Baker Books

This book comprises a lot more than most church histories on the reformation. It is sure not a book any partisan of any theological party in the reformation times can read with the satisfaction that his party has been right all the time - on the contrary. It honestly describes all parties with their bright and dark sides. It differentiates well between Luther's, Zwingli's and Calvin's background and theology, takes up the conflicts between Calvinists and Lutherans and the conflicts between Lutherans and Lutherans and Calvinists and Calvinists.

Heinze treats some aspects of the reformation times which are not included in the usual church history on the reformation: he describes the military conflicts resulting of it, Catholic and Protestant missionary enterprises outside of Europe, the impact of the reformation on literature, art, science and education. A special mention is deserved for the chapter on women in the reformation which includes beside general aspects the life of Wibrandis Rosenblatt, wife of the reformers Oecolampadius, Capito and Bucer, and the church reform activities of Vittoria Colonna, the Italian poet.

What I liked especially was the non-partisan attitude and the viewpoint of the historian who not only cites sources but also takes up the past and current main views and debates on the subject. It makes use of the most recent research and the extensive endnotes make an interesting reading by themselves.

The book is very well readable - and it probably will give anyone a less glorious and more realistic view of his own church during reformation times.

In the opening pages of this book Professor Heinze tells the story of Johann Sleidan (1506-1556), who wrote one of the earliest histories of the Reformation. What is notable about Sleidan is that he made a conscious effort to be fair to all parties at a time when impartiality in history writing was nearly unheard of. Prof Heinze has clearly made every effort to follow in Sleidan's noble footsteps, and the result is a work which is a joy to read.

It is abundantly evident that Prof Heinze is on top of all the latest research and schools of thought; in fact, it is amazing to learn that you could arrive at a somewhat warped understanding of the Reformation (which occurred nearly 500 years ago) if you neglected to consider research done since 1980! But for all that Prof Heinze doesn't let his erudition get in the way of good storytelling.

The section on the English Reformation has been most interesting to me; it has helped me to understand how the Puritans came to be who they were and how they fit into the larger society. And if you think your family is dysfunctional, just read about Henry VIII and his extended family. You couldn't make this stuff up!

The format of the book is superb. As with all Baker books, the typography is attractive and legible. One of the best features is a "Suggestions for Further Reading" section at the back that gives annotated suggestions for each chapter with separate sublists for primary and secondary works.

Reisman and Baker bring much needed clarity to an legal area which is controversial and a moving target. Superb exposition. Useful "take aways" for a national security practitioner. Have always enjoyed Reisman's clarity of thought particularly in his analysis of Law of the Sea issues - - he does it again in the area of covert operations.

I hope a second edition is written which analyzes the law of covert operations as it applies to current U.S. Government policies and practices. An analysis of how information operations fits into this overall scheme would also be interesting.

Well done!

This book is the best analysis of covert action policy-making I have read. Surprisingly, it is written by two legal scholars, and not by political scientists. It's primary purpose is to analyze the international legal status of covert actions. However, it contains a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the goals and objectives of covert action. In addition, it has a good list of covert actions carried out by a number of countries.

This book reminds us that we often make following Jesus more difficult than it needs to be. Shed off the unecessary, and live life in freedom from humanistic obligations!

This book reminds me on how individualistic
many Christians are, and how we tend to add something
to the grace of God. Using his ministry experiences
in Honduras, Dr. Baker explained the necessity to see
grace of God as a sufficient grace, and the importance
of building a community of grace pretty well.
Though I think Dr. Baker needed to write more about
faith, not only as written in the epistle to Galatians,
but I think his book deserves a five-star rating.

This is the 1st edition of a truly epochal treatise in rationalistic theism. It is rare, having been printed in hardcover by Moody Press in 1957 in a printing of 2,000. Unfortunately, the plates were destroyed. Religious publishers aren't exactly the brightest stars in the universe when it comes to the importance of intellectual issues to belief trends in the overall culture.

