Best Selling Books by D. Baker

As Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker demonstrate, the New Testament displays a rich array of interpretations of the cross. The church in mission shaped these as it rooted the story of a scandalous cross in the language of everyday realities and relationships.

Lee D. Baker explores what racial categories mean to the American public and how these meanings are reinforced by anthropology, popular culture, and the law. Focusing on the period between two landmark Supreme Court decisions—Plessy v. Ferguson (the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine established in 1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (the public school desegregation decision of 1954)—Baker shows how racial categories change over time. Baker paints a vivid picture of the relationships between specific African American and white scholars, who orchestrated a paradigm shift within the social sciences from ideas based on Social Darwinism to those based on cultural relativism. He demonstrates that the greatest impact on the way the law codifies racial differences has been made by organizations such as the NAACP, which skillfully appropriated the new social science to exploit the politics of the Cold War.

This inspiring account of bipartisan political success delivers an expert breakdown of how and why Kansas—a politically conservative state—was able to craft a stable, balanced, and equitable system of funding for its public schools. Beyond a chronicle of one state’s achievements, School Finance and Education Equity provides invaluable policy guidance and lays out a blueprint that other states can use to strengthen their own public education systems. Readers are given an insider’s tour of the Kansas story by Bruce D. Baker, an academic researcher and expert witness in school finance litigation. With more than two decades of involvement with the state, Baker combines historical background, legal analysis, and political and economic contextual data—along with a gleaming wit—to present a thorough, enlightening narrative of Kansas’s K–12 funding journey. As Baker points out, other states can find much to learn here. He shows that, when it comes to school finance, Kansas serves as an exemplar in aligning resources to meet the promises of its constitution. State leaders rejected the pervasive notion that money doesn’t matter in education, and they gathered the data to prove that it does. Baker emphasizes that this kind of slow and steady success hinges on the ability of stakeholders to remain involved over time. Continuity is vitally important. Baker’s account highlights how persistence can overcome opposition, continuity can aid reform, and incremental gains can lead to big change. In an era of national ideological polarization and political and economic volatility, the lessons from Kansas are especially illuminating.

In the late nineteenth century, if ethnologists in the United States recognized African American culture, they often perceived it as something to be overcome and left behind. At the same time, they were committed to salvaging “disappearing” Native American culture by curating objects, narrating practices, and recording languages. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Lee D. Baker examines theories of race and culture developed by American anthropologists during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. He investigates the role that ethnologists played in creating a racial politics of culture in which Indians had a culture worthy of preservation and exhibition while African Americans did not. Baker argues that the concept of culture developed by ethnologists to understand American Indian languages and customs in the nineteenth century formed the basis of the anthropological concept of race eventually used to confront “the Negro problem” in the twentieth century. As he explores the implications of anthropology’s different approaches to African Americans and Native Americans, and the field’s different but overlapping theories of race and culture, Baker delves into the careers of prominent anthropologists and ethnologists, including James Mooney Jr., Frederic W. Putnam, Daniel G. Brinton, and Franz Boas. His analysis takes into account not only scientific societies, journals, museums, and universities, but also the development of sociology in the United States, African American and Native American activists and intellectuals, philanthropy, the media, and government entities from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Supreme Court. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Baker tells how anthropology has both responded to and helped shape ideas about race and culture in the United States, and how its ideas have been appropriated (and misappropriated) to wildly different ends.

Written by a former Roman Catholic of eighteen years and former candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood, Dr. Todd Baker objectively and honestly examines the grandiose claims of the Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church in the critical light of Scripture and the evidence of history to show where Rome has greatly erred. This multi- volume work provides a controversial overview on the basic doctrines distinctive of Roman Catholicism so the open Catholic can learn how these beliefs, practices, and traditions of Rome contradict Scripture and do not have the support of a consistent, uniform history from the days of Jesus, the apostles, and the first three centuries of the early church and on. With over 1 billion adherents to the Roman Catholic Church, it is incumbent for the Bible believer to know the difference between the real Gospel of Scripture versus the Gospel of Rome and how they are not one and the same Gospel in the end. In a day of man-pleasing, ecumenical compromise with Rome, this book is sorely needed to remind the Protestant church that the real differences between Rome and the Bible have not changed since the Reformation, and must be reiterated and defended today on the exclusive ground of Scripture alone being the supreme authority in faith and practice for every Christian believer! Dr. Todd D. Baker is president of Brit Hadashah Ministries and Pastor of Shalom, Shalom Messianic Congregation in Dallas, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biblical studies, a Master of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Apologetics from Trinity Seminary under the auspices of Liverpool University at Liverpool, England. He is the staff theologian and writer for Zola Levitt Ministries and has appeared on the television program Zola Levitt Presents several times. With his extensive experience in Jewish evangelism, he conducts Gospel outreaches to Israel three times a year.

