Stan Barker and Tabloid Mopologetics

[_Gadianton]

By any chance do you know who authored that SHIELDS piece? Or who did the research?

Following up on the references you provided, Stan Barker, one who has often times provided resource materials for FARMS, is the author of this outrage.

I too find it odd that you are so often condemned for prying into people's personal lives when you're just, if anything, gathering web information published for the whole world to see by these same people. Many of the apologists clearly take matters too far when it comes to satisfying their "curiosity".

[_harmony]

Following up on the references you provided, Stan Barker, one who has often times provided resource materials for FARMS, is the author of this outrage.

I'm so surprised.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Following up on the references you provided, Stan Barker, one who has often times provided resource materials for FARMS, is the author of this outrage.

Well, that's interesting.

Has he "often times provided resource materials for FARMS"?

Is it true? Is it relevant?

(It seems a vintage Scratchite touch. The eeevil Mopologetic web, and all that. All "Mopologists" are guilty of any offense or seeming offense by any "Mopologist," even if they may not know him and may not have heard of his offense.)

How many times has he supplied "resource materials" to FARMS over, say, the past two decades? And can you be specific about the "resource materials" that he's provided? Has he supplied us with patristic texts? The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon? Materials on Amerindian genetics? Grammars of Akkadian, Hebrew, Egyptian, or Greek? Just how central, exactly, is he to the FARMS enterprise? Has he published with FARMS? If so, what? How many times, even, has he been thanked in the editor's acknowledgments at the beginning of the FARMS Review?

I too find it odd that you are so often condemned for prying into people's personal lives when you're just, if anything, gathering web information published for the whole world to see by these same people.

Who has condemned him for prying into people's personal lives?

I condemn him for his obsessive personal enmity, his aggressively hostile conjectures and mind-reading, and his ceaselessly defamatory spin.

Many of the apologists clearly take matters too far when it comes to satisfying their "curiosity".

Who, exactly?

[_Gadianton]

Well, that's interesting.

Has he "often times provided resource materials for FARMS"?

Is it true? Is it relevant?

(It seems a vintage Scratchite touch. The eeevil Mopologetic web, and all that. All "Mopologists" are guilty of any offense or seeming offense by any "Mopologist," even if they may not know him and may not have heard of his offense.)

I guess the biographers of brother Barker are "Scratchites" then.

http://www.shields-research.org/Authors/SDB_Bio.htm

Bro. Barker has been researching and responding to objections of the critics for close to forty years and has published articles in The Research Report and has been noted as providing resource material for some issues of FARMS Review.

(bold emphasis mine)

For the record, I think you've asked some important questions. Just what are Barker's ties to FARMS? What has he contributed? Which editions of the Review did he contribute too? And why the evasivness? Some further questions might be, given his apparent status as an "informant" for the Review, what possible ties were there to the work of John Tvedtness, who retired from the MI in order to take up a position with SHIELDS?

To be honest, I think with your connections, you could get further on tackling these than I could.

[_Daniel Peterson]

For the record, I think you've asked some important questions.

I can answer them.

Of course, I'll be accused of lying.

Just what are Barker's ties to FARMS?

He has no formal ties.

He's neither an officer of the organization nor has he published anything with FARMS.

Some people with roles at FARMS, including myself, know him. Others -- the large majority, I should think -- don't. I run into him every two or three years. I get a phone call from him maybe once or twice a year. I see e-mail from him several times a week.

What has he contributed?

Off hand, I can't remember anything. But there probably was something once. Maybe more than once.

Which editions of the Review did he contribute too?

He has never contributed an article to the Review.

Did he send us something from his files? Maybe. Probably. Perhaps he's even thanked in one or more of the introductions to the Review. I can't remember such an occasion, but it's possible. (We've published thirty-four numbers of the Review to date. The thirty-fifth goes to press this week.) There are typically several people thanked in each number of the Review, and a few more thanked by individual authors in their own footnotes. Happy hunting! If a member of the creepy Scratch network of anonymous "informants" can find such an instance, more power to him, her, or it.

And why the evasivness?

What "evasiveness"?

Some further questions might be, given his apparent status as an "informant" for the Review,

Huh?

If he supplied anything, it would probably have been a document that he had in his collection, or something of that sort. If you call that serving as an "informant," well, I guess there's no way of stopping you.

what possible ties were there to the work of John Tvedtness, who retired from the MI in order to take up a position with SHIELDS?

John didn't "retire from the MI in order to take up a position with SHIELDS."

He retired, at retirement age, from a paid position with the Maxwell Institute. For personal reasons, he then moved from Utah to Arkansas.

