Best Selling Books by Scott Smith

Should Christians Drink Alcoholic Beverages? Did God Make Wine for Our Enjoyment? Was Jesus the Miracle-Working Bartender in John 2? These questions have been debated for centuries, but what is the truth? In this book, the author takes the reader on an unforgettable journey that unlocks the ancient secrets and Scriptures that are necessary to explain these tough questions. Along this road, you will travel to a wedding reception where children drink beer and where pastors hold "church" at bars. It''s a wild ride that''s insightful, humorous and educational. If you''ve ever asked if drinking is permitted for Christians, you''ll want this book in your library. Discover the Manners and Customs of the Ancients for a More Complete and Necessary Background on the Drinking Issue Over 240 Pages and 150 cultural notes Every Major Scripture Passage in the Drinking Controversy is Scrutinized Study Questions at the End of Every Chapter Endorsed by Christian Leaders, Professionals and Universities Special Chapters for those Addicted to Alcohol

This book is truly a gift to hurting women, especially those who have undergone the trauma of abortion. Speaking with both passion and compassion, Jeannie leads readers to spiritual freedom from their past sins, and from the wounds inflicted on them by others. It is a combination of focused Bible study, " love letters from God," Jeannie'' s own story, and her insightful and godly encouragement. Jeannie gently but insistently leads readers along a difficult journey out of anger, unforgiveness, depression, and grief. Through better understanding of the gift of healing, women can move into lives of joyful purpose in Christ. For hurting women or for those who counsel individuals or groups, this book is a key to unlock the doors out of shame, guilt, and sadness and into full identity as beloved children of God.

For most of the church''s history, people have seen Christian ethics as normative and universally applicable. Recently, however, this view has been lost, thanks to naturalism and relativism. R. Scott Smith argues that Christians need to overcome Kant''s fact-value dichotomy and recover the possibility of genuine moral and theological knowledge.

Following a brief history of the market for private aircraft, this illustrated guide helps potential buyers assess their needs based on factors like budget, applications, planned travel distances, passenger capacity and speed. A range of models from names like Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft and more, are all arranged by price range.

Are Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell "yesterday''s news," as many evangelicals seem to think? Truth and the New Kind of Christian (2005) tried to provide a balanced assessment of McLaren''s and Jones''s views. But, they seem to be right about much more that is affecting evangelicals than was realized then. Also, that book misunderstood one of their core claims: everything is interpretation. Moreover, their views have developed over the years, e.g., ethically about colonialism, its influences, and how we should live now. They also have advanced several further claims about the gospel and traditional doctrines. To what extent should Christians embrace their views? Are these the ways to go forward toward a more authentic Christianity, one that is morally better, and a better fit, for our times? Like Truth, this book gives careful attention to their thought. It also offers its own portrait of major shaping influences on Western, Americanized Christianity. But, there remains a root issue that keeps the Western church, whether progressive emergents or evangelicals, in its "Babylonian captivity." It is liberation from that root that will lead to an authentically emergent Christianity.

Philosophical naturalism is taken to be the preferred and reigning epistemology and metaphysics that underwrites many ideas and knowledge claims. But what if we cannot know reality on that basis? What if the institution of science is threatened by its reliance on naturalism? R. Scott Smith argues in a fresh way that we cannot know reality on the basis of naturalism. Moreover, the "fact-value" split has failed to serve our interests of wanting to know reality. The author provocatively argues that since we can know reality, it must be due to a non-naturalistic ontology, best explained by the fact that human knowers are made and designed by God. The book offers fresh implications for the testing of religious truth-claims, science, ethics, education, and public policy. Consequently, naturalism and the fact-value split are shown to be false, and Christian theism is shown to be true.

"“The People’s Victory is a mirror for each of us to see our own power to fight for justice and create the change we want to see in our world.” – Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California In 1996, a small group of Americans from all walks of life banded together to create one of the most miraculous political victories in modern American history. Opponents attacked the issue of marriage equality as amoral and a direct threat to families. Allies warned that it was a generation away from being practicable and a selfish drain of precious political capital. A stirring oral history told by those who almost inexplicably found themselves fighting on the front lines, The People''s Victory recounts the successes – and the setbacks – that only served to strengthen everyone’s resolve to resist, fight, and bring equal marriage rights to an entire nation. Through it all, these love warriors found their voice and home in Marriage Equality USA, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots organization of its kind. While high profile books, articles and documentaries have covered the judicial and legislative machinations, this book puts a human face on the people who made the everyday personal sacrifices to keep the movement alive. The People’s Victory shares deeply moving personal testimonies of over sixty people, from Marvin Burrows, who was forced out of his home and lost many treasured possessions after losing his lost his partner of fifty years; to Kate Burns, who risked arrest for the first time when she stood up for her relationship; to Mike Goettemoeller, who pushed his mother in a wheelchair with Marriage Equality USA to fulfill her dream of marching in a Pride parade. Edie Windsor, the triumphant lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States vs. Windsor recounts shouting down a major LGBTQ organization with “I’m 77 years old and I can’t wait!!” when they attempted to belittle marriage as a critical issue. Writer and producer Del Shores shares the touching moment his young teenage daughter used tears and laughter to console him after the passage of Proposition 8 in California dealt a blow to the cause. The People’s Victory is an inspirational roadmap for anyone who has felt passionately about an issue, but has questioned whether one person’s contribution can make a difference. These candid accounts once again prove that every movement for important social change must be built on the acts of everyday. In fact, that is the only way the people have ever been victorious. In his introduction, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom writes: “I hope these stories inspire you to resist, to fight, to win and in the end write the next stories in our continuing push for a more just and perfect union.”

