Nearly three weeks ago, I began a thread that was meant to explore the ever-fascinating question, "How much are Mopologists compensated for their work?" This inquiry was prompted by the appearance, on the Mormon Interpreter Web site, of a pair of remarkable documents: .pdf files of the MI's budgetary expenses for the months of August and September. This led at least one of us to wonder aloud if, in fact, a certain noteworthy "Kingpin" of Mopologetics had actually been compensated as much as $20,000 per annum for his work on the old Review. For the sake of reference, the old thread can be read here:
But I especially wanted to call readers' attention to this very prescient remark from Bond James Bond:
Bond James Bond wrote:$50/hr says the transparency disappears soon.
Indeed, it turns out that Mr. Bond was correct! There is no new .pdf file for October! The thing is, they cannot hide this forever--as a non-profit organization, they will always be required to file a public tax statement on their expenses, ala FAIR and ala the old "classic-FARMS."
And, in all fairness, it may simply be that they are running behind schedule and that the October .pdf will materialize sometime in the next week or two. Regardless, I found it interesting that Mr. Bond has (at least thus far) seemed to correctly predict the future.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
I've been away from the boards for a while and I am trying to catch up. From what I have read it looks the "MI" has been recycling articles from prior publications and putting these in the new editions of the "MI"? And the "MI" has been collecting donations and paying the authors to recycle articles?
Do I have this right? Can someone please help correct me if I am wrong?
Peppermint Patty wrote:I've been away from the boards for a while and I am trying to catch up. From what I have read it looks the "MI" has been recycling articles from prior publications and putting these in the new editions of the "MI"? And the "MI" has been collecting donations and paying the authors to recycle articles?
Do I have this right? Can someone please help correct me if I am wrong?
Hi, Peppermint Patty. It's not totally clear what the Mormon Interpreter has been doing, but I don't think you're too far off-base. For example, we know that both the Tvedtnes piece, and one of the Midgley articles had appeared previously, almost verbatim, in other venues. We also know that many of the articles had been slated to appear in the issue of the Mormon Studies Review that was canceled by Doctor Bradford. You kind of have to find it objectionable that Dr. Peterson has been boasting about posting a "new" item each week--clearly, that's not the case.
As to whether or not they are "paying" themselves with the donations.... Well, to be charitable, I would assume that they're pumping the donations back into the enterprise itself, but I guess the truth is that we don't know for certain.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Doctor Scratch wrote:As to whether or not they are "paying" themselves with the donations.... Well, to be charitable, I would assume that they're pumping the donations back into the enterprise itself, but I guess the truth is that we don't know for certain.
Well, what's the point of not publishing the financials than to keep people from seeing what they are doing with contributions?
If MI's contributors wouldn't mind and would keep making contributions, why would MI care what its detractors say about the expenditures--unless the MI'ers are ashamed because their acolytes think they are doing apologetics out of their personal fealty and generosity to the LDS church?
They can't keep their financials a secret. Even if they don't publish them on the MI Web site, they'll still have to "publish" them in the form of publicly available tax documents. It would have been really fascinating to see what people were being paid after FARMS was formally "absorbed" into BYU. Something we may have been overlooking amidst all of this is the fact that, at the time (i.e., the mid-1990s), FARMS had become quite an extraordinary fundraising machine. It had an operating budget of well over $1 million, and they had just launched a campaign to raise over $7 million for their new "ziggurat"-type office building. It was more or less at precisely this point that the Church swooped in to integrate FARMS into BYU. See: the Mopologist defenders want to try and remind you that Pres. Hinckley, Pres. Packer, et al. "praised" the apologists, but they gloss over the equally important fact that FARMS had become a magnet for significant donations having to do with Church "research" and/or "scholarship." So, was FARMS "welcomed" into BYU because the Brethren really loved their apologetics and "research"? Or were they brought in once it became clear that they were capable of attracting $7 million worth of donations? The likelihood, in my opinion, is that it was a combination of both.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Between this and my 100% prediction of the 2012 Presidential election six months beforehand I think I might just have psychic powers.
Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded.-charity 3/7/07
MASH quotes I peeked in the back [of the Bible] Frank, the Devil did it. I avoid church religiously. This isn't one of my sermons, I expect you to listen.
Doctor Scratch wrote:They can't keep their financials a secret. Even if they don't publish them on the MI Web site, they'll still have to "publish" them in the form of publicly available tax documents. It would have been really fascinating to see what people were being paid after FARMS was formally "absorbed" into BYU. Something we may have been overlooking amidst all of this is the fact that, at the time (i.e., the mid-1990s), FARMS had become quite an extraordinary fundraising machine. It had an operating budget of well over $1 million, and they had just launched a campaign to raise over $7 million for their new "ziggurat"-type office building. It was more or less at precisely this point that the Church swooped in to integrate FARMS into BYU. See: the Mopologist defenders want to try and remind you that Pres. Hinckley, Pres. Packer, et al. "praised" the apologists, but they gloss over the equally important fact that FARMS had become a magnet for significant donations having to do with Church "research" and/or "scholarship." So, was FARMS "welcomed" into BYU because the Brethren really loved their apologetics and "research"? Or were they brought in once it became clear that they were capable of attracting $7 million worth of donations? The likelihood, in my opinion, is that it was a combination of both.
