Christian Realism

“Letter from Holland,” by L.H. RuitenbergAugust 5, 1946 While North Americans, on being informed of the church situation in Holland,…

As part of a series of reports from different countries in the fall of 1946, Christianity and Crisis published articles by M. Searle Bates and Henry P. Van Dusen on China. These reveal the situation of Christianity in the country and America’s foreign policy challenge in East Asia.

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.

“The revolution is more than political, or economic. It is a revolution in thinking about the relation of religion to life, for we are growing in understanding of God by every move that we make in realizing the interdependence of the human family.”

The Bible is still right and that the contest of greatest significance is not between good and bad nations, but between all nations or men and God. We do want peace, but we would like it to be our peace.

In this sense it is proper to pursue such proximate goals as expressions of Christian duty. Christianity should not be utilitarian, but it must be practical.

“We are in danger of inflation because we do not have sufficient goods to meet the demands of the people despite the fact that we are producing more goods than any other nation on earth.”

“Deo—Patriae—Humanitati,” for God, country, and humanity, was the motto of the Germans who attempted to overthrow the regime which made their country the most hated nation in the world.

Human rights advocates, when looking at Nigeria’s north and central regions, fear an accelerating disintegration of Nigeria’s society and institutions. We all should be concerned that, if current trends are not arrested, Nigeria may implode, with global economic ramifications. A new wave of Nigerian displacement and emigration would rival those associated with Libya, Syria, and Iraq.