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Murder by Family by Kent Whitaker

Reviewed By Jennifer Barker

Forgiveness. Love. These two words really should belong in the same sentence. It is difficult to truly love someone if you can’t forgive them and vice versa. So it was true for Kent Whitaker. His life turned upside-down on Dec. 10, 2003, when his wife and son, Tricia and Kevin, were murdered in front of him. He and his other son Bart were shot as well. Kent knew at that very moment he needed to forgive the person who was responsible for this horrific act. Little did he know that this person was his son Bart.

Murder by Family

Life would never be the same as he knew it. Betrayal, hurt, and grief were now synonymous with his every day existence. During the six months following the shooting, Kent was able to mentor and help Bart to learn more about Jesus and the life he offers. He was doing all of this while the clouds of suspicion were gathering over Bart.

The road ahead was long and arduous as Kent looked to the Lord for strength and guidance not only in his grief, but also in his decision to forgive. What would possess someone to forgive in such an unspeakable event? “Once I made that decision, God moved. I chose to forgive everyone who was involved in the murders, but it was God who gave me the power to do so. This may be the biggest lesson for all of us: people hurt other people really badly; but since God commands us to forgive, he will give us his supernatural power to do it if we submit ourselves to him.”1

This book is a narrative of that journey. You will cry with Kent as he retells the story of his Absalom coming back to the Savior. You will be inspired to shake off the yoke of bitterness and unforgiveness and choose to follow Jesus in His command to forgive.

NOTES

1. Murder by Family by Kent Whitaker, p. 203.

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Noble Enterprise

Noble Enterprise: Where People Make the Profits

Noble Enterprise

Darwin Gillett’s Noble Enterprise is not unique among business books, but it is quite well written, and Gillett has a track record of helping corporations, large and small, become more successful by being more customer-focused and human-resource focused.

Unlike academic case study books, such as In Search of Excellence and Built to Last, Gillett tells the story of a noble enterprise through the turnaround of a single company, Unitel, which later became AT&T Canada LDS. Led by its chief executive officer, Bill Catucci, Unitel’s profitability was the result of looking inward at the talent base and inefficient processes inside the company, as opposed to looking outward from the standpoint of a financial manager, who would be more likely to cut costs and outsource business functions.

Most of the story focuses around Catucci, who is as hands-on a chief executive one might find in a large corporation, without becoming a micro-manager. He makes it a point to show a large workforce that he cares, and that he trusts them to do their jobs. This is a very difficult challenge for a chief executive in a very small business, let along a company with more than two thousand workers. My perspective, from reading about the recent industry bailouts, is that most chief executives don’t bother to try. They are driven more by shareholder value.

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Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist:

A Recovering Fundamentalist Retraces Religious Roots

Reviewed By Stuart Nachbar

James Alexander’s Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist: Understanding and Responding to Christian Absolutism is a first-hand account of an ordained minister’s personal journey into his religious beliefs. Alexander is a former a Seventies Jesus Freak; the disciples later became part of the Moral Majority during the 1980’s. Three years after his marriage to his current wife Irene, he left the Jesus Freaks and joined a Mennonite congregation. One day he speaks with his Mennonite pastor about the Bible and the pastor responds: “You know, I just can’t believe every word of it is true.”

Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist

The main question Alexander asks at the preface of his story is: “Can human beings know absolute truth?” He does not attempt to answer that question himself, but rather, he writes about those who try to answer it, and try to find the answers in the Holy Scriptures. In his words, the truth among absolutists, deeply devout fundamentalist Christians, is a “court from which there is no appeal.”

Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist is a timely book, as even fundamentalists are reconsidering their political views in light of economic change in our country. Politicians have tried to use fundamentalist beliefs to try to find voters as well as divide an electorate along so-called moral grounds. However, Alexander points out that moral grounds and Biblical interpretations often change with the times. They are never static, and therefore, they cannot be absolute.

