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At first the editors of the Century, like most others who viewed the situation from afar, failed to appreciate the threat posed by the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. By May 1933, a few months after Hitler assumed the position of chancellor, editorials began to take the rise of fascism more seriously. But in Hitler’s early years, editors used German activities to drive home the point that the punitive treaty of Versailles had been an absolute failure. "We who defeated Germany," one editorial stated boldly, "helped to make Hitler" (May 10, 1933).

Protestant criticism of Versailles became commonplace within ten to 15 years after the First World War. In addition, portions of blame for the war began to settle on other European nations. American Protestants began to recognize the culpability of others, particularly Russia and France. British imperialism also became a popular target. During the early-to-mid-1930s, the Century routinely treated these themes. Hitler’s atrocities had to be understood in light of these contexts.

Because of the shame they continued to feel for their unqualified blessing of World War I, many Protestants were hesitant to bless another war. Those at the Century were no exception. As the issue of Prohibition faded, editorials throughout the 1930s regularly expressed a strong antimilitaristic tone. Though editorials condemned Nazi totalitarianism and used phrases like "the madman of Berlin" to describe Hitler (March 27, 1935), they also held out hope that war was "not inevitable" (April 8, 1936). As Europe moved toward war, the Century idealistically encouraged American neutrality. It wasn’t that the editors were isolationist, The Century, for example, supported the Emergency Peace Campaign of 1936. This group included many outstanding Protestant leaders who advocated an international platform of initiatives. Like most good internationalists, Century editors urged American participation in both the League of Nations and the World Court. On the other hand, they argued that Hitler was not America’s problem. They railed against military preparedness at home. But theirs was not a pacifist line either, even though some noted pacifists wrote for their pages. Editor Charles Clayton Morrison was neither a pacifist nor an isolationist. He just sounded like both occasionally.

While Morrison’s position on the emerging war had its detractors at the time, his understanding of the Jewish situation during the war received considerable criticism afterward. By the mid-1930s, the Century was writing about the "plight of the Jews in Germany, Poland and Rumania" (Dec. 30, 1936), but the editors were bewildered as to what to do about it. They could not bring themselves to support a Palestinian homeland, though they did not neglect the refugee question. In 1938 one editorial counted some 660,000 Jews in Germany and Austria needing resettlement. But where could they go?

Quotas in America were limited to 27,000 Germans and Austrians per year. Considering quotas in all other countries, one expert estimated it would take some 16 years to absorb those needing immediate relief. "Most of them," the editorial concluded, "will be dead long before that from starvation and general misery" (Aug. 31,1938). But lifting immigration barriers in America and elsewhere would not solve the problem either. With 10 million unemployed in the U.S., and others barely earning a living wage, allowing large numbers of impoverished Jewish refugees into the country would only "add just that much more to the economic chaos." "We make no attempt," the editors confessed, "to disguise our bafflement" (Nov. 30, 1938).

Though the editors were horrified by fascist attitudes, and countered domestic anti-Semitism wherever it appeared, they were mostly blind to the limitations of their own WASPish perspectives. They were, in short, typical Protestant liberals. They considered the possibility of a Jewish massacre in Germany as early as 1938, but tended to dismiss it. Because they had been burned by Christian susceptibility to baseless propaganda during World War I, they were not inclined to believe the worst stories about enemy behavior in this war (Sept. 13, 1944). Instead, they relied on the State Department for information, which was less than forthcoming about what it knew. Only later, after gazing into the pit of hell with the rest of the world, did they learn the truth about the Nazis’ extermination campaign (May 9, 1945).

Niebuhr’s criticism carried little weight with Morrison. "It is hard for us to see wrong being done anywhere without leaping in to stop the wrongdoer, he wrote, "But after the leap, what? It is time for the nation to consider that question soberly and with the utmost realism. And it is time for the churches to awake to all the moral perils which war involves" (Feb. 16, 1938).

Even the fall of Czechoslovakia did not move Morrison and his staff from their basic conviction that world war would not solve the problem posed by figures like Hitler and Mussolini (Sept. 28, 1938). Between 1938 and American entry into the war a few years later, the Century backed a posture of "negotiation, not battleships" (Nov. 16, 1938). It preferred a negotiated peace to a "victor’s peace" (March 12, 1941); the former would last longer. Morrison especially supported the call of many church leaders to assemble a world economic conference to address the economic inequalities in Europe. As Europeans moved toward war, editorials stressed the sins of empire building, whether of the English or German variety. The Century emphasized the need for America to remain "aloof" from such blatant power politics (April 12, 1939). Though, after the war began, editorials readily admitted that American sympathies naturally rested with the Allies, they also reminded Americans of "the Allies’ own share of responsibility for the war" (Nov. 22, 1939). In essence, this was a "war of empires" (Nov. 29, 19.39). Morrison feared the end of the war would bring yet another Allied scramble for spoils.

