LDS Apologetics Operating Costs Are More Than $7,000,000

[_Tom]

Hello, Tom.

The building was to have been erected on private property directly adjacent to BYU that the Maxwell Institute owned back when it was known as FARMS, and prior to its affiliation with BYU. Much has changed since then. The building hasn't been an active project for many years now.

My elderly mother, who made a contribution to the building, won't be pleased to hear this news.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Well, her money presumably went into the FARMS (now Maxwell Institute) endowment, so that might help to assuage any upset she might feel.

As part of the negotiations by which FARMS affiliated with the University, BYU acquired the land on which the building would have been constructed. (That was a major goal of theirs, probably even their primary goal, and the consequences of it will begin to be visibly evident in the course of the next year or so.) And there were many other considerations. I'm reasonably pleased with the overall outcome, and I suspect, if I were ever to sit down and explain it to your mother, that she would be, too.

[_Mister Scratch]

So I simply say that Scratch's figures, for which he has no factual basis, are dramatically wrong. I know quite exactly what the actual figures are (having seen them again just yesterday morning). It's my insider's word, based on direct personal knowledge, against Scratch's speculative word. That anybody on this list continues to imagine that Scratch's speculations might be correct while my statement is false can only, it seems to me, rest on the assumption that I'm a flat-out liar.

Prof. P.--- Are you really claiming that FARMS's typical budget in a given year is less than a million dollars? Also, do you deny having received thousands of dollars for your FARMS work? Do you deny that FARMS's marketing budget runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Are you really claiming that FARMS's typical budget in a given year is less than a million dollars?

I'm giving you no information whatever about the annual FARMS budget.

If all you're wanting to say, though, is that, over the course of its roughly thirty year existence, during which (among other things) it's published hundreds of books and journals and produced several major films, FARMS has spent several million dollars, that's plainly true. No access to its internal financials would be required to draw that conclusion.

Also, do you deny having received thousands of dollars for your FARMS work?

Yes.

Do you deny that FARMS's marketing budget runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Yes.

[_Mister Scratch]

Are you really claiming that FARMS's typical budget in a given year is less than a million dollars?

I'm giving you no information whatever about the annual FARMS budget.

If all you're wanting to say, though, is that, over the course of its roughly thirty year existence, during which (among other things) it's published hundreds of books and journals and produced several major films, FARMS has spent several million dollars, that's plainly true. No access to its internal financials would be required to draw that conclusion.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

Also, do you deny having received thousands of dollars for your FARMS work?

Yes.

Well, that's very odd. An anonymous informant passed along some information, namely the 990 non-profit tax forms for FARMS from the late 1990s, and according to one of them, you were paid $20,400 as chair of FARMS in 1999, and $6,000 in 1998. Quite a chunk of change! These forms are a matter of public record, by the way. Anyone can access them via the website called GuideStar (www.guidestar.org). You should probably have Ed Snow or somebody else from the MI contact them in order to try and get them removed from the Internet, so you can continue lying or distorting the truth about the massive operating funds you guys have. That way, Lou Midgley and others will be able to continue their hypocritical assaults against critical Christian ministries with budgets the size of your 1999 FARMS compensation.

Do you deny that FARMS's marketing budget runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Yes.

Huh. (You know what's coming next, don't you?) In the Statement 4 section of the 1999 Form 990, it shows that FARMS spent a whopping $132,332 on "Marketing" (practically half of the expenses listed in that section). So, in the fiscal year of 1999, at least, FARMS's marketing budget definitely did run into the hundreds of thousands.

The lesson here is this: You should always tell the truth.

[_Mister Scratch]

The connection to the SCMC is very odd. If the SCMC secretary was a family friend, why didn't he simply contact you in his role as friend of the family, rather than on behalf of the SCMC?

I have no idea. I've never met the man, nor had I ever spoken with him before, nor have I ever spoken with him since.

Perhaps (I can only speculate) he thought that a pair of professors might take his request more seriously if he told us who he was rather than merely announcing himself as Joe Blow of, say, Sandy. (It would have made no difference to me at all, but he didn't know me.) He was asking us to drive up to the Salt Lake Valley on our own time and gas and to spend an indefinite period of time trying to help a wavering member of the Church whom we didn't know resolve his doubts.

