“Unless we accept the Russian view of the nature of man, we cannot work with the USSR to a common end for human society.”

During an address to the US Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry Truman called for military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece to counter communist threats. This began the Truman Doctrine, and Christian realists responded a month later.

No amount of general exhortations about the fallacies of secular philosophies, or about the actual or potential contribution of the Church to the life of the world can be of much use in the long run unless men and women come into the Church, not primarily because the Church is good for the world, but primarily because its faith is for them the deepest truth about life, about their own lives, because in its worship they find their God.

“The resistance to Russian expansion in Europe is right. The spectacle of American progressives supporting Wallace in opposing that resistance brings dismay to most European democrats.”

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.

Reporting from Switzerland in 1946, John C. Bennett offered brief observations about starvation and turmoil in Europe and comments on how America cannot “relax in the midst of its abundance.” But he mostly focuses on the emerging World Council of Churches (WCC).

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.

Followers of Christian realism generally share these eight assumptions, which can be found in the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, John C. Bennett, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and others.