Reinhold Niebuhr

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez AOC at SXSW
AOC, Detention Centers, and The Children of Light

People acting to rid the world of injustice without knowing the darkness of their own hearts are dangerous, because they are blind to their own propensity toward injustice.

Easter & Christian Realism

Reinhold Niebuhr, an inspiration for this journal, was a Christian Realist who renounced Social Gospel utopianism in favor of firmly…

Martin Luther King, America & the World
Martin Luther King Jr. as Icon of US Democracy

There is typically too little reference to the civil rights martyr’s Cold War role. He delivered two important Cold War…

Common Core: How the US Can Respond to a Disappointing United Nations
Common Core: The United Nations Has Long Disappointed

Generally, American presidents who try to work through the United Nations and want it to live up to its noble mission often become disappointed.

Speaking Love to Power: The Prophecy and Policy of Bishop Curry
Speaking Love to Power: The Prophecy and Policy of Bishop Curry

Missing from Bp. Curry’s message during the royal wedding is an appreciation of sin, its persistence and its power to corrupt human relationships. His is a prophecy filled with hope, but lacking humility. And in this, he bears false witness to our fallen world.

The Third Camp - Reinhold Niebuhr Theology and American Foreign Policy
The Third Camp: Reinhold Niebuhr’s Theology and American Foreign Policy

From the ashes of both Bryan’s ignoble isolationism and Wilson’s utopian universalism rose the school of Christian realism advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr.

A Hebraic Approach to History: Response to Doran's "The Theology of Foreign Policy"
A Hebraic Approach to History: Response to Doran’s “The Theology of Foreign Policy”

Ultimately, why Americans see the world through one theological lens or another has a lot to do with whether they identify more closely with a Hebraic or Hellenic kind of Christianity. Put another way, American Christians view the world differently depending on how much they read the Bible, believe the Bible is divinely inspired, and accept the Bible as authoritative in their lives.

Recalling a Radical Think-Tank

Over Christmas, I noticed an obituary for Marcus Raskin, who co-founded the once high profile Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a leftist, not-so-much-noticed-anymore Washington, DC, think-tank that during the Cold War some conservative critics insinuated was in cahoots with Soviet intelligence.

The Western Man's Arrogance: Including the Former Colonies
The Western Man’s Arrogance: Including the Former Colonies

This thought-provoking article, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on November 30th, 1942, suggests that a better post-war world is one that includes the colonies of the Western powers (the nations that were colonies at the time of this piece’s writing). Editor Miner Searle Bates chides the Allied powers for excluding nations such as China and India in their post-war planning and argues that they deserve a seat at the table.