The Irony of American History

David Brooks: Reinhold Niebuhr played a very particular role in American history. EJ Dion: We cannot expect even the wisest of nations to escape every peril of moral and spiritual complacency. David Brooks: The faith which appropriates the meaning in the mystery inevitably involves an experience of repentance for the false meanings it introduces into the pattern. And we are more desperately in need of genuine charity than of more technocratic skills.