Norman Geisler once told me in a phone conversation that Stuart Hackett is the greatest living Christian philosopher. I agree.

The book shows how to self-referentially analyze statements to eliminate the possibility of opposing views, and to argue from the impossibility of an actually infinite temporal sequence or an actually infinite set of discrete extra-mental objects to a cause of the universe. It then uses the purpose argument, to discover that this cause is the ultimate personal mind that sentient beings are limited approximations of.

Hence, believing that God exists is the result of a series of metatheoretic and first-order steps of inference, an intellectual cul-de-sac from which there is no logical escape, only a chosen one.

Analyzing statements that refer to or qualify themselves dominates the entire work, even in relation to self-referential analysis itself and the prior structures of conceptionalization through which such issues are adjudicated.

But the refutation of an infinite series, which is decisive for his cosmological argument, is ironically brief and cursory, so you'll have to check out other sources for a development of that refutation (Hint: using a principle of construction with no assigned limit does not imply an actual or actualizable infinite series.)

The whole point for the common person exposed to general universal statements about knowledge, truth, or reality---"Everything is X (determined, person-relative, illusion, maya, false, subjective, biased, hopeless, meaningless, futile, etc.)", is to ask: What about that statement ITSELF?

How can relativism mean the same thing to any mind from one moment to the next, as well as from one person to another?

Was Marx's view itself merely economically determined and therefore not capable of being true?

Do the anti-reason and anti-rationalist views mimic rationality in spite of their claimed point?

Once you start asking those kinds of questions, you realize that those views are always stated as if *they* get a free ride. Statements about statements.

The next time you hear someone throwing around universals, try asking that question. In time, the lights go on and you recognize self-referring/self-contradictory statements rather quickly.

Most of the time, you'll find that this boils down to someone not wanting anyone to do any thinking, while criticizing other views without any self-questioning or examination of their *own* background assumptions.

Sound familiar?

"You're so bigoted, and I'm so objective and dispassionate about bigotry."

Got it?

There's no mention of this convenient little self-exemption for a reason.

I became street-wise about these kinds of remarks, just by asking that simple question.

What about that statement itself?

There is still no single work that even *attempts* to cover virtually every argument and counterargument that has ever been put forth concerning the existence of God. Like business and software development, there is a failure to listen to what people are actually saying or asking.

There really aren't that many arguments, objections, or views. There's maybe two dozen irreducibly distinct philosophies. But by the same token you'll find very little concerning metaphilosophical mind-commandments, mind-principle relations and obligation, value assumptions of epistemology or reason, performative inconsistency, self-referential analysis, starting points and the burden of proof, and whether the nature of a deistic or theistic God implies any obligation to save the world. Theists and atheists are for the most part oscillating insanities with hidden agendas that protect their most basic second-order assumptions. The real questions are: who has the best arguments against their own views, do they blink when it comes to scrutiny about validity or ultimate assumptions, and are they genuine when it comes to belief optimization in relation to the imminence of death.

For a list of no-bs resources, see my Listmania List, "Atheism and God".

This is the 2nd Edition of an epochal treatise in rationalistic theism. The 1st Edition is extremely rare, having been printed in hardbound by Moody Press in 1957 in a printing of only 2,000. Unfortunately, the plates were destroyed.

The bottom line of this book is to show how to self-referentially analyze statements to eliminate the possibility of opposing views, and to prove the impossibility of an actually infinite temporal sequence or an actually infinite set of discrete extra-mental objects.

Hence, believing that God exists is the end of a long metatheoretic journey, an intellectual cul-de-sac from which there is no logical escape, only a chosen one.

Analyzing statements that refer to themselves dominates the entire work, even in relation to self-referential analysis itself and the prior structures of conceptionalization.

But the refutation of an infinite series, which is decisive for his cosmological argument, is extremely brief and cursory, so you'll have to check out other sources for a development of that refutation (Hint: using a principle of construction with no assigned limit does not imply an actual or actualizable infinite series.)

