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Archive for April, 2009

Making sense of the facts in pursuit of the real Jesus – Who on Earth Was Jesus? by Author David Boulton

Cumbria, England, April 15, 2009 – If John Lennon was alive today and made the claim that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, inventive writers and pseudo-scholars would come out of the woodwork with theories and facts to prove him wrong.  It has become more and more difficult for the reader to obtain knowledgeable guidance on what might be fact and what is likely to be fiction in the old, old story.  One man has taken on this challenge and written a one-volume, engrossing account about the debate between contemporary scholars on what we can know about the human Jesus of history before he became the divine Christ of faith.  Author David Boulton has filtered history from mystery, evidence from conjecture, and critical from wishful thinking – with the end product being the most comprehensive survey published to date in Who on Earth Was Jesus? (O-Books, John Hunt Publishing).

Since there are countless books by Christians about the Christ of faith, books by Jews about Jesus the Jew, books by atheists about Jesus the myth, and those proposing a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was really a woman named Mildred, or wondering if Jesus had a love life – what makes this book different?   This remarkably informative book incorporates the experiences gained by serious scholars throughout history, looking at the theories and conclusions of all the main competing schools of historical Jesus scholarship.  It is comprised of three parts: Sources literally sets out the ‘road map’ for the book’s journey, telling the story of the quest up to modern times; Interpretations explains how different schools of modern critical scholarship have interpreted the sources to discover or reconstruct a plausible historical Jesus, and Consequences summarizes what most mainstream scholars agree on and what disagreements remain unresolved.   The final chapter takes a fresh look at the origins of the notion of an apocalyptic End Time, making a passionate argument in our own time for determining whether the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic doomster or a utopian visionary.  Visit the author’s website at www.historicaljesus.com

David Boulton is an award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster.  He is the author of more than twenty books on contemporary history and current affairs, including the international best-sellers The Lockheed Papers (The Grease Machine in the United States) and Objection Overruled.  He is the recipient of the Royal Television Society’s special award for outstanding services to broadcasting.

  
Endorsements:

“David’s book is simply the best and most thorough account of the breadth and variety of historical Jesus scholarship…lively, informed, fair and highly recommended,” says Marcus Borg, Distinguished Professor of Religion & Culture, Oregon State University.

Jana Reiss, Religious Editor of Publishers Weekly says, “Boulton gives an overview of several factions of Jesus scholars, comparing their conclusions and explaining their theses…from theologians to scholars to popes, he distills their thoughts into a comprehensible and comprehensive survey of the best of contemporary thinkers…an unbiased look at the ever-changing discipline of Jesus studies….a book not to be missed.”

“This book is nothing short of astounding…an immense amount of material, the format is so concise and well planned you never get lost….masterfully assembled…I recommend this labor of love to all who have questions and are open-minded enough to process the amazing answers,” from Riki Frahmann, Planet Starz.

“The book I always wanted to read but never knew existed – until now!”  BBC Radio Sunday Breakfast Show.

“Apart from the excitement of the historical quest, here is the perfect resource for people who want a one-volume guide to a multi-volume industry,” from Richard Holloway, Former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

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Catch those lost ‘butterflies’ in your marriage – start dating your spouse – Lindsey Rietzsch is the author of How to Date Your Spouse

In an age where the economy is having a negative affect on marriages and divorce seems to be the norm, it is doubly refreshing to find a book that shows the reader how to fall in love with their spouse all over again; remembering what drew them together and made them “the one” in the first place, and showing how to have fun along the journey!

Lindsey Rietzsch is the author of How to Date Your Spouse (Visintra Group Publishers), a lighthearted book that helps bring humor back into a relationship and re-ignites the intimacy and passion that was prevalent during the courting phase.  The author has a personal dream – to help improve and strengthen marriages throughout the world since happy spouses are the center of a happy family, and happy families are essential to a stronger society.  She believes that strong societies working together are the key to a better world – and she is doing her part to improve the world one marriage at a time! 

Using the invaluable experience she gained from teaching self-management and relationship courses in Utah as the foundation and inspiration for her book, and enhancing it with her own rich blend of humor, creativity, and understanding, Lindsey has managed to produce a fresh, new perspective on the topic of marriage improvement.  She offers realistic advice and date ideas to reignite the feeling of newness, showing how to set the tone for a special date, how open communication is key, and how to show love for each other in public without feeling awkward.  She magically helps bring back the mystery so the reader once again experiences those old, forgotten ‘butterflies’ at the sight of their loved one.  It is a heartwarming, step-by-step guide to falling head over heels in love again, recapturing feelings thought to be long gone.

