The essential Reinhold Niebuhr : selected essays and addresses / edited and introduced by Robert McAfee Brown.

First publishing by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1944.

Includes indexes.

Introduction / Robert McAfee Brown -- Optimism, pessimism, and religious faith -- The power and weakness of God -- The providence of God -- The wheat and the tares -- Humour and faith -- The assurance of grace -- Prayers -- The Christian church in a secular age -- The Christian witness in the social and national order -- Why the Christian church is not pacifist -- Augustine's political realism -- Love and law in Protestantism and Catholicism -- The children of light and the children of darkness -- The relations of Christians and Jews in western civilization -- Ideology and the scientific method -- Coherence, incoherence, and Christian faith -- Mystery and meaning -- Epilogue: a view of life from the sidelines.