Running WordPress as FTP user?

Question

I've been doing some research on file permissions as of late, as my WordPress installation on my VPS doesn't have write access.

From what I've heard it's very dangerous to make the apache user the owner of your WordPress files, as apache can then do whatever it wants.

The WordPress Codex says:

"All of your WordPress files must be either owner writable by, or group writable by the user under which your Apache server executes."

http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress

That's great, but I've also heard talk of running your WordPress install as the FTP user:

If WordPress is running as the FTP account, that account needs to have write access, i.e., be the owner of the files, or belong to a group that has write access.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions

Any ideas on the best way to set this up? Is it not a bad idea to have the WordPress files owned by the apache user? I feel like it is...