Neutrality advocates like Morrison believed participation in war would have a terribly negative impact upon America’s ability to lead abroad, and to defend freedoms and protect the gains of’ social legislation at home (June 5, 1940). They also feared the growing power of the American presidency during Roosevelt’s watch. By the presidential election of 1940, the Century opposed Roosevelt with all its strength. Harold Fey declared that the war would grant Roosevelt a virtual "dictatorship" (Jan. 24, 1940). Morrison supported Wendell Willkie’s presidential challenge in 1940 because Roosevelt had already gathered enough power to add up to the "‘makings’ of an American fascism" (Oct. 16, 1940). Congress had seemingly lost all ability to resist. Roosevelt "arrogated to himself arbitrary powers until. . . all congressional restraint on the president was denied and a precedent established which destroys the fundamental constitutional concept of legislative check on executive action" (Oct. 23, 1940). Calls for universal military conscription stoked these editorial fires as well (July 17, 1940)

Six weeks before Pearl Harbor, an editorial denounced the argument of Christian interventionists as "fallacious," one built upon "no foundation but shifting sand" (Oct. 29, 1941).

When, in November, Niebuhr called for the repeal of the Neutrality Act, terming it "immoral" for its "evasion or denial of moral responsibility," the Century responded that Niebuhr ought to have known better. The law served as a check against "private interests in America which might force the United States into war against its will." Niebuhr’s characterization of the law betrayed "the degree in which moral judgment may become warped and perverted by war passion." In short, Niebuhr’s characterization denied "the moral right of a nation to be neutral at all" and "logically leads to the positive conclusion that belligerent participation (presumably on the ‘right’ side) in any war in the world is the moral duty of every nation."

In an editorial written before Pearl Harbor but published in the issue just afterward, Morrison described the interventionists as "romanticists." In his attempt to turn the tables on those who viewed themselves as realists. Morrison argued that the interventionists entertained romantic visions of what would result if only Hitler were crushed. A world dominated by Anglo-American interests, the interventionists like Niebuhr asserted, "could be established without raising up against it the hatred and opposition of all the rest of the world "This" wrote Morrison, "is romantic utopianism in its purist form."

Morrison identified the Century with the group he described as the "realists." These were the noninterventionists who "let the world situation speak for itself and who derive their conception of America’s duty from an objective analysis of what that situation actually is, and what effects are likely to flow from America’s belligerent participation in or her abstention from the conflict." When one views the facts of this war objectively, Morrison concluded, "every national interest and every moral obligation to civilization dictates that this country shall keep out of the insanity of a war which is in no sense America’s war" (Dec. 10, 1941). By staying out of the war, America could better help to create a just world order after the war ended.

In the months immediately following Pearl Harbor. Morrison offered theological reflections on the meaning of the war. He used the category of "tragedy" to communicate that human beings often find themselves involved in situations "from which there is no escape save by doing monstrous evil." "It is not the suffering," he wrote, "but the moral predicament of the sufferer that constitutes the tragedy" (Jan. 7, 1942).

Building upon his theological conviction that "God is the Lord of history" Morrison sought a way to describe God as active in the midst of the tragedy of war. Christians could not be true to this theological affirmation if they pushed God into the transcendent realm where this war was none of his business. Neither could they be true to a Christian understanding of God if they claimed that divine allegiance rested solely with the Allied war efforts. Instead, Morrison offered the theological insight that this war represented the active judgment of God in history. Every nation has been called before the judgment seat of God to receive the verdict: "Guilty." "God does not command us to fight; he condemns us to fight." In the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, Morrison described the war as Cod’s judgment upon the human inability to represent the will of God within the world (Jan. 14, 1942).

The Christian knows no way to respond to a divine judgment save the way of repentance, because God’s judgment is always the divine side of an event in human experience of which man’s sin is the human side. The Christian cannot escape the judgment; he can only accept it, suffer it, endure it and, as a Christian, penitently face the guilt of it and implore the grace and forgiveness of God (May 6, 1942).

Prior to 1941, the Century represented, in many ways, a naïve approach to the threat posed by Hitler and an underestimation of the ways that totalitarianism threatened not just the old imperialistic and colonial habits, but the quality of human life itself throughout Europe and Asia. Where Niebuhr worried about the total triumph of tyranny abroad if America failed to act, Morrison feared the disintegration of American values here at home, and the promise they held for the world, if America did act. Though Niebuhr and Morrison differed on these and other points, they both sought the voice of God, and occasionally heard it, in the midst of a world consumed by war. This transcendent perspective served to remind them and others of the ever-present gap between God’s will and human action, especially in the context of war. Through their writings, they helped leaders within the church avoid the kinds of self-righteous justifications that had dominated Christian response to World War 1.

