Barth's Homilectics, Popper's Propensities, Posner's Countering Terrorism

I was interested in Karl Barth's Homiletics (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991) to see if there was anything in preaching that could be helpful to a professor. I thought there was. If I extrapolate somewhat:

• professors should come before their students primarily as fellow students themselves
• professors should come before their students with humility, and humility in terms of what they have come to know
  
• professors should have the courage to state what they see for themselves, and not just the conventional wisdom
• professors should care for their students
• professors should use the greatest wisdom available to them, as well as the latest scholarship

Karl Popper's World of Propensities (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1991) is another publication of two of his lectures. There is a quotation I like already: "Looking at my own long life, I find that the main allurements which led me on and on from my 17th year were theoretical problems. And among these problems of science and of probability theory loomed large. These were preferences. The solutions were accidents." From p. 26. And from p. 34, "I do not know of any creative scientist who had made no mistakes..."

I have also belatedly begun my bunch of readings on counter terrorism, starting with the ultra-right -wing Countering Terrorism by Richard A. Posner (New York: Roman Littlefield, 2006). It is a study leading to many policy recommendations which would infringe on human rights, but thankfully directed only at the United States.