Reinhold Niebuhr

Fernando reminds us that Reinhold Niebuhr has much to offer our current situation, including this prayer which he includes in his post:

"We pray for wicked and cruel men, whose arrogance reveals to us what the sin of our own hearts is like when it has conceived and brought forth its final fruit. We pray for ourselves who live in peace and quietness, that we may not regard our good fortune as proof of our virtue, or rest content to have our ease at the price of other men’s sorrow and tribulation."

Lately many of my colleagues have been turning to Dietrich Bonhoeffer for inspiration. I think I might reach back to Niebuhr, who himself inspired Bonhoeffer (not to mention his younger brother H. Richard, whose book on radical monotheism continues to speak to me).