In the decade following World War I, Americans confronted a rapidly changing cultural context. Prohibition took effect in 1919 and gave birth to an era characterized by the frustrations of law enforcement and a booming business for "bootlegging" and organized crime. Throughout the decade, the CENTURY underestimated the strength of voices opposing prohibition. Editors condemned the evil of liquor without much recognition of the social circumstances that might drive some people to drink. Though, in principle, they condemned single-issue politics, they came perilously close, on occasion, to modeling its worst features. Presidents Harding and Coolidge were too soft on enforcement issues to satisfy either Charles Clayton Morrison, the CENTURY’s editor, or columnist Alva Taylor. When Al Smith faced Herbert Hoover in the presidential campaign of 1928, his open support of the "wet" position occasioned even more criticism in the CENTURY’s pages than the fact of his Catholicism. Editorial discomfort in these two areas made it difficult for editors to appreciate just how much they agreed with Smith on most other important issues. On other fronts throughout the 1920s, the editors attacked racism and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, preached peace, opposed U.S. intervention in Central America, urged the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, supported Protestant ecumenism, and waged a battle against the fundamentalists.

The extent of rapid industrialization and urbanization troubled many Americans, including editors at the CENTURY. Editorials attended to labor unrest and supported activities meant to reduce injustice in the workplace. More interesting, considering later developments, was the analysis given to the new economic practices associated with Wall Street. Beginning early in the 1920s, the magazine began to note the excesses of the capitalist system. "The desire for quick and unearned results," concluded one editorial, "is a national disease" (June 7, 1923). Editors regularly attacked the notion of getting "something for nothing." They condemned the "speculative mania in America" that allowed an accumulation of wealth without the "accompanying trust to be carried on for the welfare of the whole people" (December 27, 1923). Too much wealth landed in the hands of too few people. An article by Ross L. Finney offered a dire prediction in early 1924: "Unless we shift our weight Western civilization will enjoy an illusive prosperity and greatness for a time, but will then stagger, stumble and eventually collapse" (January 24, 1924).

Some 19 months before the crash of the market, editorials scrutinized the problem of unemployment with a growing sense of urgency. In the face of this "orgy of speculation," editors argued, religion must "protest a social or industrial order in which men wallow in sudden wealth which they have not created while their fellows by the million face want" (March 22, 1928). The speculation of the capitalist market allowed for an accumulation of "undigested wealth" and the separation of means from ends (November 1, 1928). Wall Street had divorced wealth from activities that led to employment. In addition, machines had invaded the workplace and massively displaced human labor. These developments confronted "the church and civilization with moral issues as important as the elimination of war" (June 21, 1928).

When a well-known Methodist bishop, in a highly publicized situation, lost all his possessions as a result of speculation, the tendency to condemn him for his activities surfaced in many Christian circles. In response, the CENTURY intoned, "Let him who is without dividends cast the first stone." While CENTURY editors cursed speculation, they also recognized that it was only part of the problem. Christians who pinned all the blame on speculation missed the most important point. Capitalism, rather than speculation, was the real culprit.

Instead of joining in a hue and cry against a churchman for engaging in this system in which every one of us is implicated, from which even the bishop’s salary is derived, or hiding our Christian faces in shame because his hypocritical enemies hold him up as a "horrible example," the clear call of Christ is that his followers should make a frontal attack upon the pagan system itself, and demand that our economic order shall give way to an economic order embodying the principles of the kingdom of God (July 17, 1929).

This antagonism toward capitalism surfaced regularly after October 1929. Given its socialist sensibilities, the CENTURY interpreted the crash of the stock market as an opportunity to begin "the process of a national sobering up" (November 6, 1929). Americans could no longer ignore the growing and devastating problem of unemployment. This awareness opened the door to social solutions most Americans would have rejected as unacceptable only a few years before. Editorials supported legislation designed to account for the unemployed, to establish public works projects to enable their return to work, to provide for newly unemployed through a national unemployment insurance program, and to create a national bureau of unemployment to stay on top of the problem.

The crash of the market also offered Americans the opportunity to reflect on a new understanding of the problem of greed. Americans, the CENTURY said, have been too quick to condemn racketeering, "the poor boy’s easy road to quick wealth," while ignoring ways "the son of a comfortable home seeks to make his pile and make it quickly" (August 6, 1930). In addition, the country’s obsession with its "standard of living" had to be balanced against the needs of the rest of the world. Problems like these, the CENTURY concluded, would not be solved "by standing pat on the traditions under which the present absurd inequities have grown up" (August 27, 1930).

Editors grew impatient with President Hoover’s unwillingness to use federal means to address the social crisis. Hoover urged private charities, and the organizations of local communities where hunger existed, to step up to meet the need. The CENTURY judged the president’s response entirely inadequate. His fear of the dangers associated with the federal "dole," argued editorials, ignored the fact that poverty emerged more from the defects of the system than from the "personal shortcomings of the sufferers" (February 11, 1931). "Those who bear these miseries are those who contributed least to the excesses of yesterday" (December 30, 1931).