In Educational Inequality and School Finance, Bruce D. Baker offers a comprehensive examination of how US public schools receive and spend money. Drawing on extensive longitudinal data and numerous studies of states and districts, he provides a vivid and dismaying portrait of the stagnation of state investment in public education and the continuing challenges of achieving equity and adequacy in school funding. Baker explores school finance, the school and classroom resources derived from school funding, and how and why those resources matter. He provides a critical examination of popular assumptions that undergird the policy discourse around school funding—notably, that money doesn’t matter and that we are spending more and getting less—and shows how these misunderstandings contribute to our reluctance to increase investment in education at a time when the demands on our educational system are rising. Through an introduction to the concepts of adequacy, equity, productivity, and efficiency, Baker shows how these can be used to evaluate policy reforms. He argues that we know a great deal about the role and importance of money in schools, the mechanisms through which money matters for student outcomes, and the trade-offs involved, and he presents a framework for designing and financing an equitable and adequate public education system, with balanced and stable sources of revenue. Educational Inequality and School Finance takes an issue all too often relegated to technical experts and makes it accessible for broader public empowerment and engagement.

She’s trained with him. She’s hunted with him. She’s killed with him. Now he’s missing. After the loss of her mother years ago, he is all she has left, and she will do whatever she can to find him. They had made a pact, a rule never to be broken: If we don''t hear anything after three days, we investigate. Three days passed. Now Bethany must take all her years of training, all the skills she developed, and leave the place she’s called home her whole life. What begins as a simple search and rescue soon turns into a violent meandering through the darkest recesses of the Pacific Northwest underworld as Bethany pieces together cryptic clues from her father''s journal. Far from everything and everyone she knows and loves, Bethany must navigate this realm of secrets and peril—and for the first time, she must do it alone. Every step brings her closer to the truth but closer to danger. This is the way of things when infernal cults and hellish fiends are involved. Vampires are not forgiving. Rain City Gothic is a story of devotion, betrayal, and redemption. It is a story of the human spirit and the lengths we will go to save the ones we love.

This project is a training tool for Christian leaders to educate and equip leader and laity alike with the knowledge of the field of grief, and to equip them to improve their ministry to the bereaved. This book can be used by denominational leaders, conventions, and church leaders to train pastors, deacons, and lay leaders in grief ministry skills. The book examines the theological dimensions of death and grief, as well as the theoretical foundations of grief, both normal grief and complicated. Also, the book identifies essential grief ministry skills and the practical application of those skills. The book is both educational and practical. This book can be used in a seminary class room, or can be used by associations to develop the grief ministry skills of its local pastors. This book can also be used in the local church to equip deacons and lay leaders to better minister to its congregants. This book holds value for its commitment to examining the field of grief, while holding to Christian principles. Most literature that combines the knowledge of grief and Christian principles either prepares a person for counseling or ministers to the person that has experienced loss. This book can in fact assist those studying for a career in grief counseling, and at the same time help those experiencing loss. The intention of the author is help the professional as well as the layman prepare for grief ministry and develop specific skills to assist them in their ability to minister to the bereaved.

Millions of people are moving from rural areas to coastal cities. Meeting the basic human needs for protein foods in the future will be a difficult challenge. Fishery products are the world''s most important source of animal protein, which has led to a doubling of the demand for fish since the 1950s. As we can not expect to catch more food from the sea, we must turn to farming the waters, not just hunting them. The new challenge for planners now is to accelerate aquaculture development and to plan for new production, making urban areas of production, particularly recycled urban wastewater. This book includes papers from authors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia that review these developing issues from the perspective of both developed and developing countries.

