After traveling through Europe in 1947—including to Scotland, Amsterdam, and Switzerland—Reinhold Niebuhr wrote some reflections, including on state churches, the Truman Doctrine, Christian political parties, and more.

At the end of Reinhold Niebuhr’s travels across Western Europe in 1947, he spent a week at the Ecumenical Institute, a facility near Geneva. He was hopeful of how this project would bless the church life of the world, and he offered observations about discussions there about communism, church-state relations, Christian political parties, and more.

“We have,” said an exuberant campaign orator in the recent campaign, “the moral leadership of the world. The whole world trusts in our devotion to freedom and expects us to save mankind from totalitarianism.” That is how we see ourselves, at least in our more complacent moods. The world does not see us as we see ourselves.

The following two articles appeared in Christianity and Crisis on September 16, 1946. They both reflect on America’s relations with the Soviet Union post-World War II and try to develop a Christian approach to this challenge.

Reinhold Niebuhr differs from twenty-first-century foreign policy realists in that he viewed an accurate and explicit portrait of human nature as the crucial starting point for any theory of international relations.

In a series of articles in the fall of 1946, Christianity and Crisis contributors offered reports based upon their travels, including from Reinhold Niebuhr and John Baillie in Germany.

In 1946, Reinhold Niebuhr visited an evangelical church for an Easter worship service in a movie theater. He did not entirely enjoy the experience. Here are his reflections.

“It was inevitable that the final surrender of Japan, ending the costliest war of human history, should be greeted with a delirium of joy all over the world, and in America particularly.”