Now, in a sense, this seems even more disturbing. Essentially what happened (if I'm understanding you correctly) was this: a complete stranger phoned you up and said, "I'm the secretary of the SCMC. We'd like it very much if you came down and had a little chat with a wavering member. Could you do that for us?" Is that about right? I'm sorry, but it just seems very odd, and a bit frightening, that you would follow the orders of a complete stranger in this fashion....

Did the fact he was a member of the SCMC make a difference in whether you would agree to meet with this disaffected fellow?

No. But he might have thought that it would.

This just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If some person in SLC, whom you'd never heard of before, asked you to come over in order to try and persuade their almost-apostate relative to come back, you'd do it? Do they call you "The Cleaner"?

Or is this something that the SCMC routinely gets involved in?

I have no idea. This has been my only contact with the SCMC.

So, in reality, you don't really know much about it after all. See below:

Why did you feel it necessary to describe your role as "like an agent for the SCMC" rather than simply trying to help an LDS family?

I didn't feel it "necessary." However, I did it because, if I recall that long-ago conversation accurately, the SCMC was being portrayed as an evil spy organization that has it in for weak members of the Church, and yet my one experience with the SCMC had nothing to do with "spying" and was clearly motivated by a concern for the wavering member and his family.

You cannot know that it had "nothing to do with 'spying'". As you described earlier, all you did was answer a phone call and agree to meet up at the pre-arranged room. Right? You would have no way of knowing whether the SCMC had assembled a dossier on the man.

If you re-read the passage above that Scratch has culled from his apparently quite extensive files on me, you'll notice, along with my remark that "I was once sent out, a number of years ago, as a kind of 'agent' of the Strengthening Church Members Committee," references to "my mission" on behalf of the SCMC and to my "weapons of choice" -- friendly discussion and some book recommendations. In the context of the original conversation, where the SCMC was being protrayed as something like a Mormon Gestapo, KGB, or CIA, it should have been obvious to every reasonable reader (and probably was) that these words were used with tongue firmly in cheek.

I would be interested in getting the man's POV in all of this. Something makes me suspect that he didn't see the conversation in quite the same way as you. Furthermore, you admitted that you concealed from the man the fact that you were working for the SCMC.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Well, that's very odd. An anonymous informant [!] passed along some information, namely the 990 non-profit tax forms for FARMS from the late 1990s, and according to one of them, you were paid $20,400 as chair of FARMS in 1999, and $6,000 in 1998.

I would have to study those forms to try to deduce what's going on, but it simply isn't true that I made either of those sums as chair of FARMS.

What is now the Maxwell Institute has bought out my teaching time (so that I now teach a reduced load) in order to have me devote my efforts to directing and editing the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. I suspect that that is what is behind those odd figures.

I wonder if I'm the only person here who regards it as rather odd and not a little creepy, incidentally, that, via your network of alleged "anonymous informants" and Google searches, you're busily attempting to ferret out and publish information about the details of my income.

Quite a chunk of change!

Indeed, it would have been.

These forms are a matter of public record, by the way. Anyone can access them via the website called GuideStar (www.guidestar.org).

I'll have to take a look at them, sometime.

You should probably have Ed Snow or somebody else from the MI contact them in order to try and get them removed from the Internet, so you can continue lying or distorting the truth about the massive operating funds you guys have. That way, Lou Midgley and others will be able to continue their hypocritical assaults against critical Christian ministries with budgets the size of your 1999 FARMS compensation.

Yes. My program of continuous lies certainly seems to be in danger!

Do you deny that FARMS's marketing budget runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Yes.

Huh. (You know what's coming next, don't you?) In the Statement 4 section of the 1999 Form 990, it shows that FARMS spent a whopping $132,332 on "Marketing" (practically half of the expenses listed in that section). So, in the fiscal year of 1999, at least, FARMS's marketing budget definitely did run into the hundreds of thousands.

Well, if your figure is accurate, the budget was over one hundred thousand in that year. That's not "hundreds of thousands" in any case.

But it's no longer anywhere near that. For years, we had published through Deseret Book and had relied on their marketing. But we became dissatisfied with the arrangement for numerous reasons, and decided both to create our own independent imprint and to hire our own marketing person to promote our books. The $132,332 presumably covered his salary, benefits, travel expenses, and etc., as well as a very modest advertising budget. Ultimately, we decided that marketing wasn't our thing -- we're a bunch of academics -- and that it would be more efficient and effective to contract it out to others. The marketing fellow was let go quite a number of years ago (around 2000, if I recall correctly), and we have since had arrangements with Covenant Communications and Amalphi Arts, as well as with the University of Chicago Press. (They take a cut of the sales price.)

