Who is larry taunton

We apologize for any inconvenience to those of you who missed our cancellation notice. I hope you will pray for us all as we move forward. Now Lauri, Sasha and I are going to enjoy our first authentic vacation in years. I look forward to reconnecting with you in the New Year.

Merry Christmas, Larry Alex Taunton". This story was updated to include a statement issued by Taunton today, Feb. Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission. All rights reserved About Us. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local.

Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Ad Choices. Report a digital subscription issue If you are being blocked from reading Subscriber Exclusive content, first confirm you are logged in using the account with which you subscribed. People do communicate important messages non-verbally. That possibility requires us to consider other questions: How sensitive an observer is Larry Taunton? And how reliable a narrator? It is from Taunton we learn about the supposedly close relationship between himself and Hitchens—and we learn it via the amazing efflorescence of compliments to himself that Taunton gathers in his pages.

It's disquieting that Taunton acknowledges he seldom took contemporaneous notes of his conversations with Hitchens. They sound very like the gracious things Hitchens would say to a debate-stage sparring partner and post-debate drinking companion. The abundant collection of compliments to Taunton from Hitchens forms a very striking contrast to the massive barrage of abuse that Taunton directs at his dear friend, Christopher Hitchens. Even if I retype a great number of them, literally dozens will be left over.

But fair sampling is necessary to give the true flavor of this self-described work of friendship. Actions by Hitchens that might look to another eye generous, kind, and forbearing e. Peter Hitchens has challenged my use of the word bitter in this context, and pointed to an earlier response to his article by his brother; see my response here.

I counted only one unambiguously favorable comment about Hitchens that did not also contain a self-compliment to Taunton. When I offered this observation to Taunton, his tone turned defensive. So I asked Taunton to refute me: Provide a counter-example from his own book.

When he failed to do so, I read him a few of the disparaging comments above—and that reading triggered the following:. Because he knew how to do it. He was extremely skilled at doing that sort of thing.

Because when you watched him, he was so good in terms of his rhetoric and the use of his English accent and so on. He never claimed it. And I think these are things that need to be pointed out, as opposed to assuming he was an expert in many of the fields he pronounced on. A few minutes later, Taunton congratulated himself for not having spoken even more harshly of Hitchens than he did. And with that he subsided into stammers and self-interruptions and hazy insinuations.

You might suppose that Christopher Hitchens was an important intellectual. No, says Larry Taunton, Hitchens was merely the holder of a pitiful Third Class degree from Oxford, not a scholar of history or science or philosophy.

Was Hitchens not an eloquent and brilliant talker? Keenly aware of his own flaws, he believes god's greatest gift is the grace He bestows on mankind and that which we offer to one another. While Larry sallies forth into parts unknown from time to time, it is to his lovely wife, Lauri, that he always returns. Together they have four grown children and enjoy a relatively peaceful existence at their home, Duck River Ranch. A train station somewhere in Europe. About Larry.

Larry Alex Taunton is an award-winning author, freelance columnist, and producer. For better or for worse, he is a man with a reputation. The military life of moving from one base to another suited Larry and engendered in him a restlessness that has never left him. With a mother from Vancouver Island, Canada and his father a native of L. He was never fully one or the other. But it was from his Irish maternal grandmother, who, at 19, had boarded a ship in Belfast bound for the New World never to return, that he inherited his resolve and stubbornness.

Though only five-feet tall, rebar ran straight through her tiny frame. Although she grew up in an irreligious family, she was interested in spiritual issues and also saw to it that Larry received some religious instruction. But it was in her capacity as a professional artist that she had the most enduring impact. She had Larry tutored in oil painting beginning in early childhood. Strong-willed and unhappy to be sitting in front of a canvas with palette and paintbrush when his friends were on the playground, he rebelled at every opportunity and quickly convinced a series of tutors to quit.

When the last resigned, he was gleefully certain the playground could not be far away. In the book, Taunton suggests that Hitchens may have contemplated faith toward the end of his life and that he was not certain of his atheism like Hitchens lead people to believe. This article was originally posted here. ChristianWeek relies on your generous support.

Samuel Smith. If ChristianWeek has made a difference in your life, please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire. Christian apologist and author Larry Alex Taunton.