What Did FARMS Need With Real Estate?

[Doctor Scratch]

What does FARMS need with real estate?

A rather scintillating tidbit was passed along to me the other day by an "informant." I found it interesting because it raises questions about just what, exactly, FARMS was up to back in the 1980s and 1990s. In a somewhat recent post, Tom noted that Bill Hamblin complained at one point about how the Church wanted to "seize" land near BYU that FARMS owned. There are at least a couple of things worth noting about Hamblin's complaint:

(1) It sounds like "ark-steadying," and like he was criticizing the Brethren for daring to assert their suzerainty.
(2) Why--as Dean Robbers asks in his sig--did FARMS own real estate in the first place?

And it turns out that it was not just one piece of land--it was actually *several.* You can check out the details here. What was going on, exactly? You may recall that, prior to FARMS getting absorbed into BYU, they had begun a massive fundraising campaign that was meant to culminate in them constructing a *Ziggurat*--modeled on the pyramids of "Zarahemla"/ancient MesoAmerica. In a thread I wrote many years ago, I speculated that this level of fundraising probably caught the attention of the accountants at the COB, but at that time, I had been unaware of FARMS rather extensive real estate holdings.

I can't help but wonder: was this a case of rapid and out-of-control expansion by Welch and the Mopologists that led to the Church intervening and stepping in and claiming their fundraising and real estate for "the good of the Church"? Were the Mopologists merely aping the Church itself and getting in on the real estate investment game? It certainly raises a number of interesting questions.

I'm curious to see if others can offer any insight into the issue.

[Gadianton]

I don't know anything about the situation, it's a stunning development at any rate. How many millions are those properties worth alone? And if the lid hadn't come down, how many more buildings would there have been? Wouldn't that Ziggurat be worth at least 5 or 10m today?

I don't know what the purpose was beyond the tendency for religious organizations to snowball wealth with no use case, but I speculate it came about something like this:

voice1: "Brother ____ caved. He's transferring 671 west ____ to us next week. Sparkling cider is on you tonight."

voice2: "Sure, sure. ha ha. What -- why the change? what did you tell him?"

voice1: "What's the point of giving it to welfare? Give a man a fishing pole instead of a fish. We teach. Knowledge brings prosperity."

voice2: "True enough. It's just..."

voice1: "What?"

voice2: "Well, we took that other property last month and you said another is lined up -- discussions are going well, right?"

voice1: "Absolutely."

voice2: "I just don't want to arouse suspicion."

voice1: "We got the green light last week, didn't you hear?"

voice2: "No I...I'm not sure what you mean?"

voice1: "The banquet. Elder Maxwell said, 'keep doing what you're doing.' Since we had already started with the properties it seems we're golden. Keep doing it. We've got orders. Can't disobey them."

voice2: "Oh yes. He did say that, yes! But, how could he have possibly meant...?"

voice1: "You don't think he knows? Of course he does! He's a seer! How could he NOT know? And it's his domain."

voice2: (sighs) "Yes. Yes. It is. And -- on the chance that he -- for whatever reason -- doesn't know, we certainly have good reason to think he did, right? We were just doing what we thought we were told to do."

voice1: "Now you see ____, now you see."

voice2: "Well I'm feeling much better about this now. Say, ___, why don't you give ___ a call and the three of us meet at my north office and we'll have that cider and some light refreshments. I think with what you brought in today, the Lord will be fine expensing this round."

[The Before]

These seem to be residential houses, or former sites of residential houses. One theory: consider FARMS members’ homes as FARMS assets so that FARMS would pay their mortgages.

[Physics Guy]

Were they really planning to build a giant Mayan pyramid at BYU? On the one hand that would have been really cool, but on the other hand it would have been a big public commitment of the LDS church to a Central American setting for the Book of Mormon. I can see FARMS wanting the ziggurat for that very reason, to prove to the whole Mormon world that they were a big time show.

