The Christian Century

Obama embraces both the idealistic and realistic poles of Christian action. He recognizes with Niebuhr that politics is inherently tragic.

In this issue Rebekah Miles describes the key role that Ursula Niebuhr played in the development of her husband's thinking and writing ("Uncredited"). The article sent me to the bookshelf for Elisabeth Sifton's fascinating account of her parents' life together.

Two years before he died, Reinhold Niebuhr published one of his best-known articles. But he didn't write "The King's Chapel and the King's Court" alone.

Building a Protestant Left: Christianity and Crisis Magazine, 1941-1993.
 By Mark Hulsether. University of Tennessee Press, 416 pp.

In the first issue of the magazine named the Christian Century, in January 1900, the editors said that their special interest was in “the application of Christian principles to character and social problems.” They also spoke of their hope to make the kingdom of God “a divine reality in human society.” This, of course, was what we know today as the “social gospel”—the attempt to move beyond individual piety to address broad social problems. What relevance does that social gospel vision have today?

At first the editors of the Century, like most others who viewed the situation from afar, failed to appreciate the threat posed by the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. By May 1933, a few months after Hitler assumed the position of chancellor, editorials began to take the rise of fascism more seriously.

On the cusp of the 21st century, a strange thing is happening. Congregations—not all, but a noticeable number—are choosing to highlight their denominational particularities. While for some this might not seem so strange, for much of the 20th century highlighting denominational differences has been considered by many to be somewhat suspect. Early in the century, H.

With the terrorist attack that barely failed on a U.S. jetliner on Christmas Day and the opening of a new U.S. “front” against terrorist cells in Yemen, the year 2009 (and the decade of the “00s”) came to a somber conclusion. The struggle against radical Islamic terrorists remains a long, twilight struggle.