The lesson here is this: You should always tell the truth.

I do.

And I've been much more patient with these Scratchoscopies, given them much more time and attention, than they deserve.

Now, in a sense, this seems even more disturbing. Essentially what happened (if I'm understanding you correctly) was this: a complete stranger phoned you up and said, "I'm the secretary of the SCMC. We'd like it very much if you came down and had a little chat with a wavering member. Could you do that for us?" Is that about right? I'm sorry, but it just seems very odd, and a bit frightening, that you would follow the orders of a complete stranger in this fashion....

We didn't "follow" his "orders." (That's mere Scratch spin. It might convince others, but I can't imagine that it convinces you.) We agreed to his request.

I'm not surprised that you claim to find this "disturbing" and even "frightening." You always do. If I thought you were serious with such nonsense, I'd pity you for the horrible world of paranoid delusions that you live in. But I don't believe you're really serious, any more than I believe that you really believe that I entertain genuine thoughts of coming after you with an assault rifle.

This just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If some person in SLC, whom you'd never heard of before, asked you to come over in order to try and persuade their almost-apostate relative to come back, you'd do it?

If I thought I could help, and if I had the time, yes, I would try to do it.

In fact, I answer questions by e-mail just about every day, and I've corresponded with numerous people and talked with them on the telephone either at their own request or at the request of one of their friends or relatives. I'm sure that you'll be able to put a sinister spin on this, and I can't help that.

You cannot know that it had "nothing to do with 'spying'". As you described earlier, all you did was answer a phone call and agree to meet up at the pre-arranged room. Right? You would have no way of knowing whether the SCMC had assembled a dossier on the man.

You're absolutely right. I cannot know for absolute certain that it had nothing to do with spying and that the SCMC hadn't assembled a dossier on him. True, there seems no evidence for either spying or dossier, but there's also nothing to prove that they didn't exist -- just as there's absolutely no certain proof that the SCMC wasn't led to him by astrological calculations, wiretapping, arrow divination, or a Mafia contract, and no decisive proof that the secretary of the SCMC didn't have a voodoo doll of him hanging from the SCMC's black-mass altar with a noose around his neck and bristling with pins.

I would be interested in getting the man's POV in all of this. Something makes me suspect that he didn't see the conversation in quite the same way as you.

But that "something" isn't evidence or first-hand knowledge. It's just your generally jaundiced view of me and your generally paranoid view of the Church.

Furthermore, you admitted that you concealed from the man the fact that you were working for the SCMC.

I was asked not to mention it, and I didn't. Had he asked, though, I wouldn't have denied it. I'm not a liar.

[_Mister Scratch]

Well, that's very odd. An anonymous informant [!] passed along some information, namely the 990 non-profit tax forms for FARMS from the late 1990s, and according to one of them, you were paid $20,400 as chair of FARMS in 1999, and $6,000 in 1998.

I would have to study those forms to try to deduce what's going on, but it simply isn't true that I made either of those sums as chair of FARMS.

These were (apparently) the forms which were submitted to the IRS. So, if you didn't actually make that amount, something is very fishy indeed.

What is now the Maxwell Institute has bought out my teaching time (so that I now teach a reduced load) in order to have me devote my efforts to directing and editing the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. I suspect that that is what is behind those odd figures.

Huh. Well, in any case, you were making a good deal more than the other board members, particularly during the year when you collected 20K.

I wonder if I'm the only person here who regards it as rather odd and not a little creepy, incidentally, that, via your network of alleged "anonymous informants" and Google searches, you're busily attempting to ferret out and publish information about the details of my income.

Your income is incidental to my primary interest in LDS apologetics. Anyways, take a step back and think about this for a second. Obviously, you and other apologists have pissed off so many people over the years that now they will come to me via PM and will deliver juicy tidbits into my hands. *I* don't even have to lift a finger. The information simply falls into my lap.

These forms are a matter of public record, by the way. Anyone can access them via the website called GuideStar (www.guidestar.org).

I'll have to take a look at them, sometime.