The depth of the depression demanded a federal response, one that would establish a "permanent deposit of advanced social legislation." Hoover, to the growing dismay of editors, ruled such legislation out of bounds. "How bad must things become," asked one editorial, "before the nation is ready" to enact legislation (March 4, 1931)? One week later, the CENTURY challenged politicians to develop "an adequately planned national economy" (March 11, 1931), one that would enable federal policies to curb the excesses of capitalism. A national disaster deserved a national response. Hoover’s local-community approach would "prove to be not only tragically inefficient but scandalously inequitable" (October 28, 1931).

The crowning irony of these years, therefore, is the fact that Morrison used the pages of the CENTURY to endorse Hoover’s reelection in 1932. He found himself most drawn to the politics of the ever-present socialist candidate Norman Thomas, but those impulses were checked by his belief in the importance of maintaining the vitality of the two-party system (October 19, 1932). As he examined the alternatives, Morrison reckoned the Roosevelt of the campaign trail too tentative and completely uninspiring when speaking about the economy. Roosevelt also pursued unfortunate alliances with the "corruption of Tammany" (April 13, 1932), "the sinister figure" of William Randolph Hearst (October 26, 1932) and the "hierarchy" of the Catholic Church (April 20, 1932).

Perhaps more determinative for Morrison than any other consideration, Roosevelt fully supported the "wet plank" of the Democratic platform. "So far, then, as the liquor issue may figure in the campaign," the CENTURY editorialized, "the drys can have nothing but opposition to the Democratic campaign" (July 13, 1932). Hoover’s vacillation on the issue just before the election did not score many points with editors either (September 21, 1932). In the end, since both candidates seemed to support a capitalist economy, the CENTURY’S editors uncovered no reason to replace the overly cautious capitalist they respected with the "looseness and inconsistency" of the capitalist they did not trust (October 26, 1932).

Roosevelt’s landslide victory eased the magazine’s anxiety that he would be beholden to the vested interests of his initial supporters. Once elected, and once the extent of his program to deal with the depression became evident, Roosevelt quickly gained the editor’s enthusiastic endorsement. With 16 million people out of work, editors declared Roosevelt’s "readiness to experiment with new policies his greatest asset and the nation’s greatest ground of hope" (March 1, 1933). As Roosevelt exercised emergency power to deal with the banking crisis, revise the relationship between American currency and gold, and establish the Tennessee Valley Authority, editors hailed the arrival of "a new United States." "As a plain matter of fact, he has done more to start the nation toward a socialist order than all the agitation carried on by all the avowedly socialist agents in our national history" (March 22, 1933). Editors interpreted the administration’s orchestration of the national recovery act as a commitment to graft socialistic principles into the American capitalist system.

This philosophy of "socialized capitalism" encouraged the idea that "business exists for the community" instead of "the principle that a business exists for itself, that is, for the profits it can make for its owners. But editorials simultaneously noted that the National Recovery Administration (NRA) depended too much on voluntary compliance. Ultimately, Roosevelt’s new system set no restrictions upon profits. And here it necessarily faltered. "Can human nature which has been so long conditioned by the stimuli of capitalism," asked the CENTURY, "discipline itself while still subject to the same stimuli, to the point of curtailing its greed for profits when profits are to be had?" The editors were pessimistic (August 30, 1933).

Therefore, even though the magazine displayed the NRA eagle on its second page for months, the editors were not unacquainted with the weaknesses associated with the NRA. In addition to anxiety about the overwhelming influence of the profit motive, editors also worried about whether the power of labor organizations could develop rapidly enough to counter the autonomous industrial associations created by the NRA (January 3, 1934). Small businesses also tended to suffer under self-regulation provisions that favored the efficiency of the mass-producing abilities of larger businesses (January 31, 1934). This weakness surfaced more clearly as time passed. Editors also knew that the extension to the South of NRA codes mandating minimum wages would likely cause displacement of black workers without creating an effective remedy (September 20, 1933).

At a time when the vast majority of clergy in America disapproved of Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms, the CENTURY endorsed his 1936 bid for reelection because of them. Editorials recognized the complicity of the church in the economic crisis that faced the nation. Nine months before the crash of the market in 1929, editors criticized the trend in American Protestantism toward "the skyscraper church." Many features of Christian practice represented a capitulation to the success-oriented and materialistic standards of American business. "To put the matter bluntly," editors asked, "how far will a church, involved in the obligation to supply profits, question or disturb the premises and practices of a profit-seeking, profit-taking society?" (February 7, 1929).

Throughout the depression, editors challenged the church to address the moral dimensions of the crisis. "Is the church a genuinely creative source of human welfare, or does it merely share in and decorate the goods created by economic and other secular forces?" (November 11, 1931). Editors were not too sure about the answer. As they sought clarity in the matter, they helped to usher American Christianity into a more critical assessment of the relationship between Christ and culture.

