Whoa! This can’t BE!

The narrative of my ouster from FARMS or the Maxwell Institute by righteously indignant and justifiably outraged Church leaders in Salt Lake City — they had, so the tale goes, become disgusted with the way the organization was being run and by the mean-spirited and dishonest pseudo-scholarship that was its primary product (and that I sponsored and, indeed, virtually embodied) — has become dogma in some quarters, despite its complete falsehood.  So I was amused today when the invaluable Stephen Smoot, now pursuing graduate studies at the University of Toronto, called the above photograph to my attention.  It’s from the Facebook page of Elder Gary Stevenson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

“Notice what Elder Stevenson keeps on his bookshelves?” Brother Smoot wrote, with tongue firmly in cheek.  “But I thought ‘classic FARMS’ was an embarrassment to the Church.  Isn’t that why you were fired, Dan?  Can’t believe an apostle would have that dreck in his library.”

Incidentally, quite a number of years ago now, Elder Dallin H. Oaks — also of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — showed me the substantial collection of FARMS/Maxwell books that he had in his office.