Dr. Resner was one of my professors at Abilene Christian University, and it is my impression that his primary concern in the field of preaching is message over form. What is the message of preaching? Resner contributes to a field which over the last few decades has been more concerned with the mechanics of preaching, rather that the content of the message. Do not continue a preaching ministry until you let this book become a conversation partner. An outstanding contribution.

In 1990 the Indian Government precipitated riots and episodes of self-immolation with a promise to provide more university places and public service jobs for the lower caste 'untouchables'. Readers of "Preferential Policies" will not find these events surprising because they have happened before in other countries following the introduction of preference policies. Perhaps the most tragic example is the civil war in Sri Lanka.

This book is a historical and comparative study of the strong form of affirmative action whereby the members of supposedly deprived or under-privileged groups become the beneficiaries of government-mandated preferences. These set aside the principles of merit and freedom of choice so that different individuals are no longer judged by the same criteria or subjected to the same procedures.

Sowell describes the various patterns of behaviour and outcomes generated by preferential policies of different kinds. These include preferences for the economically dominant group (South Africa and the old US deep south), majority preferences in economies dominated by minorities (Malaysia, Sri Lanka,) and minority preferences in economies dominated by the majority (contemporary USA and India). The second part of the book explores the errors and muddled thinking which keep preferential policies in place even when they fail to produce the desired effects. Indeed, the very failure of policies which were supposed to be limited and temporary often leads to stronger preference initiatives.

Prior to Sowell's research it appears that hardly anyone paid systematic attention to the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of preference policies. Nor had anybody noticed the depressing similarity in the pattern of events which Sowell records all around the world. Generally the demand for preferential policies comes from well educated, 'new class' members of supposedly disadvantaged groups. The same people also become the main beneficiaries of preference policies which tend to further disadvantage the majority of their bretheren. This was clearly demonstrated in Malaysia where the gap between rich and poor Malays widened in the wake of preference policies for ethnic Malays. A leading advocate of preference conceded the evidence but claimed that the poor Malays preferred to be exploited by their own people.

The most destructive result of preference policies is the polarization of whole societies, as in Sir Lanka, Nigeria (with the attempted Ibo breakaway movement to form Biafra) and some Indian states. The Sri Lankan experience is especially instructive because at the time of independence the Tamil minority and the Sinhalese majority lived side by side in harmony despite their different religions and languages and despite the greater educational and commercial advancement of a section of the Tamils. The elites of both groups tended to be English speaking, mixed freely with each other and were committed to non-sectarian policies. All this changed with one demagogue, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. English-speaking, Christian and Oxford-educated, he became a champion of the Sinhalese language, Budhism and preferential treatment for Sinhalese. This resulted in an upset electoral victory for his party in 1956, followed by legislation to make Sinhalese the official language, restriction of the leading teacher-training college to Sinhalese only, and the first of many bloody race riots directed against the Tamils. The downward spiral continued as radical Sinhalese elements demanded stronger forms of preference and groups of Tamils launched a violent secession movement.

If preferential policies do not work, then what is to be done to overcome prejudice and discrimination against particular groups? One way is to rely on market forces backed up by the slow and steady effects of education and example. Of course this process is far too slow and unexciting to satisfy people who would happily see blood shed to realise their dreams. However the power of market forces in this context is that prejudice is free but discrimination has a price. Sowell reports that the streetcar operators in many Southern cities initially defied the 'Jim Crow' legislation that required segregated transport. Something similar has come about in South Africa after some generations of apartheid enabled the 'poor whites' to rise above the black masses, so that some of the Africaners reached the business class.

'Some of the principal beneficiaries of apartheid became its critics, now that their new role as employers forced them to confront the costs of discrimination. The rise of influential business interests within the ruling Nationalist Party has been partly responsible for the slow but widespread erosion of apartheid that began in the 1970s'.

Australia only receives a brief mention as a country where preferential policies 'are still at the stage of optimistic predictions.' If the lessons of this book are assimilated they will remain in that situation. Affirmative action has not yet taken the form of quotas or positive discrimination on a significant scale. Entry to employment and progression on the job are still supposed to reflect merit, and anti-discrimination policies are designed to eliminate unfair hiring and promotion practices. In the US a recent buzzword is 'managing diversity' which means tapping the full potential of all workers in the firm. The aim is to eliminate the confrontational and coercive elements of affirmative action and build a co-operative and creative culture in the workplace.

Turning from the historical record of preferential policies, Sowell examines some of the ideas which support them. He describes these as the illusions of control, knowledge, morality and compensation. Hovering behind them all is one of the great superstitions of modern times, namely the doctrine of Salvation by Political Action. If only people can have the vote, obtain national self-determination, be free of colonial rule etc then utopia is at hand. However one of the great advances in modern politics was the achievement of limited government, and this was essentially a pre-democratic development. This is not to deride the institutions of Parliamentary democracy, merely to warn that they are under increasing strain from the expectations that are placed on State activity (such as preference policies).

This book provides real-life approaches for helping and healing. It is a must-read for counselors, teachers and parents because readers can draw inspiration and information. Counseling roles and training models are presented. Helping techniques for families and professionals are included. Finally, we receive a book that is not problem oriented but possibility and power oriented. The solutions range from commonsense to clinical to revolutionary. A collaboration between counselors, teachers and parents, this book is creating a new network of healers.

I've found this text to be a very important resource in my religious studies career. As a graduate student interested in the role of women in traditional and nontraditional worship communities, I have found few texts that provide such a comprehensive and well written analysis of the roles of women and the ways they use power.

Nicely illustrated version of a whole host of traditional English nursery rhymes.many favourites are here, and no doubt your child will develop their own. Before too long s/he will be reciting them along with you.