By 1937, many aspects of Roosevelt’s New Deal had successfully taken root. Labor gained strength. Legislative checks against the worst abuses of big business seemed securely in place. Social Security provided unemployment and pension insurance. Welfare programs eased the suffering of the poor. Roosevelt’s domestic policy had produced a reformation of American capitalism. Morrison appeared to settle more comfortably into the notion that this reformed capitalism would remain solidly entrenched in American culture. While editors continued to commend Roosevelt for his courage in producing a reformed economic order, they also began to distance themselves from him within a year after his reelection. Morrison feared Roosevelt’s foreign policy might draw Americans into another world war.

As if the depression had not been difficult enough for the liberal theologian to process, the ascent of both Hitler and Mussolini heralded a new totalitarianism that shattered whatever self-confidence remained. When the vestiges of depression combined with the rise of fascism and the threat of world war, liberals found themselves, in the words of John C. Bennett, "left with a feeling of theological homelessness." This "disintegration of liberalism" (November 8, 1933) emerged as one of the most important developments within American Christianity in the century. It also inspired CENTURY editors to inaugurate the well-known "How My Mind Has Changed" series at the end of the decade.

Before the outbreak of World War I, the Century, not unlike many other American journals, regularly expressed an idealistic and basically isolationist position when considering America’s role in the world. In this approach, the magazine reflected the attitudes of Presidents William Howard Taft (1909-1913) and Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), both idealists who were shaped by the period of isolation enjoyed by America before the Spanish-American War of 1898. Century editorials challenged the politics of power and claimed that war could never be as productive as a policy of enlightened diplomacy.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the editors were reluctant to endorse the aims of either side of the "Pan-European" war as it developed in the summer of 1914. Nations on both sides possessed imperialistic reasons for entering the conflict, the editors explained, and none of them were worth defending. The cause of God could not be linked with either side. There simply was "no worthwhile moral issue at stake" (October 8, 1914).

Editor Charles Clayton Morrison assumed throughout 1914 and 1915 that the U.S. would not get involved in the war. "The war is in Europe, not here," declared an early editorial, "and we have no moral right to let it come here" (October 15, 1914). The interests of the church, however, were inescapably wrapped up in the conflict. This terrible conflict existed between Christian countries. "It is a solemn hour for the Church," which "smitten in its conscience with the sight of its own sons slaying one another, cannot help asking whether it has taught and trained these sons aright" (September 17, 1914). Only 14 years had passed since editors proclaimed the dawning of the "Christian century," and now Christians were killing one another for reasons no one in the editorial offices believed anyone could justify. In light of the Century’s belief in human progress, it makes sense that editors would choose to use the term "relapse" to describe the unspeakable "evil" associated with the war. While the editors struggled with the notion of progress because of the war, they did not lose their faith in its importance as a driving force within history. The war had to be interpreted in light of how God would use it to bring about progress for both the human race and religion.

Throughout the fall of 1914, the Century lamented the "staggering blow" the war dealt to Christian missions. Millions of dollars throughout the world were poured into war equipment while religious and philanthropic causes suffered. Editorials encouraged members of the American church to step up giving to missions and expressed confidence that the Western obsession with armaments would ultimately collapse, along with war, "through its own crushing costs, its horrible tragedies, and its merciless defiance of Christian virtue" (October 15, 1914).

In 1915 the editors mounted their own battle of words against the "militarists" who preached preparedness for war. Since Wilson resisted these militarists for most of that year, praise for the patience and wisdom of the "Christian president" regularly appeared. Though the editors did not consider themselves pacifists, they expressed disappointment in November when Wilson, now dubbed "The Lost Leader," "so completely surrendered to political exigency" that he went "over to the camp of the militarists" (November 18, 1915). The Century repeatedly registered disagreement with the administration’s new policy of military preparedness.

Beginning with the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, Century editorials began to reflect a subtle preference for the Allied Forces. By February 1917, the editors entertained for the first time the actual likelihood of war with Germany and urged American Christians to avoid jingoism. While urging America’s continued neutrality in the war, Alva Taylor conceded, "If we must fight, let it be for humanity and international law and not for any cause that is so intimately tied up with territorial aggression" (March 8, 1917). Though they could not support the expansionistic goals of many of the Allies, the editors often emphasized that war brought great changes in the world, many of which opened new doors of opportunity for the expansion of Christianity.

Once Wilson declared war, the Century offered complete support for the American war effort. The lead editorial after the president’s declaration cautioned against excess emotion and hatred while urging all Christians to "give up comfort for the sake of the nation" (April 12, 1917). Whereas before American entry the editors questioned the war’s moral credibility, in the months following they extolled its moral standing as the war "freeing our world from despotism" (May 10, 1917), the war waged "in behalf of democracy" (May 17, 1917) and the "war to end war" (June 21, 1917). Earlier concerns about Christians fighting Christians disappeared and were replaced by pleadings that members of the church do their part to win this war, as if true Christians could support only one side of the war effort.

Editorials condemned "slackers" in the church who refused to support the national effort and revealed little tolerance for those who chose the route of conscientious objection. "Shall we be ‘conscientious objectors,"’ one editorial asked, "or ‘loyal Americans"’(June 7, 1917)? The possibility of both/and did not enter their minds. Christians needed to "fight or give" (June 28, 1917), sing "America" in worship (May 30, 1918) and buy liberty bonds (September 26, 1918).