The amparo suit is a Mexican legal institution similar in its effects to such Anglo-American procedures as habeas corpus, error, and the various forms of injunctive relief. It has undergone a long evolution since it was incorporated into the Constitution of 1857. Today, its principal purpose is to protect private individuals in the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution. Mexico after its independence produced many constitutions. One of the earliest problems was to find an adequate means of defending the Constitution against ill-founded interpretations of its precepts. Like the United States, Mexico has developed a system of constitutional defense in which the judiciary is the supreme interpreter of what this document means. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, however, the Mexican Supreme Court has not been innovative in its decisions or contradicted the administration on major policy decisions. This difference must be attributed to the civil law system of Mexico as well as to the political climate. The first part of Richard D. Baker’s book describes the historical background of amparo and other methods of constitutional defense in Mexico. The three men most closely associated with creating a judicial form of constitutional defense in Mexico were Manuel Crescencio Rejón, José Fernando Ramírez, and Mariano Otero. Their own writings indicate that the immediate source of amparo must be found in the American institution of judicial review that was transmitted to Mexicans through Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The second part is an exposition of the workings of the amparo suit in the twentieth century and the constitutional and statutory provisions affecting it. Since 1857, when it was incorporated into article 102 of the Constitution, the amparo suit has evolved into a highly complex institution performing three functions: the defense of the civil liberties enumerated in the first twenty-nine articles of the Constitution, the determination of the constitutionality of federal and state legislation, and cassation. The Supreme Court is primarily limited to defending civil liberties through the amparo suit; it remains less innovative and more restricted than the United States system of judicial review, especially in the effect of its judgments on political agencies. Baker’s study is the first one in English dealing with this subject and is one of the most extensive in any language. It should be welcome as a valuable tool to all students of Mexican law, history, and political thought.

Mitigating Circumstances is a compilation of real-life detective stories that highlight the grace of God in the lives of criminal offenders. Told in the first-person, Mitigating Circumstances describes how the professional life of an experienced private detective changed dramatically when Jesus became the Lord of his life. A gritty, often discouraging occupation morphed into a ministry, and these stories are the fruit of this ministry. These stories are meant to encourage readers that God can heal even the most hardened, hopeless offender.

A comprehensive guide to the known rulers of ancient Egypt from 3200-1085 B.C. Includes an alphabetized list of approximately three-hundred fifty pharaohs. Each entry includes: A brief biography of the reign; Tomb location and number (if known); Location of known mummies; Chief consorts (if known); Hieroglyphs, translations, and transliterations of each form of the pharaoh''s name; Pertinent biographical references. In addition, the encyclopedia contains a glossary of commonly-used terms, an index of Grecianized names and variant spellings, a list of apocryphal kings of the Fourteenth Dynasty, the royal titulary, a chronological king list by dynasty, a brief historical summary of each dynasty, and a discussion of the Royal Mummies controversy.

Are the Old and New Testament accounts of Jesus lineage contradictory or complimentary? Is the family tree of Jesus a calendar, and what may it tell us about our own generation? Why was Adam old at 900, Abraham old at 150, and David an old man at only 70? How long is a Biblical generation, and exactly when was Jesus born? Is there historical proof of Jesus resurrection? The Family Tree of Jesus explores these questions, and much more. Within these pages: Astonishing facts and numerical properties about the lineage of Jesus. Historical and archaeological proofs that substantiate the Bibles accuracy. Biographies of over 150 real men and women in Jesus genealogy all the way back to Adam. Irrefutable evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was exactly Who He claimed to be according to the prophecies concerning Him -- the Messiah Whose coming was predicted 40 centuries before His birth. The Family Tree of Jesus is a 4000-year journey of discovery: The master list that leads to the Master