Okay.

You should probably have Ed Snow or somebody else from the MI contact them in order to try and get them removed from the Internet, so you can continue lying or distorting the truth about the massive operating funds you guys have. That way, Lou Midgley and others will be able to continue their hypocritical assaults against critical Christian ministries with budgets the size of your 1999 FARMS compensation.

Yes. My program of continuous lies certainly seems to be in danger!

It's not so much that. It's just that you guys have often tried to attack Church critics by accusing them of having huge operating expenses. Well, I bet that 99.99% don't have multimillion dollar budgets like FARMS's.

Huh. (You know what's coming next, don't you?) In the Statement 4 section of the 1999 Form 990, it shows that FARMS spent a whopping $132,332 on "Marketing" (practically half of the expenses listed in that section). So, in the fiscal year of 1999, at least, FARMS's marketing budget definitely did run into the hundreds of thousands.

Well, if your figure is accurate, the budget was over one hundred thousand in that year. That's not "hundreds of thousands" in any case.[/quote]

In any case that's quite a large budget for a supposedly volunteer organization that supposedly operates on a shoestring budget.

Now, in a sense, this seems even more disturbing. Essentially what happened (if I'm understanding you correctly) was this: a complete stranger phoned you up and said, "I'm the secretary of the SCMC. We'd like it very much if you came down and had a little chat with a wavering member. Could you do that for us?" Is that about right? I'm sorry, but it just seems very odd, and a bit frightening, that you would follow the orders of a complete stranger in this fashion....

We didn't "follow" his "orders." (That's mere Scratch spin. It might convince others, but I can't imagine that it convinces you.) We agreed to his request.

Call it whatever you like. Semantics do nothing to dampen the essentially disquieting nature of the whole affair.

I'm not surprised that you claim to find this "disturbing" and even "frightening." You always do. If I thought you were serious with such nonsense, I'd pity you for the horrible world of paranoid delusions that you live in. But I don't believe you're really serious, any more than I believe that you really believe that I entertain genuine thoughts of coming after you with an assault rifle.

Try to look at it from an outsider's perspective, Dr. P. Imagine that, one day, your wife says, "Honey, I'd like you to meet with the bishop in order to talk some things over." You say, "Okay," and a few days later, you head over to the ward. There, you sit down and discover that a pair of professors whom you've never met before have been invited over for this "intervention." What you don't know is that, behind the scenes, a "very small clipping service" which has been known to collect dossiers on people and engage in surveillance activities was actually responsible for bringing these two professors into the picture. So, really, behind your back, a whole series of machinations has been at play, trying to bring you into line.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see how anyone would not find that "creepy."

I would be interested in getting the man's POV in all of this. Something makes me suspect that he didn't see the conversation in quite the same way as you.

But that "something" isn't evidence or first-hand knowledge. It's just your generally jaundiced view of me and your generally paranoid view of the Church.

No, it is due to having observed lots of accusations of "distortion" and whatnot after TBMs and ex-Mos or wavering-Mos meet with one another. The fairly recent Bachman-Keyes affair is a good example. If you think your interaction played out exactly as you claim it did, then why don't you invite this individual to comment?

Furthermore, you admitted that you concealed from the man the fact that you were working for the SCMC.

I was asked not to mention it, and I didn't. Had he asked, though, I wouldn't have denied it. I'm not a liar.

I bet you would have said something like, "Well, it is true that someone within the Church asked us to come down." Probably you would have needed to be pressed to admit it was the SCMC.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Huh. Well, in any case, you were making a good deal more than the other board members, particularly during the year when you collected 20K.

I simply wasn't ever paid $20K (nor anything remotely like that) for serving as chairman of the FARMS board. Period.

*I* don't even have to lift a finger. The information simply falls into my lap.

You're like the spider at the center of its web.

It's just that you guys have often tried to attack Church critics by accusing them of having huge operating expenses.

In all of your files on me, there must be several passages in which I do that. I would be interested in seeing some.

Well, I bet that 99.99% don't have multimillion dollar budgets like FARMS's.

And I'll bet that none of them produce searchable electronic databases of the Dead Sea Scrolls, publish dual-language texts of medieval Arabic philosophy and science, digitize Syriac documents in the Vatican Library, sponsor conferences on Qumran studies in North America and Israel, and perform multispectral imaging at Herculaneum and in Petra and at Bonampak.