Some time thereafter, he accepted a role -- non-paid, I'm guessing, since SHIELDS has little or no budget -- with SHIELDS.

To be honest, I think with your connections, you could get further on tackling these than I could.

I already have. But I don't intend to do any prying for you or the master. You can do your own searches on the Maxwell Institute website just as easily as I can. Anything that involves John Tvedtnes's personal circumstances, though, is no more my business than it is yours.

[_Gadianton]

Off hand, I can't remember anything. But there probably was something once. Maybe more than once.

and has been noted as providing resource material for some issues of FARMS Review

Is the biographer of brother Barker lying? Or severely "mistaken"?

Clearly, Barker has contributed material for the Review more than once.

What "evasiveness"?

the evasiveness of SHIELDS which uses "Scratchite" wording to insinuate a connection between Barker and the Review.

Some time thereafter, he accepted a role -- non-paid, I'm guessing, since SHIELDS has little or no budget -- with SHIELDS.

Fair enough.

Anything that involves John Tvedtnes's personal circumstances, though, is no more my business than it is yours.

Fine, but, would you agree then that anything involving Dr. Walter Martin's personal circumstances, specifically his manner of passing, was not the business of SHIELDS? Don't tell me you celebrate "curiosity" when it exposes an "anti-Mormon", but abhor it if its directed toward an apologist.

[_why me]

I like Mr. Scratch. I think that he is an interesting type of antimormon and he is certainly wonderful to read. I think that Daniel and Scratch need to sit down and have a glass of warm milk together. First, this will help mend wounds. Second, over a glass of milk many good things can come about.

But of course, I don't think that this will happen. But I certainly hope that it does.

[_Dwight Frye]

and has been noted as providing resource material for some issues of FARMS Review

Is the biographer of brother Barker lying? Or severely "mistaken"?

Clearly, Barker has contributed material for the Review more than once.

A search of the MI website turns up the following hits for Stan Barker:


From Ignoratio Elenchi: The Dialogue That Never Was (FARMS Review: Volume 5, Issue 1), by L. Ara Norwood, footnote #7:

I am grateful to Dean Hunsaker, Malin Jacobs, Stan Barker, and Alma Allred for providing me with information in this area.

From The Other Side of the Coin: A Source Review of Norman Geisler's Chapter (FARMS Review: Volume 12, Issue 1), by Danel W. Bachman, footnote #2:

My thanks to Stan Barker for providing most of this list.

From What Certain Baptists Think They Know about the Restored Gospel (FARMS Review: Volume 12, Issue 1), by Daniel C. Peterson, footnote #68:

I am grateful to Stan Barker, who located this quotation for me in the archives of the annual "Philastus" award competition, for which, at the time of writing, Rev. Smith's remark is a finalist.

[_harmony]

John didn't "retire from the MI in order to take up a position with SHIELDS."

He retired, at retirement age, from a paid position with the Maxwell Institute. For personal reasons, he then moved from Utah to Arkansas.

Some time thereafter, he accepted a role -- non-paid, I'm guessing, since SHIELDS has little or no budget -- with SHIELDS.

Well, that's both sad and disappointing. Somehow, I had expected something different from a Maxwell scholar than to aid and abet a group like SHIELDS. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

[_Mister Scratch]

Well, this is all very fascinating. Really, it has caused me to push away from my keyboard momentarily as I nod gravely and press my fingers together in a steeple shape. In my mind, I say, "Yes, it's all beginning to come together now."

Indeed, Dwight Frye and Dr. Robbers have produced some startling and important revelations, as has Dr. Peterson. Based on last night's vigorous and revealing exchange, this is, I believe, what can be summarized:

---Prior to his retirement, J. Tvedtnes was a paid Mopologist at FARMS.
---Stan Barker functions as a kind of Mopologetic "gopher" for FARMS, maintaining "creepy dossiers" and delivering weekly emails to DCP.
---It may be that Barker has been specifically assigned by Top Dawg Mopologists to assemble "creepy dossiers" on Christian critics of the LDS Church.
---Barker's viciousness and bitterness (as evidenced by his Martin Piece) may be due to his lower-rung status. That is, he doesn't have a Maxwell Institute appointment, doesn't get paid, and doesn't get much recognition for his dossier assembling.
---SHIELDS has significant and important ties with "official" Mopologetics---far stronger ties than DCP was initially willing to admit.
---DCP's antics on this thread appear to have been a kind of smokescreen meant to distract us from learning these truths about Barker's wickedness.

Another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Another watershed moment, letting the fluid of truth course through the deserts of Mopologetic skullduggery.