Reinhold Niebuhr

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

From this moral realism, it is justified to strive for a balance of power to realize a little more justice or a little less injustice.

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.

How do Christian Realism, Christian idealism and Christian cynicism approach the Ukraine War?

It is not a question of if, but when global unity will soften and former die-hard supporters of the Ukrainian cause will slink away. We should be realistic about that eventuality. If we are, we can ask about what kind of Ukraine, what kind of Europe, we want to see.

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.

China can only be substantively challenged by a United States that is fully aware of what the Founders sought to offer the world through enshrining their fervent hope for shared and mutually defended liberty and equality for all.

Someone like me who once lived in a totalitarian society finds it surprising and troubling that so many American churches have defined their mission as “to work for peace and justice in our world” but have neglected the defense of freedom as an essential part of their public ministry.

After a tumultuous start to the post-World War II era and before the Cold War fully commenced, the board of supervisors of Christianity and Crisis issued a joint statement in December 1946 that tried to explain a Christian approach to international issues.