10. College Terrace Fire Used for PR In any extraordinarily boneheaded move, Bishop and Mopologist and Professor Daniel C. Peterson posted a thread on the aptly named MADboard in which he rather breathlessly invited readers to "See My Ward on Television!" In fact, it quickly became clear that The Good Professor was using his ward as a PR opportunity for the LDS Church. However, his promotional efforts backfired, since he seemed to be making light of the fact that a tragic fire had burned out some of the tenants of the College Terrace apartment building. Indeed, DCP went on to speculate that the fire had been caused by "inactives" and "non-members," thus further affirming (at least in theory) the righteousness of his fellow LDS. Although some readers were sympathetic to his tactics, at least one poster characterized his behavior as "braggadocio."
9. Wheat Stalks Runtu The malign poster known as "Wheat" made an unsavory name for himself as he began to stalk and harass the mild-mannered poster known as Runtu. Widely believed to be a sockpuppet for William Schryver, Wheat continues to post rather vicious and morally questionable material on MDB.
8. MDB Tightens its Belt In the wake of the "flight" of several prominent posters, MDB "founder and visionary" Dr. Shades agreed to clamp down the moderating policies, making it more difficult for vulgar and attack-minded posters to ply their trade. Additionally, a series of explosive and scandalous developments led to a few precedents, including censorship of posts, and the locking of certain threads. This would therefore seem to mark the end of Dr. Shades's "free speech" experiment, leading some to wonder if MDB will one day come to resemble the old ZLMB.
7. Chad Hardy's Missionary Beefcake Calendar During the summer, LDS Chad Hardy released a calendar featuring a series of returned missionaries sans shirts. The calendar was labeled "homo erotic" by some, and Hardy was branded a dangerous iconoclast. Later, BYU sought to deprive him of his diploma, and he faced discipline by way of a Church Court. Some speculated that the incident revealed both latent and explicit fears of sexuality within Mormonism.
6. Kerry Shirts: Mopologetic Auteur On YouTube, viewers were treated to the talents of the budding John Cassavettes, Kerry Shirts, who generously taped long segments of the FAIR conference. Shirt's cinema verite style and his penchant for mugging for the camera earned him a number of fans....and detractors. While some saw his filmmaking technique as amateurish, others admired his general verve and goofiness. Overall, the general consensus was the Shirts did a good deed by connecting old online names with real-life faces.
5. Prop 8 A polarizing issue, the LDS Church faced a great deal of heat and backlash in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California. This law, which would prohibit gay marriage, was heavily funded by Mormons. In the days following the vote, temples and chapels were on high alert as pro-gay protesters unleashed their fury.
4. DCP "Outs" GoodK In a colossal violation of Internet etiquette, Daniel Peterson "outed" the poster known as GoodK to GoodK's father. Posters were stunned and disgusted by the essentially unethical nature of DCP's actions. Fueled by speculation, many assumed that DCP used the opportunity to smear and attack a young and increasingly important critic of the Church. (GoodK is the child of a notable, published FARMS apologist.) While DCP maintained that he was simply doing what he would want another to do in his place, the consensus is that he behaved badly. No apology has, as of yet, come forth from the Chief Apologist.
3. SP Keyes Lashes Out At Tal Bachman Apparently prompted by a member of FAIR, Stake President Keyes, a former confidant to noted ex-Mormon Tal Bachman, posted a letter repudiating Tal's account of their meetings. According to Tal, Keyes had expressed some doubts concerning a number of the Church's truth claims. Keyes, operating at the behest of FAIR, posted an "open letter" in which he proceeded to contradict much of what Tal has said. Oddly, Keyes's denunciation was accompanied by an angry letter from Keyes's wife. The incident led many TBMs to accuse Bachman of "twisting" and "misrepresenting" the events. On the other hand, Keyes's publication of his letter on the FAIR blog led others to believe that Mopologetics carries considerable sway in terms of the ways otherwise non-Mopologetic Mormons behave.
2. Rodney Meldrum Mopologetics suffered an enormous PR setback thanks to the sustained efforts of the Chapel Mormon known as Rodney Meldrum. As if a rock had been thrown into a wasp's next, FAIR and other Mopologetic venues responded with alarming vigor to Meldrum's theories concerning the geography of the Book of Mormon. Whereas "Internet Mormons" maintain that the events in the Book of Mormon occurred in Latin America, Brother Meldrum has steadfastly maintained that the tradition doctrinal view--i.e., that said Book of Mormon events occurred in North America--are correct. In return for his convictions, Meldrum was thrown under the bus and accused of all manner of heresies. Allen Wyatt even accused him of being in it purely for the money. At heart, Meldrum exposed a central schism at the heart of modern Mormonism, and Mormon apologetics.
1. Mopologists Are Paid The most explosive and important revelation pertaining to Mopologetics of 2008 emerged in the wake of a post by GoodK on 3/10/2008:
GoodK wrote:Mister Scratch wrote:Just out of curiosity: Why would this harm a Mopologist's "credibility"/"opportunity"?
For one thing, DCP has said repeatedly that Mopologists do not gain financially in any way for their apologetics activities.
Did he really? What does Dan do besides Mopology?
Of course they gain financially from apologetic activities, even small time contributors to the FARMS review. He should at least be able to admit that.
Many in the world of online Mopologetics (myself included) had long believed---thanks to comments by DCP and others---that apologists never received any monetary or other compensation for their work. DCP himself told Infymus, in a bit of equivocation, that he had never received "one dime" for Mopologetics. Indeed, even Dr. Shades found GoodK's post to be mind-blowing:
Dr. Shades wrote:GoodK wrote:Of course they gain financially from apologetic activities, even small time contributors to the FARMS review.
WHOA THERE; that's a bombshell! Will you please elaborate?
It turned out that, in fact, DCP and other apologists had been profiting for years, and that the financing of Mopologetics involved a multi-million-dollar web of intrigue. In post after post and thread after thread, the vast monetary empire of FARMS was exposed, and yet, even after all of this time, the full truth has not emerged. According to one tax document, DCP was paid over $20,000 for his apologetic works, and yet he denies that he ever saw any of the money, thus thickening the plot.
Meanwhile, TBMs have responded to these revelations by making jokes. The subject of Mopologetic financing was made a hotly read topic at MAD, and multiple "funnies" were made over this issue during Kerry Shirts's taping of the FAIR conference.
Perhaps most damning is the fact that apologists, notably Louis Midgley, have harshly attack poorly funded ministries critical of Mormonism in spite of the fact that FARMS has and operating budget that is in the millions. Just how these facts will affect Mopologetics in the end is unclear. What is certain is that these revelations---which, it should be pointed out, lured DCP out of his protective "shell" at MAD---marked a genuine "watershed moment" in the history of Mopologetics, much to the anger and chagrin of TBMs.