For what it's worth, I've never declared that I've never received any money whatsoever for any activity related to apologetics. (That is a typical Scratchian straw man.) But the amount of money that I've received for apologetic writing or speaking over the course of my entire lifetime, I'm guessing, probably totals less than 1% of my current annual salary -- and no part of it was paid
as salary. My salary would not be lower had I never written an apologetic sentence; arguably, in fact, given the incentives and rewards factored into salary determinations at BYU, it might actually have been somewhat
higher. I was warned when I first arrived at BYU not to write on Mormon topics, and I've since been criticized occasionally for doing so. That I've done so and managed nonetheless to thrive was by no means assured; others have not.
And I'm not attempting, contrary to Scratch's unsupported allegations, to make apologetics lucrative. (It will never be that.) I simply think that a person who edits a book or writes a book should not be obligated to do it absolutely for free, simply because he or she is doing it for FARMS. (My concerns center on the long-term health and interests of FARMS as much as on those of the writers, incidentally.) And the amounts of money involved are, in any case, minimal.
Gadianton wrote: the vast amounts of time he's spent on message boards alone
Averaging five posts a day on the board formerly known as FAIR, with a small and very occasional burst of posting here, and none (or virtually none) anywhere else? "Vast"? (I write quickly, by the way.)
By my calculation, you yourself have averaged approximately 2.5 posts daily here. That appears to make your posting on this board, by your own standard, half-vast.
Have I wasted more time than I should have on largely fruitless internet squabbles? Absolutely. And I hope to reform. But it has come out of my own personal research and writing time. My classes have been taught, my students' papers read, my Middle Eastern Texts Initiative books vetted, edited, and published, my administrative responsibilities attended to. (I've won teaching awards, for what it's worth, and shown up in at least one nationally published book that I'm aware of as one of BYU's top teachers -- which I don't take particularly seriously, but which does appear to demonstrate that I'm doing my job. And I wasn't named a lifetime member and fellow of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters last year -- the only person so named in 2007 -- for my apologetics, let alone for my posting on a message board. Which, again, I take with a grain of salt [and I realize full well that it's not the National Academy of Sciences or the Académie française], but which, I think, suggests that I've actually been doing some non-apologetic academic work.)
Gadianton wrote: on company time
What do you think would constitute "company time" for an academic? Between 9-5, say, on Mondays through Fridays?
Does this mean that when, as I commonly do, I'm participating in academic conferences or delivering public lectures in the evenings and on weekends, I'm working overtime? Am I working overtime when, as I typically do, I'm editing and writing on weekends and on holidays (e.g., today)? When I travel, as I often do, on university and translation project business -- throughout North America, Europe, and the Near East -- am I racking up hours and hours of overtime?
Gadianton wrote:in full view of his employers
Do you seriously imagine that anybody in the administration of the Church or the University pays even the slightest attention to the goings-on here or on the board formerly known as FAIR?