Methodism in the public and private lives of the politician After more than forty contentious years in the public eye, Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the best-known political figures in the nation. Yet the strong religious faith at the heart of her politics and personal life often remains confounding, if not mysterious, to longtime observers. Even many of her admirers would be surprised to hear Clinton state that her Methodist outlook has “been a huge part of who I am and how I have seen the world, and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life.” Gary Scott Smith’s biography of Clinton’s journey in faith begins with her Methodist upbringing in Park Ridge, Illinois, where she faithfully attended worship services, Sunday school, and youth group meetings. Like many mainline Protestants, Clinton’s spiritual commitment developed gradually throughout childhood, while her combination of missionary zeal and impressive personal talents has informed her career from the time of her pro bono work at Yale on behalf of children to the present. Her Methodist faith has been very important to many of Clinton’s high-profile endeavors and in helping her cope with the prominent travails brought on by two presidential campaigns, never-ending conservative rancor, and her husband’s infidelity. Smith’s account examines Clinton’s faith in the context of work ranging from her 1990s pursuit of healthcare reform to a “Hillary doctrine” of foreign policy focused on her longtime goal of providing basic human rights for children and women--a project she saw as essential to United States security. The result is an enlightening reconsideration of an extraordinary political figure who has defied private doubts and public controversy to live by John Wesley’s dictum: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

Constructivism dominates over other theories of knowledge in much of western academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. In Exposing the Roots of Constructivism: Nominalism and the Ontology of Knowledge, R. Scott Smith argues that constructivism is linked to the embrace of nominalism, the theory that everything is particular and located in space and time. Indeed, nominalism is sufficient for a view to be constructivist. However, the natural sciences still enjoy great prestige from the “fact-value split.” They are often perceived as giving us knowledge of the facts of reality, and not merely our constructs. In contrast, ethics and religion, which also have been greatly influenced by nominalism, usually are perceived as giving us just our constructs and opinions. Yet, even the natural sciences have embraced nominalism, and Smith shows that this will undermine knowledge in those disciplines as well. Indeed, the author demonstrates that, at best, nominalism leaves us with only interpretations, but at worst, it undermines all knowledge whatsoever. However, there are many clear examples of knowledge we do have in the many different disciplines, and therefore those must be due to a different ontology of properties. Thus, nominalism should be rejected. In its place, the author defends a kind of Platonic realism about properties.

This book is designed to introduce a theory of ecological psychology into interprofessional health education. The foundations are affordances (features in the environment that afford the opportunity to be recognized and utilized), the life-world (what the meaningful environment contains for the trainee), and behavioral-settings (person-made affordances that are permissive, supportive, or resistive to specific behaviors). Expanding the life-world is the main mechanism of learning in health care. Becoming aware of intentional and unintentional features of the behavioral setting is how we structure the curricular environment to achieve this life-world expansion. The book is structured into four domains: The Natural Domain, The Mental Domain, The Social Domain, and Non-Linearity. The final application section lays out a structure for designing, implementing, and evaluating the educational program in a professional healthcare setting. This book is ideal for clinician managers of interprofessional healthcare clinics, and for the teachers and trainees from each discipline (e.g., medicine, nursing, pharmacy, psychology, social work, etc.).

This book trains engineers and students in the practical application of machining dynamics, with a particular focus on milling. The book walks readers through the steps required to improve machining productivity through chatter avoidance and reduced surface location error, and covers in detail topics such as modal analysis (including experimental methods) to obtain the tool point frequency response function, descriptions of turning and milling, force modeling, time domain simulation, stability lobe diagram algorithms, surface location error calculation for milling, beam theory, and more. This new edition includes updates throughout the entire text, new exercises and examples, and a new chapter on machining tribology. It is a valuable resource for practicing manufacturing engineers and graduate students interested in learning how to improve machining productivity through consideration of the process dynamics.

This book reports the results of an ethnographic study, focusing primarily on the experiences of four teachers of the Chinese language in Australian secondary schools. The author creates an audience for their voices as they reflect on their own understandings of culture, language teaching, and culture in language teaching through semi-structured interviews, and compares these reflections with written stimulus dialogues designed to elicit ''culture-in-language'' reflections, as well as curriculum and policy documents produced by the Australian government. The book''s findings indicate that teachers of the Chinese language are diverse in their views on culture, language teaching, and the ways in which culture can or should inform language teaching, and the author argues that language teacher intercultural competence cannot be assessed through a synthesis of the current English-only research literature. This book will be of interest to teachers and teacher trainers of Chinese as a foreign language, as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics and language education more broadly.

"This introduction provides an overview of the contents of the present volume but also attempts to situate the information and arguments of the individual chapters in the context of Greek and Roman mythographical studies today, which have changed dramatically in the last three decades. Additionally, a brief survey of the shifting modes of mythography in antiquity is presented. While a simple exposition is impossible and a complete overarching theory and definition cannot be provided, we note how many of the contributions point toward mythography as a mental orientation or intellectual impulse rather than a clear-cut genre"--