We don't have many nursery rhyme books in our collection at home, but this one is a valuable addition.

this is one of larence schoonover best historical novels. it is another one that you won't want to put down.

Carsten Peter Thiede was already a purportedly controversial and world-class scholar with his work on the roguishly new dating of Mark's gospel when he approached this unprecedented and ground-breaking investigation of the Titulus of Santa Croce, in Rome. The Santa Croce Church, having stood in the same plaque of land for 1700 years prior, regularly housed said aforementioned titulus for those same 1700 years. A titulus, which, for the uninitiated into this area of interest, is the headboard above criminals' heads on a cross, who were put to death by crucifixion, a worrisomely merciless practice of the Roman Empire. The titulus from Santa Croce is the one allegedly belonging to Christ's cross, a disputable and unproven insinuation, one that Thiede nevertheless strives to make a case for in his newest book.

In said book, Thiede submits some tantalizing and, more valuably, convincing evidence for this titulus to specifically be that of Christ's. Number one is the order of languages in which the mocking Roman inscription----which always was used to convey the charge against the criminal being executed----"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" is transcribed onto the titulus. Actually, since only a fragment of the headboard remains, this line should be modified to only state "Jesus of Nazareth". In the Bible, this order is written first in Hebrew, Greek, then Latin. This order on the Titulus of Santa Croce is one that violates the order in which the Bible documents the languages as appearing on the headboard. This permeates with credibility, because, had this order on the titulus been fabricated, no one would have crawled to producing such a glaringly bad imitation. Consequently, this can only mean one thing, that, were the Santa Croce Titulus really a fabrication, the professional forger would have been duped into copying the contraband order written in the Bible, because it was more accessible. Secondly, is the suspiciously eye-rasing direction in which the Hebrew inscription "Jesus of Nazareth" is written, which is from right to left. Once again, discounting fakes because of its horrid obviousness, Thiede believes this was inscribed by a Jewish scholar, as it was the traditional Hebrew writing style of the day, around the date of Christ's crucifixion. Thirdly, is the introduction of a specific style of abreviation on the Titulus of Santa Croce, one that died out from common use at the time after Christ's crucifixion, once more linking the headboard to the official one.

Furthermore, to prove that the titulus belonged to Christ, Thiede has to establish a definite connection between the crucifixion and that part of the cross actually coming to the Roman Empire in the 4th century, because said titulus is from Santa Croce, the church in Rome. According to legend, the titulus was recovered to Rome by Helena, Emperor Constantine's 80-year old mom. Constantine seized control of the whole Empire when he defeated his arch-nemesis, Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. The Empire had, up to that point, been ostracized into 4 regions, each governed by 4 different Roman rulers. Constantine, allegedly, had a vision of the Cross in the clouds, before crossing the Milvian Bridge in the battle against Maxentius, which implored him to paint a Chi-rho symbol---the 1st version of Christianity's symbol---on all his men's shields. Constantine embezzled that Christianity had granted him his victory-----he then started to oppress Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. As another part of his ambivalent "conversion" of himself and the entire Empire to Christianity, he procured his mom to bring the relic to 3 parts of the Empire as a rallying point for early Christians to have something palpable to believe in.

What Thiede does is to try to produce legitimate connections to the titulus which was carried back by Helena and the actual titulus of Christ by citing logical coincidences of events that could only happen during the specific range of the time of Christ. For instance, nowadays, there exists the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sitting over the place where Christ was crucified, and believed to have been the site of the titulus. In the catacombs beneath this church lie inscriptional records of early pilgrims' journeys to this site-one such from Crusaders, and another from seafarers who make a definite reference to a biblical psalm in giving thanks for their opportunity to worship at the site, believing it to be the licit place containing Christ's relics, and who wouldn't have risked catastrophic chances traveling across the sea to get there, were they not actually certain of its status. This verifies the already historical knowledge of the fact that, in the 1st few centuries of Christianity, there was NEVER any dispute over the actual holy sites. Additionally, there is evidence of Jews building tombs over this same area, even for the ones stigmatized as "criminals", as proven by the finding of a burial box containing a nail through the heel bone of a foot, and Jesus would have been libeled as a "criminal" by the Jews. Another tying of the Santa Croce Titulus to Christ's time is the fact that in the 1400s, it was discovered in Helena's "palace"-directly behind Santa Croce-hidden behind a fresco because Helena is supposed to have taken it, the 3rd fragment of the entire headboard, back with her after discovering the titulus at the previous site of, 1st, the temple to the Roman god Venus which was then promptly aborted for Constantine's building of a monumental complex to Christianity, all on the same site. Upon the uncovering of the titulus, again, in the 1400s, El Greco used it in a painting of his, further documenting its validity.

These may be circumstantial evidence, but they stimulate the next best thing towards solid proof of this titulus being that of Christ's: raising the question of a plausible feasibility that the Santa Croce Titulus could be that of Christ's.

Quick as a Wink by Leisure Arts is a book every cross-stitcher should have in their library. The projects are easily accomplished in a short amount of time for those unexpected gifts for teachers, friends, shut-ins, birthdays, etc.....or even something for yourself. The over 250 projects are well graphed and easy to read, making the projects enjoyable to cross-stitch and finish.

In no time at all, you can cross stich delightful gifts, bright kitchen accessories, fun embellishments for clothing, and so much more! Gathered from favorite Leisure Arts publications, the versatile collections here offer cross stich projects that don't take a lot of time to make.

This is one of the BEST cross-stitch books I have ever worked from out of the many many books I have. I love the color graphs and the size of them. The designs are awesome. I am looking for another book comparable to this and have not found one yet. Please e-mail me if you find one bac@bethami.org.