The whole point for the common person exposed to general universal statements about knowledge, truth, or reality---"Everything is X (determined, person-relative, illusion, maya, false, subjective, biased, hopeless, meaningless, futile, BS, etc.), is to ask: What about that statement ITSELF?

With relativism, for example, how can relativism mean the same thing to any mind from one moment to the next, as well as from one person to another?

Once you ask that question, you realize that those statements are always stated as if *they* get a free ride.

The next time you hear someone throwing around universals, try asking that question. The lights will go on, and you'll get to where you can recognize self-referring statements rather quickly.

Most of the time, you'll find that this boils down to someone not wanting anyone to do any thinking, while criticizing other views without any self-questioning or examination of background assumptions. Sound familiar?

"You're so bigoted and I'm so objective about subjectivity." Got it?

And of course you'll hear no real mention of this convenient little self-exemption.

Fortunately, very common non-intellectual people are becoming street-wise about these kinds of remarks, simply by learning to ask that one simple question.

What about that statement itself?

Drives the loud champions of intellectual humility absolutely crazy.


Unfortunately, there is still no single work that contains virtually every argument and counterargument that has ever been put forth concerning the existence of God. You'll find very little in print concerning metaphilosophical mind-commandments, mind-principle relations and obligation, value assumptions of reason, performative inconsistency, self-referential analysis, starting points and the burden of proof, and whether the nature of a deistic or theistic God implies any obligation to save the world.

For further investigation, see anything by William Craig, Norman Geisler (The Terminator of christian apologetics, in print but especially his many debates), or Germain Grisez; Joseph Boyle's 1975 dissertation, "Self-Referential Analysis: The Current Discussion"; Against Relativism by James Harris (possibly the finest refutation of relativism of all time); "Atheological Apologetics" (one of the most difficult but clever articles ever written against atheism) by Scott Shalkowski (American Philosophical Quarterly 26 {1989}, pp. 1-17).

I strongly recommend, for analytic background: The Nature of Thought (2 vols) by Brand Blandshard, Language and Reality by Wilbur Marshal Urban, Critique of Pure Reason, Monadology by Leibniz, anything by Alvin Plantinga, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer.

On January 6, 2002 on Stand To Reason radio (rebroadcast on strradio.org), Dr. William Lane Craig, a prolific Christian philospher and theologian, was asked about his favorite apologetic books. This book was high on the list as one that has affected him deeply.

Book in good shape. Shipment arrived at a good time. Nothing to complain about.

It seems that the number of books put out by publishers, in any number of fields, will not be abetting anytime soon. Whether or not that is a good thing may be a matter of debate. Some subjects are worth discussing at length, because trawling for deeper meanings or drawing out the nuances of the matter yield more insight and expand our understanding with each new layer of data-whether by contrasting it against the hard edge of another discipline or by the overlay of the veneer of a new metaphor. But some subjects, once having been examined, leave one with the impression that "everything that needs to be said has been said."

Robert Banks and Bernice M. Ledbetter think that the subject of leadership is one of those topics worth revisiting, and they do so in their book, Reviewing Leadership, much to our benefit. In this short book, Banks and Ledbetter do two things. First, they briefly introduce the reader to "everything that needs to be said that has been said" about leadership by providing a brief overview of how leadership has been treated and understood in what they categorize as biblical, historical, and contemporary perspectives (chapter two). Second, in the chapters following, they attempt to bring an ethical lens to the subject of leadership through a Christian perspective, beginning with "spiritual and religious dimensions" (chapter three) to a more overt Christian understanding of the leadership function in the final chapter through the use of "exemplary case studies" of Christian leadership in action (refreshingly, and tellingly, none of the persons featured in the case studies would likely be the first, or second, guess of most contemporary leaders or informed laity as to "models of leadership.").

