slimboyfat said:
: For those who don't know - who is Firpo Carr?
You yourself said it best:
: He is a Witness apologist-cum-self-publicist of the first order.
Carr has been promoting himself for many years. He's obviously very intelligent, but also very self-serving. I spoke to his grandmother a few years ago, to gain information, and she was very coy. Pretty much admitted everything I set forth to her, but was not forthcoming with new information.
Carr is on his fourth marriage and has one daughter, I believe (could be wrong; it's been years since I've thought about Carr). All wives have been JWs. No one seems to know how he's managed to keep himself in good standing, except by observing that when he goes to a new area, he manages to flim-flam the locals so extensively that when they finally figure out the sort of charlatan they're up against, they throw in the towel and do what they can to get him to move on. Apparently Carr has managed to get a number of local elders involved in a variety of questionable schemes, so that they can't expose Carr without shooting themselves in the foot. And he's a good deal smarter than most, so he keeps a couple of steps ahead of most elders.
: He has many interests and has written on subjects as diverse as racist words in the dictionary; why the divine name should be in the NT; a history of Jehovah's Witnesses from a black perspective; homosexuality; and the "black Holocaust" in Nazi Germany.
Yes, and these books are, for the most part, at best naive, and at worst self-serving propaganda designed mainly to promote Carr as a JW apologist.
: I like to think he is the Witness apologist equivalent to Jerry Bergman on the apostate scene, in that his books are largely self-published on a wide range of topics about which he has a lot of enthusiasm
That's where the comparison ends.
: but not a lot of expertise.
LOL! Bergman has his faults and has written some criticisms of JWs that I disagree with, but Carr is in a class by himself in lack of expertise.
: On second thoughts that is not fair: he is a better writer than Bergman,
I think not. You want examples from Carr's books?
: and has some more perceptive insights to offer too.
He certainly has some of those, especially in his JW Blacks from an American Perspective. Too lazy to look up the title; it might be a little off.
: He tends to keep his distance from other Witness apologists such as Flemings, Herle, Foster and so on.
It's the other way round. They keep their distance from him, because they know what he is.
: I don't think he attended the Witness apologist forum, for instance. He is more of a one man band, who is not without criticism of certain Witness policies toward blacks. He is not pleased that the Watchtower used the word "niggerly" for instance, and thinks that frowning on beards is especially stupid from a black person's perspective.
One of Carr's better observations.
: One interesting controversy he provoked was with Randy at freeminds over the issue of whether William Jackson, who was a member of the governing body, was black. Randy claims that photos clearly show he was white as a sheet.
Jackson was definitely white. Carr is wrong, and has no idea what he's talking about.
: Edgar Foster, one of the more astute and considerate in the Witness "apologist" camp (if one can so label him)
I agree. Foster is among the few JW apologists who carefully steers away from the stupider of JW doctrines, and always maintains an even keel. This has been true in the 13 years since I met him online. I have a good deal of respect for Foster (and Herle), as opposed to morons like Flemings, Couture, Kidd, etc.
: wrote a very flattering review of Carr's latest book on blacks and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Foster is liable to get himself in trouble with JW central.
: Foster is himself black and recently had published a scholarly monograph on Tertullian's Christology.
Interesting.
AlanF
