.

No, it would not. BYU has never intervened in any way at all with regard to the FARMS Review, and the Brethren are even more distant.

Why do you persist in clouding the truth, Professor Peterson? I don't understand that about you. . . . I do genuinely wonder why you aren't more straightforward. I really do.

As is your wont, you ask me questions and then, when I answer them, pronounce me a liar.

A pointless exercise, as ever.

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

Not so far as I know. I've never heard of it.

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.

He was a friend. I liked him very much. Do you have any friends?

Tell me: Was he one of the ones who was suckered by the notion of the FARMS ziggurat?

??????

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"?

[/quote]
When your creepy network of anonymous informants provides you with a copy of this mysterious document, I hope you'll share it.

[_Trevor]

Thanks for the interesting information, Daniel. Personally, I would love to read a history of Mormon apologetics. Do you know whether anyone out there is pursuing that project?

[_antishock8]

... we were set apart by a General Authority for the task. Our effort resulted in the book that was based on our two articles titled "In Search of Lehi's Trail,"

It's very clear General Authorities are interested in calling and setting apart Mormon church members in the endeavor of apologetics.

That particular GA set apart that particular couple for the express purpose of apologia. Their calling resulted in apologetic material.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Yes, Lynn and Hope Hilton requested and were given a blessing for the trip into remote Arabia that the Ensign had commissioned them to do. (Back in the mid-1970s, travel in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman was even more exotic and difficult than it is in 2009.) It's not uncommon for Latter-day Saints to request blessings before starting a school year, getting married, beginning a new job, and the like. And Latter-day Saint priesthood holders who are asked to pronounce blessings don't typically refuse to do so.

Thanks for the interesting information, Daniel. Personally, I would love to read a history of Mormon apologetics. Do you know whether anyone out there is pursuing that project?

I don't.

John-Charles Duffy might be working in that direction, but the lengthy article he did about FARMS for Sunstone a few years back, while a contribution, was seriously flawed by hostile bias and inaccuracy.

I think the history of FARMS would be a good subject for, say, a BYU master's thesis, though. I've tried to float the idea of at least launching an oral history project on the topic, but nobody's jumped at it yet. Perhaps the principals don't yet feel sufficiently "past-tense."

I've always had an unusually strong interest in at least preserving unique and irreplaceable personal memories, perhaps from listening to my father talk about his experiences in Patton's Third Army during the Second World War and specifically about the liberation of the concentration camp at Mauthausen -- and perhaps, too, from discovering that a very elderly and seemingly very ordinary neighbor had served as the radioman on the first attempt, in 1931, to take a submarine under the polar ice cap. I often read the obituary pages, and lament the fact that most people die and are soon forgotten, without having passed on very much information about the things they saw and experienced.

So, anyway, I would love to see such a history done.

[_Tarski]

My take is that

1) since a GA can decide to give a blessing regarding any matter especially if requested, it is possible, maybe likely that someone somewhere has neen "set apart" in some sense for a task that we would call apologetic.

2) If this were standard or common, I think we would know about it by now. People talk.

3) I am not inclined at all to think that Dan Peterson's repeated flat denials that he was set apart for apologetics are anything but the simple truth. He says no to the question no matter how it is phrased. I am not much for conspiracy theories.

4) I fail to see the motivation for hiding such a thing in the first place.

[_Trevor]

John-Charles Duffy might be working in that direction, but the lengthy article he did about FARMS for Sunstone a few years back, while a contribution, was seriously flawed by hostile bias and inaccuracy.

I was a little surprised by that, since he did an earlier piece that seemed more positive. Or, it is possible that at the time giving FARMS any credit seemed quite positive to me. The hostility that is there, in any case, does not seem to be unmixed with some respect. I seem to recall a rebuttal letter that sought to set the record straight.

I think the history of FARMS would be a good subject for, say, a BYU master's thesis, though. I've tried to float the idea of at least launching an oral history project on the topic, but nobody's jumped at it yet. Perhaps the principals don't yet feel sufficiently "past-tense."

The American Philological Association published a short history in one issue of the Transactions. Maybe the Review might do likewise? It would be interesting to see an anniversary issue of some kind with reminiscences like Dialogue had a while back.

I've always had an unusually strong interest in at least preserving unique and irreplaceable personal memories, perhaps from listening to my father talk about his experiences in Patton's Third Army during the Second World War and specifically about the liberation of the concentration camp at Mauthausen -- and perhaps, too, from discovering that a very elderly and seemingly very ordinary neighbor had served as the radioman on the first attempt, in 1931, to take a submarine under the polar ice cap. I often read the obituary pages, and lament the fact that most people die and are soon forgotten, without having passed on very much information about the things they saw and experienced.

So, anyway, I would love to see such a history done.

I would too, and it ought to be done fairly soon. Maybe one of your enterprising young apologists could submit a proposal to get funding from the MI for a summer project to collect oral history of Mormon apologetics? Frankly, I find the whole thing fascinating. I have been looking for someone to publish a good history of Mormon apologetics for years now.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I gave an oral presentation on the history of the FARMS Review to a BYU Education Week audience two or three years ago, and several colleagues are pestering me to turn that into an article. Trouble is, I've lost the notes. I can't even find them on my computer yet, for some reason. But I'll eventually do it.





.

[_dblagent007]

My take is that

1) since a GA can decide to give a blessing regarding any matter especially if requested, it is possible, maybe likely that someone somewhere has neen "set apart" in some sense for a task that we would call apologetic.

2) If this were standard or common, I think we would know about it by now. People talk.

3) I am not inclined at all to think that Dan Peterson's repeated flat denials that he was set apart for apologetics are anything but the simple truth. He says no to the question no matter how it is phrased. I am not much for conspiracy theories.

4) I fail to see the motivation for hiding such a thing in the first place.

Yeah, but you don't have a psychotic bent that leads you to assert ridiculous things that have no evidentiary basis only to follow them up with "If you can supply a good reason why the General Authorities wouldn't have blessed or set apart the apologists . . . then feel free to do so."

It's sort of like me saying that Scratch regularly frequents houses of prostitution and then asserting that "If you can supply a good reason why Scratch does not frequent houses of prostitution, then feel free to do so." Scratch's repeated denials cannot be trusted, of course!

[_Trevor]

I gave an oral presentation on the history of the FARMS Review to a BYU Education Week audience two or three years ago, and several colleagues are pestering me to turn that into an article. Trouble is, I've lost the notes. I can't even find them on my computer yet, for some reason. But I'll eventually do it.

I wonder whether anyone happened to record it. There was that fellow (I should remember his name) who was working on the photography of the carbonized papyri, I think his wife passed not long ago... Anyway, I used to watch him set up to tape Nibley's lectures. Perhaps some enterprising soul was doing the same for you that day.