In spite of its extensive support for the war effort, the Century did not exhibit an uncritical jingoism. The editors criticized British imperial aims, urged the church to do its part to keep down an "unreasoning hatred" of the enemy, criticized those who attached millennial interpretations to the war, and offered the theological judgment that war is waged properly only when it destroys evil systems rather than human beings. In its self-defined role as "interpreter," the Century emphasized that the war was not against the German people, whom God dearly loved, but rather against their government and the leaders who worked against their best interest. The church that "sees this war as another crucifixion of her Lord, a fresh and infamous putting of Him to an open shame, will not go into battle with the light heart of a jingo, but with a grief and tragedy of soul more poignant [by] far than the wounds and deaths of the battlefield" (December 13, 1917).

After the war, the editors declared, "It was God who united the conscience of the world against a proud and brutal power" (November 14, 1918). They warned Americans against the temptation to punish the German people and warned Wilson against politicizing the League of Nations. With prophetic insight, the Century denounced the Treaty of Versailles: "America has now become involved in the common guilt of Europe for a world scheme which produced Prussianism and which, unregenerated by the fires of war, is in a way to produce another Prussia and another debacle like the one we have just passed through" (September 18, 1919).

Later, they criticized Wilson, on the one hand, for trading "his support of the shameless treaty all too cheaply" (February 5, 1920) and, on the other, for failing to make the political compromises at home necessary to bring America into the League of Nations (April 1, 1920). Alva Taylor analyzed the partisanship that kept America out of the league (December 2, 1920) but did not recognize how the Century’s own approach to the war may have contributed to creating the cultural context that prevented America from being able to assume its place among the league’s members.

During U.S. involvement in 1917 and 1918, the Century, following Wilson’s lead, emphasized idealistic motivations for the war and advocated the formation of the League of Nations to enforce the peace. Like Wilson, the editors rarely addressed how potential German control of the Atlantic would threaten the national interests of the U.S. In the end, the failure to sell the war as a necessary response to the real national and economic threat foreshadowed Wilson’s difficulty in selling the idea of the league at home. If the league had been promoted as a necessary vehicle to safeguard the American interests secured by the war, Congress might have passed some version of it. Instead, Wilson’s moralistic and idealistic vision attached to both the war and the league failed to provide a compelling rationale for a long-term American commitment to enforcing peace in Europe. The lack of a clearly articulated foreign policy in defense of national interests during the war kept Americans from seeing how badly American security needed what Britain and France could provide after the war, and how closely American interests were connected to European problems.

The Christian Century emerged from rather humble origins. It started as just another local denominational publication speaking for the Disciples of Christ in Des Moines, Iowa, and surrounding regions. Those connected with its founding chose the name Christian Oracle for the journal and adopted the motto "Speak as the Oracles of God"

True to Disciples beliefs, the first editorial expressed a desire to use the journal to encourage Protestantism "return to . . . the Apostolic confession of ‘Jesus the Christ, the son of the Living God’" as the only test of fellowship, and bond of union, among those who profess to follow Him ." However high their initial hopes, the editors had to struggle mightily just to keep publishing on a regular basis. In desperate straits financially, and looking for a way to find more readers, they moved the journal to Chicago in 1891.

The new location afforded the opportunity to gather fresh support among some prominent, but hardly wealthy, Disciples leaders in the city. Many were associated with the University of Chicago. Included in the group were Herbert Willett and Edward Scribner Ames, who were beginning to establish national reputations in biblical studies and the philosophy of religion respectively. These Chicago Disciples were representative of tile "modernist" inlj)lilse in American Protestant life. They sought new ways to relate science to religion and reason to faith.

Willett, the more active writer, applied new scientific and historical methods to the study of the Bible and challenged traditional notions of biblical authority. As one of the journal’s part-time editors, he used the pages of the Christian Oracle to educate readers about developments in biblical scholarship.

This community of Disciples also shared the prevailing mood characterizing American Protestantism of that time. At the turn of the century, Protestants in America were largely hopeful and optimistic. Culture and politics in America reflected the habits and routine of Protestant life in general. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in 1898, these Disciples believed America stood poised to play a significant role in the Christianization and elevation of the world. In one of the earliest issues of 1899, the editors noted "a veiy intimate relation between the advancing influence of Christian nations and the advancement of the Kingdom of God." Confident of the activity of God in the world, and even more so of their owli increasing ability to uncover God’s truth through the application of science and reason, they anticipated an unfolding of ever greater Christian influence in the world. This point of view led to the decision to change the name of the journal.