According to the writers, the book is "a summary of academic approaches and concrete experiences. It is a fruit of biblical investigation and reflection on our own experiences. It is an exercise in cultural analysis and theological exploration. It is derived from current writings on leadership and personal observations of exemplary role models. It has its basis in common sense and familiar proverbs and our exposure to film and poetry" (p. 11). And it is this confessed subjectivity that yields some of the (few) least helpful portions and conclusion in the book. The critical reader, however, will be able to overcome those sections and focus on some of the more substantive and insightful contributions the authors make in this study.

The first two chapters provide a background to the study on leadership that the authors develop. The first chapter provides definitions and discussions on the nature of leadership and stakes a claim as to the importance of its study. In the second chapter the authors offer a brief historical interpretive overview of leadership, limiting the scope to a biblical context and to the last century. The brevity of the coverage leaves curious gaps in the scope of leadership studies, as well as an absence of mention of some arguably influential leadership theories and schools.

Chapters three and four provide the unique contribution that the book makes to the subject at hand. In these chapters the authors attempt to highlight overt spiritual, theological, and religious dimensions of leadership. The treatment culminates in their attempt to frame, and critique, distinctly "Christian" approaches to leadership. The fifth chapter discusses how to translate theories of leadership into practice through the advocacy of three ethical (Christian) dimensions: faithfulness, integrity, and a servant-like attitude. Following the chapter on case studies of model leaders (Franck Buchman, Soren Kierkegaard, Janet Hagberg, and Gordon Cosby), the book concludes with a a very brief chapter reflecting on how to nurture the kind of Christian leadership the authors advocate.

While not containing everything that needs to be said on the subject of leadership, this book is a good companion addition to other solid, more thorough, books on leadership that may be on the readers' bookshelf.

The Rise Of The Phoenix is an impressive and engaging debut novel by Dawn Rivers Baker about the impending fate of an Empire, the dark force that menaces it, and the Prophecy surrounding two fraternal twins caught in the twists and machinations of grand schemes. A transcendent and splendor-filled work of high fantasy, The Rise Of The Phoenix is vividly descriptive and complexly woven, filled with intrigue throughout, and enthusiastically recommended reading.

The Rise of the Phoenix
By Dawn Rivers Baker

Fine can describe a number of things. There are fine wines, fine chocolates and fine china, all treasures characterized by elegance and refinement. Fine constitutes a work of superior quality and skill: something free from impurities. An article of fine craftsmanship, then, is one exhibiting a careful and delicate artistry: an end product rendered with both subtlety and precision.

Before I read Rise of the Phoenix by Dawn Rivers Baker, fine would not have been a term I readily assigned to literature. Oh, yes, indeed to Shakespeare, to Kahlil Gibran, but never before to a modern work of fantasy.

To my mind, rising to the level of fine requires a work of literature to be a luxury: a work so delicious that I want to savor it alone in the quiet evening hours after the children have gone to bed. I crave the time, the space, the privacy to leisurely float through it as though swimming in a sea of liquid pearls ... naked. A fine work is one I could never settle for reading once. What's more, it is one that begs to be read aloud at times, just for the sheer pleasure of tasting the well-turned phrase as it lolls across the palate.

In this, and more, Rise of the Phoenix delivers.

But the satisfaction of Phoenix runs far deeper than its poetic constructs. It is an engaging tale of memorable characters struggling against the ultimate dark force of their world, an evil powerful enough to blind the mind and impel good people to heinous acts and indifference. In that, the dark force of Baker's universe is frighteningly real.

Meet Lady Dia of Shae, a young noble of intelligence, independence, culture and subtle rebel leanings, who embarks on her first journey to Ormaerand, seat of the Imperial Palace, in an attempt to re-establish her mind link with her twin brother, Daerus. It would seem, since Daerus's own departure for the Imperial Palace, the link that Dia had enjoyed with him since birth has been inexplicably dimmed, shadowed over by something she cannot comprehend. He has called to her, and only by seeking him out and discerning his situation can she hope to set aright whatever it is that has come between her and her beloved twin.