I can also imagine cautious Mormon leaders wisely reflecting that the whole Mesoamerican thing was still shaky, and that if it didn’t pan out then a ziggurat looming over the BYU campus would be hard for the whole church to live down. The leaders might well have considered that it was fine for a little research institute to publish speculative papers but that making big bets with the church's global image was their decision to make, and not something for a handful of academics.

If there was any real risk of FARMS building itself a big ziggurat then I could imagine that this, and not any mere unseemly behavior in print, would have been the thing that got the original FARMS overthrown.

[Doctor Scratch]

I think that's a great point, Physics Guy. I think that, over the years, there has very likely been a lot of tension boiling beneath the surface of Mopologetics, and that some of the Mopologists were resentful of the Brethren's "meddling." And I think you are 100% correct that the proposed ziggurat would have been viewed with alarm by the Powers That Be. (Bearing that in mind, it's interesting to note that the Mopologists--at least, the ones who've maintained the closest ties to the belligerent spirit of 'classic-FARMS'--have continued to mercilessly attack FIRM and the Heartlanders.) I can't help but wonder: how much resentment was felt at the time, when the Church decided to step in and seize all this property? It's sort of like eminent domain, except that I doubt FARMS got compensated in any kind of meaningful way. (Though the other suggestions on this thread--i.e., that Mopologists got free housing, or free or subvented mortgages, or their meals comped--are certainly intriguing.)

Looking out at the current Mopologetic landscape, it's clear to see that Welch and Scripture Central have the best relationship with the Brethren, and, of course, they have a much larger operating budget than the competition. So, is there private, behind-the-scenes gossip over at Interpreter about how Scripture Central is run by a bunch of brown-nosing bootlicks, who suck up to the Brethren in order to get money? While over at cash-strapped Interpreter, they have to rely on the tireless volunteer efforts of Allen Wyatt, and the Interpreter President is forced to choke down miserly and underwhelming business meals such as a half French dip sandwich, and a minuscule cup of mushroom soup?

[The Before]

I actually love the Star Trek V angle here:

Sybok believed he was on a holy mission that transcended standard Starfleet protocol, justifying whatever resources or hijacked ships it took to get to Sha Ka Ree. Pre-absorption FARMS, if your account is accurate, acted with that same self-appointed, rogue authority. Building a literal Mesoamerican Ziggurat near BYU (is that real?) was an attempt to erect their own physical monument to apologetics. Real estate was the fuel for their personal Sha Ka Ree.

Starfleet isn't about to let a rogue Vulcan dictate galactic realpolitik or command heavy starships without oversight. Once the accountants at the Church Office Building noticed FARMS amassing land holdings and running massive capital campaigns outside official correlation channels, I’ll bet the brethren did what Starfleet Command does: reasserted authority, absorbed the asset, and put the "rogue crew" back under strict institutional hierarchy.

“I thought I would find God here. I only found a man.”

[Everybody Wang Chung]

While over at cash-strapped Interpreter, they have to rely on the tireless volunteer efforts of Allen Wyatt, and the Interpreter President is forced to choke down miserly and underwhelming business meals such as a half French dip sandwich, and a minuscule cup of mushroom soup?

It looks like The Interpreter is going to have to find a new source of free labor, because Allen Wyatt might soon have his hands full running the entire town of Lyman, Wyoming.

In what easily takes the crown for the most bizarre campaign video in history, Allen spends his entire runtime showcasing the sheer devastation of Lyman’s sole public bathroom, complete with crayon graffiti on the doors and a bit of cracked stucco. To top it all off, there is some straw on the playground that he solemnly promises to clean up.

Frankly, patching the stucco, scrubbing off the crayon, and tossing the straw into a dumpster would take about 40 minutes of actual effort. It’s an interesting strategy to build your entire mayoral platform around a weekend chore list.

https://www.Facebook.com/AllenWyattMayor/