In 1977, while studying journalism at the University of Iowa, Chris Baker gave his grandmother a notebook and asked her to write about her childhood. Years later, long after her death in 1990, he found the tattered yellow notebook. In twenty-nine handwritten pages, the woman he knew as Grandma Covert had recorded her younger life in rural Iowa between 1920 and 1929. Writing about herself from the ages of four to thirteen, Vetra Covert sent a simple message back to her grandson: “That’s just the way it was. Others had it worse. We got by.” Captivated by this glimpse of a woman very different from the more formidable grandmother of his memory, Chris Baker reframed Vetra’s journal to create a narrative of her childhood and a window into rural Iowa life in the 1920s. Transcribing her words into nine chapters that illuminate home, family, neighbors, school, and social life, he has composed a collection of candid, whimsical, sometimes ornery stories that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to decipher the lives found in old letters and photos. Vetra’s was not a romantic little-house-on-the-prairie childhood. She grew up with seven brothers and sisters (every new baby was “a supprise”) in a dilapidated log cabin near a small town now vanished from the Iowa map. Two rooms up, two rooms down, no plumbing, no electricity, holes in the roof and floor so big “you could of throwed a cat through them.” Her father was a bootlegger-farmer who measured his corn yield in gallons, not bushels, a moonshiner occasionally harassed by federal agents. Although family stories now present him as a quaint old-timer, the reality of living with him was much starker. In his introduction to Vetra’s recollections, Chris Baker reveals the harsh truths underlying her authentic, uncomplaining account. By honoring her legacy, he discovered a newfound respect for her and for her family’s ability to survive despite the devastating forces of poverty, isolation, and the looming Great Depression. Together he and his grandmother have created an enduring chapter in family history.

The present publication describes one of the first studies conducted in connection with the development of an experimental Tactical Operations System (TOS). Major focus was placed upon the certitude judgment process within the TOS. In the intelligence cycle, G2 spot reports included subjective estimates of information expressed in a standard rating form. All messages were examined for presence of the required ratings of reliability of the source and accuracy of the information being sent. Assessment was made of the quantitative and qualitative improvement that could be expected under operating conditions within a computerized TOS. (Author).

Baseball began in the New Mexico pueblos before 1900. The game was learned by watching soldiers and settlers and by playing in the Indian schools throughout the country. The first competition was with Albuquerque teams, mining teams, other pueblo teams, and the state penitentiary. Today, the game has evolved into a family and tribal tradition. The games are played on barren fields with enthusiastic spectator support. The players'' objective is to win that game, with little thought of individual achievement; they are playing for family and tribe.

Many a Westerner has had a cross-cultural experience of honor and shame. In this well-rounded and ministry-tested guide, Georges and Baker help us decode the cultural script of honor and shame, assisting us also in reading the Bible anew through that lens. Then they offer thoughtful and practical guidance in ministry within honor-shame contexts.

Gale Researcher Guide for: Tamerlane and the Timurid Empire is selected from Gale''s academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

Avoiding theological jargon and using language more accessible to the lay person than that in the Bible, this book invites readers to discover for themselves what Jesus has done for the world and continues to do in the world. The invitation is offered in the form of daily readings from the four Gospel accounts of Jesus'' life and ministry.

There''s nothing special about Michele Baker: well, not unless you count the fact that she hears messages from Angels, ancestors, spirit guides, and sentient beings from other worlds. The majority of the messages continue to come from Archangel Michael, chief of the angels. But in this second book, Archimedes and Archangel Gabriel play more prominent roles, too. She has also received messages from other extra-dimensional beings, and they collectively make up her "Team." Michele began recording the messages in Book One via automatic writing and was astounded when the words she was writing down began to come true. Archangel Michael and the other beings described to her how everyone on Earth - and beyond - is connected. In Book Two, her Team continues to elaborate that together, we are moving towards a higher level of consciousness. This process of enlightenment has been occurring for thousands of years, but as the breakthrough times come ever closer, things continue to speed up. Rejoin an ordinary woman who has been chosen to share extraordinary information about how to continue to navigate - and to enjoy with gratitude - the tumultuous but exciting times ahead.

