Christianity & Crisis Archives

Published in Christianity and Crisis 75 years ago on March 18, 1946, the speech offers the future Secretary of State Dulles’ insights and recommendations for how the United States should utilize the newly established United Nations. Readers today can learn from how the great statesman saw the world as it dragged itself out of the ruins of a total war.

It is not our task, fellow churchmen, to offer programs for the ordering of human life today. It is our function to present to those concerned with the secular order those theological presuppositions which are the indispensable basis of national and international health.

Repentance, like faith, must be individual.

Quoting Romans 12:20, the message to feed and help the enemy is simple, but oftentimes the simplest command can be the hardest to fulfill. So the reminder is always timely in every age.

“Which Question Comes First for the Church?” by Reinhold NiebuhrNovember 12, 1945 In both the religious and the secular world…

Christmas alone is perfectly congruous, for Christmas brings to the surface those imperishable values for which men in all this struggle of power are really groping. It focuses men’s thoughts, at least for the moment, upon the secret of ultimate power.

Reinhold Niebuhr in 1945: “For only a full understanding of the practically insuperable difficulties which confront us can arm us with the humility and the courage to seek for a solution of this problem radical enough to prevent the annihilation of civilization.”

Atomic power is here to stay for the remainder of human history. Unless man can control himself as well as atomic power according to the moral law, both will no doubt terminate within a comparatively few years.

John C. Bennett, who co-founded “Christianity and Crisis” with Reinhold Niebuhr, said that “Christians cannot identify the Kingdom of God, or their cause, in an absolute way with any human program.” So what should their cause be? He elaborated 75 years ago.