Lindsey’s Bachelor of Integrated Studies degree in Communication, Family Studies and Social Work is reflected in her knowledge of human behavior and shows in this very promising author’s witty, writing style.  Check out her web site for more information at www.howtodateyourspouse.com.  Also, if you would like to be a part of marriage improvement worldwide, become a fan of How to Date Your Spouse on Facebook and you’ll be kept informed of upcoming events, contests and giveaways, plus join in discussions and find ways to improve your own marriage.  On the author’s website go to the link for “Facebook Fan Club” and follow the directions to get signed up.

 

TIP SHEET

Review Lindsey’s TV interviews at the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmWvxJJYow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n72lKnd9Ey8

REVIEWS:

John M. Hunstman, Jr., Governor of Utah, took the time to write: “Lindsey, you are to be commended for your efforts to help preserve marriage and the family.”

Tristi Pinkston, Author, wrote: “….is a fun and lighthearted book that reminds us how important it is to keep creating special moments together.  Now that the goal of marriage has been met, the courting is not over…. We need to continue to take time out for each other…spend time together…dress up for each other.”

Ranee Johnson, a Licensed Professional Counselor, adds “The ideas in this book are based upon a wellness model rather than a disease model….great way for people to enrich and work on a relationship …. before it gets diseased …. Lindsey’s ideas are great for keeping a marriage vibrant and alive….the book is for anyone who wants to enjoy and have fun enhancing their relationship.”

The praise flows from a 5-Star Customer Review on Deseretbook.com, saying, “Wonderful dating ideas!  I love this book …great ideas on how to keep my relationship alive and fun….some of these ideas are inexpensive but clever.”

And from a 5-Star Customer Review on Amazon.com, “I bought this book after hearing an interview with the author on the radio.  It is well written and fun to read….really like the date ideas ….have tried some with my wife.…had a lot of fun without spending a lot of money.  My wife is looking at me differently already.”

Two avid readers made the following statements:

“Wonderful dating ideas…love this book!  What great ideas on how to keep my relationship with my husband alive and fun.”

“One of the better things about the book is her ideas….Lindsey does a good job of just having the ideas ready to get you started …after you start…then you can create some of your own….I always need help with creativity.  I like her book that way.”

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Inside The Mind of a Teen Killer by Author Phil Chalmers

Ten years after the unthinkable – Are kids any safer since the Columbine High School Massacre?
Author Phil Chalmers offers a unique, often disturbing glimpse into the mind of a teen killer

On April 20, 1999 in the small suburban town of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, enacted an all-out assault on Columbine High School. The boys’ plan was to kill hundreds of their peers. Armed with guns, knives, and a multitude of bombs, the two boys walked the hallways and killed.  When the day was done, twelve students, one teacher, and the two boys were dead.  The obvious question in the aftermath was why?

In Inside The Mind of a Teen Killer (Thomas Nelson, April 2009), author Phil Chalmers reveals 15 years of research, exhaustive interviews, and face-to-face conversations with the young men who carried out some of the most heinous crimes.

Chalmers says that the two Columbine killers displayed several warning signs that were missed by those around them, and were motivated by at least five of the ten causes of teen murder detailed inside the pages of Inside The Mind of a Teen Killer

“After seeing the rash of teen murders in the 1980’s and the string of school shootings in the 1990’s, I felt I could no longer sit back and watch.  And the so called “experts” didn’t seem to have any answers either, so I went directly to the killers and shooters themselves, and obtained facts and motivations that only could be obtained by speaking with the perpetrators,” said Chalmers.

Luke Woodham was once a lovable child.  Like many other boys, he grew into a socially awkward teen often targeted by bullies.  On October 1, 1997, his life took a tragic turn when he killed his mother in their home, and then drove to his high school and shot nine people, two fatally.  How did this happen?  What sends kids like this careening over the edge?  How can a seemingly typical teen turn into a homicidal maniac?  Inside The Mind of a Teen Killer provides some fascinating insight for parents, teachers, police officers, anyone who cares about the safety of our children including: 

  • Conversations with the killers themselves
  • The top ten causes of teen murder
  • How to recognize the warning signs to prevent future violence
  • A game plan to keep our schools and communities safe
  • The ten mistakes parents make that unknowingly contribute to teen violence

About The Author

Phil Chalmers is an American author and a law enforcement trainer who resides in the Midwest. He has been researching youth culture and speaking to teens and youth workers all over the world since 1985.  Since the mid 1990s, Phil has been conducting extensive research into the arenas of teen murder and school violence to prepare for this major book release.

