Jason Bourne wrote:Well my friend I think our journeys and our positions have become surprisingly familiar even. And yes I thought the same thing about the hoops Givens was jumping through. I have done that though and I have tried to continue. I just cannot anymore.
I am the same. It just seems as if Givens is so comfortable doing it; I am not and find myself doing it less and less.
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."
-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
I've listened to a lot of the podcast. I find some of what he says troubling and I clearly disagree with him, but, as others have said, he's an absolutely wonderful person.
I've had exactly two experiences with Brother Givens:
Every time he did a voice-over on the PBS "Mormons" show, I thought it was a woman.
When I was waiting for a couple of hardened anti-Mormons in the lobby of the Maxwell Institute, he came in and walked right past me, apparently impervious to the black-hearted evil right in front of him.
I'm embarrassed to admit that for a long time I didn't take him seriously at all because Juliann and Charity were always gushing about him. Maybe I'll have to read his book one of these days.