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Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Book, First of it's Kind.
Review: Before I give my review I would like to breifly respond to the review I just read by Tom Hinkle. I have difficulty understanding why he would write a review like he did, perhaps he had difficulty understanding Dr. Baker's book. For Mr. Hinkle, a self proclaimed "amature" theologian, to insinuate that the biblical Jesus was not represented is completely untrue. I found the book to be honest and totally accurate. Mr Hinkle seems to have missed the entire point of the book. He accuses Dr Baker of promoting a relationship with a therapist over one with Christ. How he surmised that makes me wonder if he even read the book. Judging by how well the book is selling I would say that virtually no one would support his opinion. The book is interesting, and informative. It has great insights into human behavior and the teachings of Jesus. Dr. Baker did an excellent job and I highly reccomend this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book, First of it's Kind.
Review: Before I give my review I would like to breifly respond to the review I just read by Tom Hinkle. I have difficulty understanding why he would write a review like he did, perhaps he had difficulty understanding Dr. Baker's book. For Mr. Hinkle, a self proclaimed "amature" theologian, to insinuate that the biblical Jesus was not represented is completely untrue. I found the book to be honest and totally accurate. Mr Hinkle seems to have missed the entire point of the book. He accuses Dr Baker of promoting a relationship with a therapist over one with Christ. How he surmised that makes me wonder if he even read the book. Judging by how well the book is selling I would say that virtually no one would support his opinion. The book is interesting, and informative. It has great insights into human behavior and the teachings of Jesus. Dr. Baker did an excellent job and I highly reccomend this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: The most congruent person who ever lived
Review: Congratulation's to Dr. Mark Baker for recognizing the profound ways in which Jesus speaks to our deepest human needs, wants and desires. I found this book to be a finely crafted reflection on the most complex and congruent person who ever lived. I appreciate the way Baker discusses complex issues without trivializing Jesus or the psychological concepts. Baker does a nice job integrating the timeless nature of Jesus' teaching with the timeliness of modern psychological insights. I see no discontinuity between theology and therapy. In fact, theology is most therapuetic when it is most faithful to Jesus.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Psychologist Who Ever Lived IS Mark Baker
Review: Dr. Baker is brilliant. This book settles many age old conflicts between human society and Jesus. It should be required reading for all ministers of the true faith. Truely it is a jewel in my collection.
Rating: 
Summary: An unconvincing job of proof-texting
Review: I do agree that Jesus is the greatest psychologist who ever lived, because he knew people better than anyone in history, plus, as Dallas Willard has said in his writings, Jesus is the smartest person who ever lived. So that would make him the greatest psychologist. Unfortunately, this book falls short in proving that. It takes (mostly) fragments of Jesus' teaching out of context to attempt to prove that Jesus was in tune with late 20th-century psychological thought. Of course, psychology is an ever-changing science, so sound theory in that area today could easily be disproved tomorrow. Jesus is presented in this book as a guy in touch with his feelings, so we get the touchy-feely Jesus, as opposed to the biblical Jesus who said he only did what he saw his Father doing. Another fault of this book is that it seems, in a very subtle way, to promote the idea of a therapy-dependent society. After all, relationships are important, and the most important one, next to God, of course, is the relationship with the guy charging you $150 an hour to listen to your problems. Don't get me wrong, this book is not without value. If nothing else, it was informative concerning more recent developments in psychological theory. But I don't think psychological theory was what Jesus had in mind when he was doing most of his teaching.
Rating:
Summary: Toward the serious contemplation of life...
Review: This book should be read by every person serious about looking at the quality of life they live. One reviewer has concluded that the "proof-texts fall short...". This is not a book about proof-texts but about looking at the wisdom of Jesus TODAY through the mind of a psychologist practicing TODAY. The people are real, the quality of life issues are real, but the wisdom is from the mouth of one who lived thousands of years ago -- corroborated by current psychological theory. The effort is not (in my reading) to somehow characterize Jesus as a touchy-feely person, but to reveal the value of what He said to the world in which we live. The book takes-to-task some traditional Christian thinking (e.g. what about original sin? people are good, people are bad...) and explores some very different ways (from my perspective) to understand addictions. Finally, Part 2 forces one to consider oneself -- very important work. 110 chapters in 281 pages of text -- that's 2.53 pages/chapter (on average). Makes a great way to start the day with some wisdom for the soul.
Rating:
Summary: Toward the serious contemplation of life...
Review: This book should be read by every person serious about looking at the quality of life they live. One reviewer has concluded that the "proof-texts fall short...". This is not a book about proof-texts but about looking at the wisdom of Jesus TODAY through the mind of a psychologist practicing TODAY. The people are real, the quality of life issues are real, but the wisdom is from the mouth of one who lived thousands of years ago -- corroborated by current psychological theory. The effort is not (in my reading) to somehow characterize Jesus as a touchy-feely person, but to reveal the value of what He said to the world in which we live. The book takes-to-task some traditional Christian thinking (e.g. what about original sin? people are good, people are bad...) and explores some very different ways (from my perspective) to understand addictions. Finally, Part 2 forces one to consider oneself -- very important work. 110 chapters in 281 pages of text -- that's 2.53 pages/chapter (on average). Makes a great way to start the day with some wisdom for the soul.
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