How much of a factor, if any, do you think that absorption into BYU was motivated to keep FARMS from developing Mormon theology into detail while the FP/12 wanted to file off the rough edges in Hinckley's taking a turn towards mainstreaming LDS?:
Doctor Scratch wrote:They can't keep their financials a secret. Even if they don't publish them on the MI Web site, they'll still have to "publish" them in the form of publicly available tax documents. It would have been really fascinating to see what people were being paid after FARMS was formally "absorbed" into BYU. Something we may have been overlooking amidst all of this is the fact that, at the time (i.e., the mid-1990s), FARMS had become quite an extraordinary fundraising machine. It had an operating budget of well over $1 million, and they had just launched a campaign to raise over $7 million for their new "ziggurat"-type office building. It was more or less at precisely this point that the Church swooped in to integrate FARMS into BYU. See: the Mopologist defenders want to try and remind you that Pres. Hinckley, Pres. Packer, et al. "praised" the apologists, but they gloss over the equally important fact that FARMS had become a magnet for significant donations having to do with Church "research" and/or "scholarship." So, was FARMS "welcomed" into BYU because the Brethren really loved their apologetics and "research"? Or were they brought in once it became clear that they were capable of attracting $7 million worth of donations? The likelihood, in my opinion, is that it was a combination of both.
How much of a factor, if any, do you think that absorption into BYU was motivated to keep FARMS from developing Mormon theology into detail while the FP/12 wanted to file off the rough edges in Hinckley's taking a turn towards mainstreaming LDS?:
It's tough to say. I would certainly agree that FARMS was brought into BYU so that the Brethren could keep the Mopologists on a tighter leash, though I don't at all believe that the apologists always did what they were told. I think that there were probably quite a few instances where they were told to do something by the Brethren, and they flagrantly disregarded the instructions.
But how much of this actually had to do with doctrine and theology? Probably very litte. Most of FARMS's output had virtually nothing to do with that sort of thing. As we all know, the bulk of the Review was dismissive attack articles that were meant to tear down other people and their arguments.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
Considering both, the LDS Church may not have set out to defang FARMS, but the uptake of these two events is that the old FARMerS are quite marginalized in the larger LDS scheme than they were before being institutionalized by BYU. The trajectory that FARMS was on in the mid-1990s had to have been a concern to the COB and maintaining its powers. The amount of fund raising, particularly what FARMS had set its sights on for a goal, had to make FARMS appear more of a threat to the COB than a mere hobby for Welch, Midgley, DCP, and Hambone. It's almost as if the folding of FARMS into NAMIRS was an action by the SCMC to save FARMS from becoming heretical.
What type of a threat? A giddy cabal of intellectuals that would appeal to those with testimonies made brittle by facts and science. (Notice how many devotees of DCP have sided with him over the higher up Bradford on the LDS totem pole.) The LDS church has a long history of quieting those that might be charting their own theological course. Ever since JSJr himself took such a course, scraping off from the Methodists, Presbyterians, etc of his time, Mormonism has been marked by several such attempts by others.
Anyone that develops a following within Mormonism that is lateral to the hierarchical, ecclesiastical control is a threat. The COB gave it a try with the FARMerS, but in the end, after more than a decade, they were not willing to 'take the high road' preferring instead the screeds that Greg Smith would pen about the likes of John Dehlin. Maybe the COB had hopes that with some direction from above and formalized resources, the FARMerS would be able to come up with answers that would reconcile LDS teachings and claims to science and facts. Perhaps the move to Mormon Studies is an acknowledgment that the best prospects for LDS Mormonism is to simply detach its teachings and claims from historical facts and science, not even try to ground LDS Mormonism in those. Perhaps the essence of "faith" in the 21st Century is as Gazelam has said a few years ago on MDB, he is content to simply wait and hope for the day when the divine will give all the reconciling explanations.
With their merry band of followers, the FARMerS were trying to formulate those explanations now, on their own, but the frustration of doing the impossible kept dragging the FARMerS into the rut of ad hominem attacks on critics of Mormonism, particularly LDS style. Giddy with hope that LDS claims could be synced up with historical facts and science, the FP/12 gave the FARMerS a chance. The best that the FARMerS could do was keep taking pot shots at critics personally, rather than providing significant rebuttal to the criticisms themselves. After a decade and a half, the COB gave up on their little experiment. Bradford sacked the FARMerS.
The LDS stripe of Mormonism is no longer a charismatic movement, but a bureaucratic machine. Either be a cog in the machine, or have your teeth ground off. I think that's what the FARMerS experience shows, even if they themselves have not yet realized it. Keeping tight reins over the lower line leaders and members willing to accept LDS claims on 'faith' is of paramount importance to COB, even if that means intellectuals and those with inquisitive minds will fall way. Better to keep the flock tight, even if smaller, than to have wolves in sheep's clothing picking the members off one by one. Since the experiment to reconcile LDS claims with historical facts and science has failed--indeed, lost significant ground over the last 15 years--better to be insular from intellectuals than allow the erosion to cut deeper into the membership, those that would not be so inquisitive in the first place.