Bill Ayers – Education leader?

Click here. I am not so much interested in the fact that there is a relationship of some sort or another between Obama and Ayers. Chicago Democratic politics being what it is, how could Obama rise within the Democratic party without all kinds of contacts that are not of one’s choosing. If you are going to be a Democrat and a Democrat on the South Side of Chicago, you don’t have a lot of choices. I cutting Obama some slack on this one. But this interview with a university professor bullhorning Ayers’ great contributions to education makes me stop and think.

Last night in the Christian Traditions class I teach at a local college we discussed the phenomenon of the church and university support for Nazism. How could the intelligentsia of a culture be the first to succumb to the propaganda of Hitler? The intellectual leaders often get it wrong, very wrong. How Ayers became a leader in the initiative to educate our children leaves me scratching the head.

Why does anybody care about what Greenspan thinks anymore?

Greenspan is at the center of the irresponsibility that has led to the current economic meltdown. I don’t understand why anybody would even report on what he thinks. Yet here he is. He kept the interest extraordinarily low, ruined the dollar and kept the bubble expanding. It all felt good at the time. And he caved into the pressure to keep it so. Please go away, Alan. We need a new team!!!

Awake, O Sleeper

From iMonk

stay-at-home dads are safe from hell…i think

Eugene Cho has posted in response to anotherone of Mark Driscoll’s riffs, this time on the sin of being a stay-at-home-dad. It’s worth reading.

I’ve been around long enough to not be amazed by the crowd attracted to this kind of thing. The “Christ against culture” approach feels righteous; it’s a high of another kind. But soon the drug wears off and another issue has to be found against which we can mount our armored steed and gallop off to war. Everyone wants to be on a crusade. I think the guys who wear well over the long term are more in the spirit of JI Packer – a deliberate, Christ-focus that refuses to go off chasing rabbits and which allows Christians of good conscience room to struggle, grow, understand, repent, change their mind, etc., without the hoopla.

I think I have made my worst ministry mistakes when I was on the right side of an issue. I don’t know if I can handle being right. I get dangerous. Here enters Robert Frost:

Right’s right, and the temptation to do right
When I can hurt someone by doing it
Has always been too much for me, it has.

A hymn by GK Chesterton for our time

A Hymn

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to thee.

- Gilbert Keith Chesterton