Reinhold Niebuhr

The economic aid which is required could not be a matter of pure generosity. Nations as nations are incapable of such generosity.

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.

After visiting Scotland, Reinhold Niebuhr traveled to the Netherlands and offered another correspondence that the journal published in April 1947.

In late winter and early spring 1947, Reinhold Niebuhr visited Europe and wrote short editorials for Christianity and Crisis as he traveled. In the following correspondences, the first coming from Scotland and the second coming from somewhere in the United Kingdom, he offers brief reflections on different current events.

We are told that a policy of firmness must inevitably lead to war, while conciliation could guarantee peace. In the Nazi days this was called appeasement.

“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.

Keynoting a “Beat Dewey” rally at Madison Square Garden on September 12, 1946, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace warned Americans against the Truman administration’s “get tough with Russia” policy. Reinhold Niebuhr responded.

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.

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.