Scratch wrote:Funny you mention FARMS personnel shaking their heads at Pres. Packer. I remember during my stint at FARMS being present when a couple of top personnel at FARMS were commenting that he had apparently made some remarks to the effect that he believed that FARMS was trying to “make money off of the general authorities”. I was surprised that they would be talking about an apostle that way, but then again maybe they were surprised that an apostle had apparently made those types of comments about them (FARMS). (emphasis added)
So your source is somebody reporting a comment allegedly somehow made by two anonymous FARMS "personnel" reporting a comment allegedly made by Elder Packer.
Who could possibly quibble with so rock solid a piece of evidence?
Scratch wrote:Dan Ellsworth did formerly work for you guys, no?
I don't recognize his name, but it's certainly possible that he did at some point or another. Shippers and receptionists and source-checkers and etc. have come and gone many times over the years.
Scratch wrote: Do you have a date?
Why should that matter?
Because I would find your source's recollection of a comment about a comment somewhat less plausible, as it's phrased in your citation, if it refers to a period after, say, around the mid-1990s, when Elder Packer made the remark, in my hearing, to which I referred above.
Scratch wrote:Huh. That's interesting. I'd always been under the impression---thanks to your comments, mostly---that the GAs had virtually nothing to do with FARMS and apologetics.
Which is true.
Scratch wrote:But, here, it sounds like you were at a meeting not only with BKP, but with GBH, reporting on apologetics and its finances and motives.
No, I was at a meeting with not only Elder Packer and President Hinckley but the entire First Presidency, about half of the Twelve, and etc. -- the BYU board of trustees -- about FARMS becoming affiliated with BYU. We were discussing the initial affiliation protocol, which needed board approval. I represented FARMS; then-BYU-president Rex Lee represented the University. The meeting was emphatically
not about "apologetics and its finances and motives." If such a meeting has ever occurred on that level, I was not privy to it and have never heard of it.
Scratch wrote:Perhaps we shouldn't clutter up Eric's thread, though? If you scroll down and find the threads I started on the front page of this forum, you'll see where these issues were raised.
I don't see that much more remains to be said.