In any case that's quite a large budget for a supposedly volunteer organization that supposedly operates on a shoestring budget.

Nobody has ever denied that we have a professional staff. We've had one for by far the better part of our existence, since we first had enough money to hire somebody. We wouldn't be able to function at the level we do without it.

Try to look at it from an outsider's perspective, Dr. P. Imagine that, one day, your wife says, "Honey, I'd like you to meet with the bishop in order to talk some things over." You say, "Okay," and a few days later, you head over to the ward. There, you sit down and discover that a pair of professors whom you've never met before have been invited over for this "intervention."

He knew we were coming. He came specifically to talk with us.

If you think your interaction played out exactly as you claim it did, then why don't you invite this individual to comment?

Well, for one thing, because it's been many years and I don't have the foggiest idea any more what his name was nor even in what town in the Salt Lake Valley the conversation occurred. If you have that information in your files, I would appreciate your sharing it.

I bet you would have said something like, "Well, it is true that someone within the Church asked us to come down." Probably you would have needed to be pressed to admit it was the SCMC.

Your bets and guesses are worth almost as much as the electrons that bear them. If he had asked whether the SCMC had asked me to talk with him, I would have said that, yes, the SCMC had asked me to talk with him.

[_Mister Scratch]

Huh. Well, in any case, you were making a good deal more than the other board members, particularly during the year when you collected 20K.

I simply wasn't ever paid $20K (nor anything remotely like that) for serving as chairman of the FARMS board. Period.

Well, that's not what you guys told the IRS. The same year you pulled in 6K, you were also given a "research grant" of $2,200. That same year, Prof. Hamblin was paid $200, Prof. Gee was given $100, and Prof. Midgley was given $200. Brian Hauglid was given $1,000.

Other FARMS board members were compensated as follows:

John Welch: $3000
Michael Rhodes: $3000
Stephen Ricks: $3000
Noel Reynolds: $13000
Donald Parry: $15,096

Curiously, Robert Millet and Bruce Christenson received zero compensation.

Brent Hall, the Treasurer, was paid $56,988

Clearly, some people are profiting from apologetics. There is literally no way you can deny that. I'm sure that there are all sorts of people who would love to make the kind of money that these FARMS boys are raking in.

It's just that you guys have often tried to attack Church critics by accusing them of having huge operating expenses.

In all of your files on me, there must be several passages in which I do that. I would be interested in seeing some.

Well, there's your exchange with James White. And there is this article by Prof. Midgley:

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=review&id=282

Well, I bet that 99.99% don't have multimillion dollar budgets like FARMS's.

And I'll bet that none of them produce searchable electronic databases of the Dead Sea Scrolls, publish dual-language texts of medieval Arabic philosophy and science, digitize Syriac documents in the Vatican Library, sponsor conferences on Qumran studies in North America and Israel, and perform multispectral imaging at Herculaneum and in Petra and at Bonampak.

I'm sure if they had millions to throw around that they'd be doing more stuff akin to the things you've listed.

In any case that's quite a large budget for a supposedly volunteer organization that supposedly operates on a shoestring budget.

Nobody has ever denied that we have a professional staff. We've had one for by far the better part of our existence, since we first had enough money to hire somebody. We wouldn't be able to function at the level we do without it.

You once said that you never received "one dime" for apologetics. Is "one dime" actually a code word for "a billion dollars" or something like that? Because 20 grand sure seems like a heck of a lot more than "one dime"!

Try to look at it from an outsider's perspective, Dr. P. Imagine that, one day, your wife says, "Honey, I'd like you to meet with the bishop in order to talk some things over." You say, "Okay," and a few days later, you head over to the ward. There, you sit down and discover that a pair of professors whom you've never met before have been invited over for this "intervention."

He knew we were coming. He came specifically to talk with us.

But, as I was attempting to point out, he was totally oblivious to the machinations at work behind the scenes.

If you think your interaction played out exactly as you claim it did, then why don't you invite this individual to comment?

Well, for one thing, because it's been many years and I don't have the foggiest idea any more what his name was nor even in what town in the Salt Lake Valley the conversation occurred. If you have that information in your files, I would appreciate your sharing it.

No, I don't have the information. I rather suspect that it went the way of the alleged 2nd Watson Letter.