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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Reinhold Niebuhr

A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architec75tural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Art Ignorance Wise
Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Form Modern
We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Element Justice Powerful
The fanatic is dangerous.
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Dangerous Fanatics Life People
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
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Fruit Self Simple
Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual – this freedom is necessary for the individual.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Conscience History People Sake Themselves Tyranny
Adam Smith’s was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural harmony of interests within each nation… But the “children of darkness” were able to make good use of his creed.
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Children Community Real
This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
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Hypocrisy Moments Self
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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Genuine Mysterious Mystery
In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, “If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you’d be a true Christian”.
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Bishops Christian Kind
Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.
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Asure Community Justice Love Prelivege
You can’t say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
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Answers Giving Nuclear
Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
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Common Kind Sense Thinking
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
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Accomplishment Lifetime Success
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
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Law Love Significance
We judge the Russians because they’re living under despotism and we don’t like it, but we’ve gotten into a fix now where we’re living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Judging Predicaments

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

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