It is a dangerous and vulnerable time in which Dia travels, a time between ages in a world where ages are marked by the rise and fall of the Phoenix. He is the keeper of time and central to a religion that has fallen from favor with most of the other Houses, save that of Shae. Until the Phoenix rises once again, time is practically at a stand still. Days have become years. A year of frigid darkness has ended as Dia makes her way through a new dawn toward Ormaerand. It is a dawn that will slowly yield to months of relentless sun that will bake the earth dry.

At the Palace, Dia encounters pivotal characters in the persons of Caelon of Aerandos and his parents, whose warm relationships and interplay are delightfully penned by Baker. But almost as soon as she arrives, Dia is besieged by the same darkness threatening to sweep her brother from reach. She discovers that only one grace tethers her to the ability to remain self-possessed: the touch of Caelon's hand.

Without understanding, Dia nevertheless clings to this realization and quickly forges a courtly arrangement with Caelon (replete with playful underpinnings) wherein he is to take her hand in greeting whenever they should meet. His comprehension no clearer than hers, he happily obliges. She does not immediately confide in him that, for some reason, his touch is imbued with the power to clear her mind of the evil fog that threatens to overtake her daily, and the more insistently so the longer she remains in the Palace.

The Rise of the Phoenix is the tale of this couple's coming to understand the roles they are playing in a larger arena: the stage upon which good and evil do ultimate battle. It is at once an adventure, a romance, and a work of high fantasy peopled with richly drawn characters and neatly packaged in the flourish of Dawn Rivers Baker's riveting voice.

The Rise of the Phoenix is a rare find, a work too good to place upon a shelf. Now that I have relished it, it remains by my desk where I sneak a tidbit whenever I hunger for something beyond the meat-and-potato realm of most reading. After all, Hershey's chocolate bars are unstintingly shared with the masses, but a Godiva Chocolate is a jealously guarded treat. So go ahead. Indulge yourself. Read The Rise of the Phoenix and taste the difference.

I really liked this book. I don't read much but this one was great.

Fasten your seat belts! Be prepared to read ROCKING THE CRADLE in one or two sittings. Ms. Jacobs grabs you from the beginning and doesn't let go until you reach the last page.

Ms. Jacobs' fine writing, characterization, and attention to detail make Holly's perils seem very plausible. As you are reading you will probably think: "There but for the grace of God . . ."

Be sure to read Nancy Baker Jacobs' other suspense novels, which include CRADLE AND ALL and DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING, as well as her wonderful series featuring private eye Devon MacDonald.

This book made me wonder if Schaap was secretly writing about me and my childhood friend. Same type of small town. Same type of fathers and families and churches. Same type of childhood experiences and thoughts in many ways.

But moreover, it was thought provoking in the way it looked at how we grew up, learned the things we learned about life and our "faith" and so much about the influences our parents have on our lives long beyond when we move out and start our own lives. It hit home on how other people in our life change the way we are and will be and that we indeed have that ability to change others also.

Deeply moving and takes a whole new approach on the whole concept of Christ's gift of GRACE. How we learn it, receive it and dispense it.

Well done and worth reading....maybe twice. Great for a discussion group!

I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. Schaap has given us one of the finer reads in inspirational fiction. In terms of quality, voice, style, and most of all, story, this novel stands leagues above many others that have garnered far more attention and plaudits in the "Christian fiction" category. In addition, his own Christian worldview shines through without hitting his readers over the head with the more common tactic of "sermonizing." It's too bad this novel hasn't received the recognition it so obviously deserves.

I applaud the book and look forward to the author's next work.

This is one of the better books that I have read, Rosey talkes about leadership and saying what you want. Buy this and read it! He is a great Christian man.

This is one of the better books that I have read, Rosey talkes about leadership and saying what you want. Buy this and read it! He is a great Christian man.

If you are doing any research on the subject of translation, this book will be your new Bible! It is written in encyclopedia format, so if you know what you're looking for it is easy to find. If not, the table of contents is really well arranged.

A rare blend of fascinating reading and authoritative instruction. The example translations alone are reason to pick up the book.