There’s nothing special about Michele Baker: Well, not unless you count the fact that she hears messages from angels, ancestors, spirit guides, and sentient beings from other worlds. The majority of the messages come from Archangel Michael, chief of the angels. But she has communicated with other extra-dimensional beings, too, and she’s come to think of them as her team. She writes down what they say. She began recording the messages via automatic writing and was astounded when the words she was writing down began to come true. Archangel Michael and the other beings described to her how everyone on Earth – and beyond – is connected. They also explained that together, we are moving toward a higher level of consciousness. This process of enlightenment has been occurring for thousands of years, but as the joyous breakthrough gets ever closer, things are speeding up. Join an ordinary woman who has been chosen to share extraordinary information about how to navigate the tumultuous but exciting times ahead.

The objective of this book is to examine and explain one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament: Matthew 27:25, which has been traditionally used in the Christian Church to teach that the Jewish people are condemned for all time for the death of Christ. This exegetical study of Matthew 27:25 will be done within the context of the Gospel of Matthew and the broader contexts of the Old and New Testaments. The purpose for this study is to dispel and disprove the traditional anti-Semitic meaning of Matthew 27:25 that has tragically led to the unwarranted condemnation of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ. Hence, the particular focus of this study will directly address and answer the perennial, theological question that asks, "Does Matthew 27:25 mean and teach the Jews are altogether condemned by God for the crucifixion of Christ?" While it is true the Jewish nation, by and large, tragically rejected Jesus at His first coming, this in no way gives Christians theological license for the wholesale hatred, persecution, and destruction of the Jews, or for holding an anti-Semitic bias against them. No where in the New Testament Scriptures is it taught that the Jewish race--past, present, and future are condemned and morally indicted as "Christ killers" for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This study is necessary to expose and correct the flawed interpretation of Matthew 27:25 that has historically persisted in Christendom and leads a person to build and develop an anti-Jewish theology. Factoring all this together in a careful exegesis of Matthew 27 will manifestly demonstrate that the Jewish people are not guilty of deicide and therefore arbitrarily condemned by God as a race of "Christ killers."

Too many Christians are religious - their faith is more a human endeavor than a response to God''s loving initiative. Such religion assumes that our value comes not from God but from what we do. It absorbs principles and postulates from the surrounding society, leading to further misconceptions about God and our relation to our Creator. All this hinders people from experiencing vibrant Christian community, where they could freely love and be loved. Mark Baker suggests that just as car companies test automobiles under severe conditions to uncover weaknesses, North American Christians may detect fallacies in their gospel by examining how it plays out under the challenges of poverty, injustice, and entrenched religiosity. Baker''s test case is drawn from his ten-year missionary experience in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, at churches born out of North American mission work. Baker observes Honduran church life, draws parallels to the dangers of religion in the North American church and mines from Galatians exciting possibilities of robust Christian grace and freedom. The result is a bracing and refreshing approach to Christian community for laypersons, pastors, missionaries, and mission strategists.

Reveals how the divorce of divine perfection from human perfection undergirds the divorce of theology and philosophy. This work shows how these discourses were originally joined by the Church Fathers, to how they were separated in the Middle Ages and modern Anglicanism, to how they can be rejoined.

While many scholars in Shakespeare and Religious Studies assume a secularist viewpoint in their interpretation of Shakespeare’s works, there are others that allow for a theologically coherent reading. Located within the turn to religion in Shakespeare studies, this book goes beyond the claim that Shakespeare simply made artistic use of religious material in his drama. It argues that his plays inhabit a complex and rich theological atmosphere, individually, by genre and as a body of work. The book begins by acknowledging that a plot-controlling God figure, or even a consistent theological dogma, is largely absent in the plays of Shakespeare. However, it argues that this absence is not necessarily a sign of secularization, but functions in a theologically generative manner. It goes on to suggest that the plays reveal a consistent, if variant, attention to the theological possibility of a divine "presence" mediated through human wit, both in gracious and malicious forms. Without any prejudice for divine intervention, the plots actually gesture on many turns toward a hidden supernatural "actor", or God. Making bold claims about the artistic and theological of Shakespeare’s work, this book will be of interest to scholars of Theology and the Arts, Shakespeare and Literature more generally.