Chicago supporters of the journal, according to an editorial published in the last issue of 1899, had long been dissatisfied with the old name because it smacked "too much of infallibility and heathenism." In November, editors declared an intention to change the name with these words:

The newly named journal, now under new ownership, continued to face economic difficulties. By 1908 the CENTURY had only 600 subscribers, each paying $2.00 per year. With a $1,500 mortgage, the paper found itself on the verge of extinction. If not for the enterprising work of Charles Clayton Morrison, a young Disciples minister, the CENTURY might never have survived the decade.

Morrison arrived in Chicago near the end of the 19th century and sought the companionship of the Disciples community of scholars at the University. He eventually completed some graduate work in philosophy with John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. He was among those Chicago supporters of the paper who urged a name change. When he heard that the CENTURY would be sold at a sheriff’s auction, he bid $1,500. Under his ownership, the paper continued to struggle financially. But he found ways to make ends meet. For the next five years, until September 1, 1913, Morrison and Willett served as coeditors.

As owner and new editor, Morrison had no intention of altering the perspective of the weekly. A brief statement on the cover continued to read "Published Weekly in the Interests of the Disciples of Christ at the New Offices of the Company." Concerns of the Disciples dominated the CENTURY’s pages for most of the next eight years. Morrison defended the concept of "open membership" and urged the denomination to accept the legitimacy of infant baptism. "The modern emphasis on the inward, the subjective," an early editorial explained, "often leaves religious sentiment without a mechanism for overt expression." As a result, "it becomes sentimentalism and comes to nothing."

Though Morrison believed the modern emphasis on religious experience to be properly placed, he feared the popular implications of it, "If we abandon legalism, can we speak a definite, objective message?" (October 1, 1908). He believed one could, and he intended to use the CENTURY to move Disciples toward a Christian message that would be relevant for a new century.

Alongside, and sometimes within, the editorials addressing the nature of the latest denominational controversies, Morrison continually sought to place Disciples in the context of the wider church. This emphasis appeared in several editorial threads. Though the journal in these years, and for considerable decades to come, was thoroughly Protestant in its ecumenism, and a particular type of Protestant as well, it regularly addressed the importance of unity for the life of the church. The founding of the Federal Council of Churches in 1908 received considerable attention, and the CENTURY reported its activities on behalf of social justice with sympathy and appreciation.

In addition, articles regularly emphasized the significance of global mission. As one might expect, editorial social optimism tended to link mission and American civilization in ways that unsettle today’s readers. By 1911 the CENTURY regularly published a department covering news of "interdenominational acquaintance" This marked its first major step toward a 1916 declaration that it was an "undenominational" journal.

Perhaps one of the more interesting ways Morrison brought his readers into an awareness of the wider church during these years is found in the series of articles resulting from his firsthand coverage of Billy Sunday’s six-week revival in Springfield, Illinois, in 1909. Writing with pronounced respect and admiration for the preacher, colored by a serious concern about method, Morrison offered an unusually astute and critical analysis of American revivalism.

In the years before World War I, Morrison championed the modern view of religion and the importance of a college education for ministry. Significant coverage of literature and the arts appeared in the paper’s columns. Editorials on the compatibility between religion and science appeared early and often. The presumed conflict, the CENTURY editorialized, resulted from the "confusion of religion with theology." Theology is not the same as religion. Rather,

theology is itself a science in the proper meaning of the term since it is a systematized account of our knowledge of God. It may change and progress by reason of any new and true thought about God which any one of all the sciences may suggest, but religion is the same yesterday and today and forever, for religion is the life of God in the soul of man (December 12, 1908).

From the time Morrison took the helm, the growing edges of social critique and cultural criticism began to take definite shape. In the early years of his editorial leadership, Morrison carried on the longstanding Disciples hope of banning the saloon, which, the paper editorialized, "stands square across the path of progress (October 1, 1908). The CENTURY addressed other personal sins and moral failings, regularly speaking to the problems caused by lax divorce laws, and occasionally writing about the evils of gambling, tobacco, and the "sex consciousness" that would accompany the "vociferous demand for the teaching of sex hygiene" in public schools. Morrison’s modernist approach to religion in 1912, tinged by both cultural and religious anti-Catholicism, still had room for a spirited defense of Bible reading in public schools when the Supreme Court of Illinois banned the Bible from the classroom.

Other cultural issues found their way into the pages of the CENTURY. Alva Taylor, a social activist among Disciples who lived in Chicago, tracked social developments in a new column titled "The Trend of Events," followed in later years by one called "Social Interpretations." Next to temperance, the labor movement garnered the largest volume of space. Taylor paid serious attention to its efforts to stop the abuses of child labor and to develop fair wages, compensation for injured workers, and pensions.

Editorials attacked the development of corporate trusts, obscene corporate profits, the failure of wages to keep up with inflation, and the conditions of employment in garment manufacturing, steel mills and railroads. Sympathetic support for the unionization of labor did not prevent criticism of its occasional use of violence or the tactics associated with "closed shops." Editors supported reduced hours for women, defended their right to the workplace, and warned of the dangers associated with it.