Phil has produced two documentaries, including the hit series “True Lies.” He has also written three books and regularly writes for numerous national magazines and newspapers.  He currently spends his time training law enforcement, school administrators, and criminal justice students on juvenile homicide and juvenile mass murder.

For more information visit www.PhilChalmers.com

TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW WITH PHIL CHALMERS 
Contact Rodney Foster:
[email protected] or call (281) 324-2180 / (281) 333-3507

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RACISM IN AMERICA: THE TWISTED LEGAL HISTORY

New Book from Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is NOT Your Grandfather’s History Book

Barack Obama’s rise to power and overwhelming popularity may help America take an advanced step away from the kind of institutional racism that is, at least in part, the root of many problems currently facing African-Americans.

Still, it would be naïve to think that poverty, joblessness, crime, drug addiction, and disproportionate incarceration rates will somehow vanish because the first black president occupies the Oval Office.

What is needed is a fundamental understanding of how we got here.

In Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom In America (Thomas Nelson, April 14, 2009) Judge Andrew Napolitano provides a no-holds-barred look at the role of the government in the denial of freedoms based on race.

 “The real culprit throughout our racial history has been the government,” writes Napolitano.  “At every level, at virtually every turn, in every generation, the government selectively chose to enact and enforce laws and inevitably condoned and protected the most horrific abuse imaginable to blacks, and to some of the whites who protested.”   

Readers of Dred Scott’s Revenge will learn:

  • about the seeds of American slavery
  • how the country’s framers failed to adhere to the principles the nation was founded upon 
  • how appointed judges enforced two sets of laws (fair treatment for whites, unfair treatment for blacks)
  • the difference between Natural Law and Positivism and how the latter gives power to the majority and heaven help the minority
  • the origins of Jim Crow Laws of segregation and rules (for blacks only) in the U.S. military
  • the truth about the ugly Tuskegee Experiment 
  • how both parties have used racial rhetoric to get elected 
  • how government silence spoke volumes as the nation’s pastime was integrating

Dred Scott’s Revenge includes stories that some writers have hoped readers would not learn; of people demeaned worse than cattle, denied basic free will, crushed or impeded by the government even up to today.  Further, Napolitano argues that although the government’s only legitimate function is to protect freedom, time and time again it strays well outside the Constitution, ultimately putting our very freedoms at risk.

About the Author

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano graduated from Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School.  He is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey.  He has tried over 150 jury trials and has sat in all parts of the Superior Court.  For eleven years, he was Adjunct Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School where he was voted most outstanding professor in three academic years.  Judge Napolitano returned to private practice in 1995 and has been the Senior Judicial Analyst for Fox News since 1998 and co-hosts “Brian and the Judge” on Fox radio.  Judge Napolitano also lectures nationally, and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, and many more.  He is the author of Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws, the New York Times bestseller The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land, and A Nation of Sheep.

Endorsements:

 “Dred Scott’s Revenge makes it impossible for the self-anointed ‘experts’ on race relations to ever accuse the country of being too afraid to have a national discussion on race. Judge Napolitano lays out 150 years of our national experience . . . and places the blame for much of what’s wrong squarely at the feet of those responsible: the federal government and politicians whose plans, policies, and programs trashed the Constitution. Compelling and timely reading written for the layman, not lawyers!”
–Glenn Beck, Nationally syndicated radio talk show host; Host, The Glenn Beck Program, Fox News Channel

 “The Attorney General ignited a firestorm by suggesting that ours was a nation of ‘cowards’ when it comes to conversations about race. Judge Andrew Napolitano is no coward. His brave and incisive book takes the calamitous, contemptuous Dred Scott decision, which held slaves to be “non-persons,” as its starting point. In this sharply written narrative, the Judge shows us how race remains the driving force in almost every aspect of American life, from education to law enforcement. Dred Scott, the person, would have appreciated this graphic and honest appraisal.”

–Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Channel

“The best history of the law and race I’ve ever read . . . Judge Napolitano has written a challenge to anyone who thinks they understand the roots of America’s tangled race relations.”

— Juan Williams, National Public Radio

TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW WITH JUDGE ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
Contact: Monica Foster:
[email protected] (281) 324-2180 / (281) 333-3507

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