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The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Reinhold Niebuhr
Age: 78 †
Born: 1892
Born: June 21
Died: 1971
Died: June 1
Ethicist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
University Teacher
Wright City
Missouri
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Obviously
Democratic
Control
Race
Congregational
Church
Churches
Given
Prejudice
Mean
Absolutes
Absolute

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I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
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Ultimately freedom is necessary for a society, because every despotic society - for instance, the Russian society - lives on the basis of a rather implausible dogma - the Marxist dogma of world redemption through Communism.
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It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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We have to risk a nuclear war in order to escape capitulation to Communism. For all I know, we may stumble into this terrible war.
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
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Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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I've long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I've long felt that the average Christian didn't realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people.
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Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.
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It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.
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Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
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You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
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What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men and even to some which are not innocent.
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