Alexander discusses the concept of the “flat Bible,” meaning that every page of the Bible is as so; absolutists believe that the Bible is accurate and true as a guide to life. However, the author also discusses passages in the Bible that cannot be enforced, such as the premise than those who work on the Sabbath must be put to death. The concept is similar to the Originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. On 60 Minutes, Scalia challenged jurists who label the Constitution as a “living document.” He said that the Constitution represented the thoughts of its 18 century authors, and therefore, it is a “dead document” not meant to change with the times.

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Career Smart

Career Smart: Clear Straightforward Career Advice

By Stuart Nachbar

I worked with career counselors for ten years before becoming a writer. I had the chance to observe their interactions with students and recent graduates. In large part, their advice on the job search was consistent on research, resume preparation, interview tactics and choosing the best fit based on the job seeker’s interests and personality. This is all part of the path towards a good entry level opportunity.

Career Smart

Career Smart: Five Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand, by Sherri Thomas, is a reader-friendly guide to younger workers on the next stage of their career journey whether it be an upward move, lateral move, or even a switch to a new industry. Career Smart embellishes two major points: provide something of value to your employer and clients; and, deliver it in such a way that or clients feel loyal to you. The emphasis on loyal is the author’s, not mine.

Thomas believes that you provide value and earn loyalty in part by building a powerful personal brand in five steps: define the five core ingredients that make you unique; send the right messages; build relationships with the right career influencers, and strengthen your visibility and credibility with them; and, create a return-on-investment dashboard to measure and build your success.

Thomas, who has managed several career transitions herself within marketing and communications positions in different industries, gives advice within each steps that at times seems basic and obvious, but necessary for a worker with limited experience. Career Smart is a perfect book for someone who has spent time in one function such as accounting, computer programming or sales, and wonders what his next position might be. Corporations cut back on providing such direction in difficult times, so Career Smart provides an inexpensive substitute to support a self-directed career plan. Career Smart has exercises that are very easy to do, but require thought. However, anyone who has earned an entry level position should do these exercises after they have worked in their company or industry for two years. Most corporate communities and industries expect you to advance out of your entry level position by then.

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Pearls of Political Wisdom

Reviewed By Stuart Nachbar

Pearls Politics and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead by Madeleine Kunin is a primer on women in politics. It is a very well-written work that tells why women have run for office, how they have succeeded, the obstacles they faced, as well as their leadership and legislative styles. It also provides ideas on how women can better help women get elected to office.

Pearls, Politics and Power

Kunin, a former three-term governor of Vermont, assistant secretary of education and U.S Ambassador to Switzerland has not only presented an insider’s perspective; she has used anecdotes from history and other elected officials to effectively present all of the arguments about why women run—and why they do not. While most of the points appear obvious, family responsibilities and fear of electoral defeat being two examples—and it would be a disservice to the reader to the ignore them—some also go back to history. For instance, we are reminded that women were not given the right to vote in the presidential elections until 1920, 65 years after that right was granted to African-American men.

Most interesting was a chapter on the history of female heads of state outside the United States; so much of the world has a lead on us. Egypt had a female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, who ruled 3,480 years ago. Joan of Arc saved France from British dominance during the 15th century, at the age of 19. Five British queens wielded the same powers as a king, up to the end of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1901. Since 1960, 44 women have been elected as the leaders of their country, some by parliamentary governments where the head of state is selected by the legislative branch--which was mostly men—or won the popular vote in a general election. The first country to elect a female prime minister was Sri Lanka, the Philippines are the first nation to elect two.

Kunin served in the Clinton Administration, so she adds her two cents on Hillary Clinton’s prospects in the upcoming election. Clinton, she mentions, is not the first woman to run for president. Twenty one women have sought the office since 1872. Two ran on the Equal Right Rights party in 1872 and 1884, the rest sought the support of Democrats or Republicans, but none came close to winning the nomination.

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