Givens, a BYU graduate and Latter-day Saint, said Smith imbued the LDS community with an emphasis on personal relationships and a culture of certainty born of his own statements that he had seen God and Jesus Christ and had translated the Book of Mormon from tangible metal plates.

"Smith ignited something in thousands of men and women that connects them to God and to each other in powerful ways," Givens said. "The God of Joseph Smith was not a threat to human potential, but a being who gloried in that potential, and whose work was to bring it to fruition. That was why Joseph's message resonated and caught hold like a burning fire."

Oxford University Press is preparing its third title by Givens for publication next year. The book is tentatively titled "People of Paradox: A Cultural History of the Mormon People." Oxford, the world's largest university press, previously published "By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion" and "Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy."

Greenwood Press recently released another Givens book, "The Latter-day Saint Experience in America."

Electronic versions of Givens' BYU address are available online at speeches.byu.edu. A free transcript will be available in four to six weeks on the same Web site. KBYU-TV will rebroadcast the speech on Sunday at 6 and 11 a.m. and BYU Television will carry it the same day at 4 and 8 p.m.

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