Correspondence with H. Richard Niebuhr

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YALE UNIVERSITY
The Divinity School

Dear buddy:
Yesterday I cleaned out my coat pocket file and found
among other things an unmailed letter to you – filed for lack
of a stamp. I was responding to your New Year's greetings with
somewhat too much caution. Better I burned the letter. Meanwhile
I have had a letter from you indirectly through the Christian
Century. It was a good defense of your position. Did I discover
a wounded spirit speaking in the last sentence? It could not
be otherwise, of course, though you do not carry your heart on
your sleeve and only those who know you, the essential you,
will surmise the suffering. It is inevitable that you should
be attacked. I needn't remind you that the attacks come
from two sides which are not to be confused. There are
the good democrats, liberals, orthodox believers in the
efficacy of good will and intelligence who are terrified
not only or all because their dogma is attacked but also and
some because their dogma is a defense against all disturbances
of law and order, by which they profit more or less. But there
are also others, I am certain, who are as cynical or almost
as cynical and skeptical as you are, who are unsatisfied
because they have hope — not much but a little, and faith,
not a great deal but some. They criticize you not for what you
said but for what you could not say. They await a messianic
word of release which has not been given to our time. You
are so much of a Christian that you can understand and appreciate
them. I believe from recent experiences that there are more
thousands of these who have not bowed their knees to the modern
Baals than we are usually aware. I need not say to you that
these men though they criticize you are your best friends and
that they would not hurt you were they not wounded themselves.

I continue to regard your book with Lippmann's Preface [to Morals]
as the two most important religious books since the war.
But neither of them are finality. They are the death of the
old war and insofar the harbingers of a new birth. They
are defeatist, but let John Haynes Holmes realize that he was
defeated long ago and that he and all his ilk have been con-
soling themselves with romantic poetry about forlorn hopes
leaving their bodies by a wall which will be taken by rein-
forcements to cause — but they aren't coming. Not the kind
they are looking for.

But I didn't set out to argue. I only wanted to say
that you mustn't misunderstand those of us who cling
to our illusion that life isn't a hoax as you cling to your
own illusions — which are not illusions, not such
things as dreams are made of but such things as are the
very source of life. We all live by faith, but our faiths are various,
and they aren't all equally sound. Perhaps I am not as realistic
as you are — but there are small points on which I think I am more
realistic — more of a Thomas who needs wounds to lay his hands on,
and that goes for others, doesn't it?

I have been going through some major readjustments in
my relation to God and life. Not in thought but inside. I am
not out of it. But I see light. I can't understand why I
am so incredibly stupid, so slow in learning obvious things.
I think I've had a Messiah complex or something, which
was, however, no more than overweening ambition.

I'm finishing this letter a week after starting it,
having in the meanwhile successfully contended with
a little attack of grippe.

Blessings upon Thy head. I think I just
wanted to write to say that though I can't see eye
to eye with you I think I understand you and
that in your battle I am an ally if not a soldier
in the same division, and that I rejoice over your
valiant attack.

As ever
Hem.

Reinhold Niebuhr Papers: Library of Congress, Manuscript Reading Room