In an effort to widen the perspective of the journal, Morrison appointed Ida Withers Harrison, a prominent Disciples missions worker, to head a new department titled "Modern Womanhood." "There is an invidious implication in the usual headings of feminine departments which both Mrs. Harrison and the editors dislike" the announcement intoned:

Harrison brought a serious and sustained interest in the issue of woman’s suffrage to the CENTURY, as well as enhanced coverage of other social issues affecting the home, and the lives of working women and mothers.

The CENTURY also paid some attention to prison reform, argued against capital punishment and the "devastation of our forests," and on both sides of whether or not to restrict immigration. Editorials discussed the presidential politics of the day, tentatively affirmed the emerging foreign policy of this newly global nation, and expressed enthusiasm for the emerging republics in China, Turkey and the pan-American countries. In general, editors denounced racial prejudice and spoke of the equality of women, but reflected the narrowness of their cultural attitudes more than they themselves recognized in the jokes they published and in the phrasing of their editorials. They noted the popular extension of automobile travel with considerable trepidation and marveled at the developing commercialization of the airplane.

Early on, the magazine displayed a tendency to use both contemporary events and cultural mainstays to speak of larger truths. For example, the sinking of the Titanic became a metaphor, on the one hand, for the fact that death is "no respecter of persons," and, on the other, for the triumph of the human spirit over death. The method has proved effective at times, though it can also show, in hindsight, how much cultural perceptions have changed. For example, the editors noted that the game of football contributed greatly to the "morals of student life" with the qualities of discipline, courage, judgment and loyalty it inspired (November 27, 1913). And baseball, the "great game," cultivated players who were "temperate and clean." It represented "a game that encourages the American citizen to take off his coat, sit on the bleachers in the open air, drink a bottle of non-alcoholic pop, and shout himself hoarse" (April 3, 1914). And the "moving picture," with "seven thousand theaters devoted to their exploitation," "promises to make no impure or suggestive scenes" but, instead, "will furnish fun, drama, and scenery. . . . With adequate police supervision it may be made a boon to multitudes. . . . The day of wonders is but begun" (June 17, 1909).

In the late 1980s, Barbara Brown Zikmund lamented the failure of churches prior to the 1960s to understand and help working women, women who had first moved into the workplace during World War II. The indices of the Century during the ‘40s and ‘50s demonstrate how little attention mainline religion gave to women’s issues during those years. A lone mention of "women in ministry" appeared in 1947, and the topic did not resurface for over a decade. A reference to "women in churches" appeared in 1941 and another in 1948, with multiple references coming in 1949. The entry resurfaced again in 1952-1955, and finally became more or less regular after 1957. Many of these later entries were written by Margaret Frakes, an editor associated with the Century from 1944 to 1969 who modeled a woman’s career in religious journalism when few women were found in the profession.

Throughout this period, mainline Christian editors remained reluctant to support women’s working outside the home. The Century feared two developments: 1) women might take jobs needed by ethnic minorities (a legitimate concern because American industry in the 1950s might have preferred women to minority employees); and 2) women working outside the home would likely have an adverse effect upon the family life of America. New devices had reduced the time required for housework, but at the same time had increased family expenses. "So the wife is compelled to labor outside the home in order to pay for labor-saving devices for use in it" (April 3, 1957).

Editors asked why United Church Women had said nothing about this "industrialization of women." Cynthia Wedel, national chair of United Church Women, responded with a 1957 essay that defended the right of a woman to work outside the home, while noting that "no normal woman will neglect her children unless forced to do so by economic circumstances." The clergy and the church, she warned, were still trying "to force women into a mold." That behavior had to stop, not only because it was inappropriate, but because "more and more women just will not be forced" (July 10, 1957). By the mid-to-late 1960s, 17 states still had no laws on the books to protect women from wage exploitation. The Century affirmed the right to equal pay for equal work, especially since women working for lower wages might actually either displace men altogether or force them to work for lower wages (May 1, 1963).

Though the Century overlooked the formation of the National Organization for Women in 1964, its awareness of the plight of women increased after 1963 largely due to the publication of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and the response of women within the church to it. Friedan explained the existence of a mystique in post -- World War II life that expected women to find their complete fulfillment in their female roles of wives and mothers.

The Century called upon readers to help them publish the names of women theologians, lecturers and educators who could help to break that mystique by lecturing on college campuses and elsewhere. Under the title "There Are Women Theologians," editors listed 61 women, the majority of whom were college or seminary teachers, or women active in denominational life. Only four worked in the parish ministry -- two as associate ministers, one as a part-time minister in a downtown congregation, and one as a director of Christian education. While supporting the professional work of all these women, the editors reflected the cultural bias against them by identifying 10 percent of the list first as wives and then by their professions. Another was identified as a "widowed mother of four and thus -- of course -- skilled in interpersonal relations" (August 28, 1963).

Early in 1964, the Century published an excerpt from Helmut Thielicke’s latest book that defined the "vocation of the woman to be lover, companion and mother." Even when a woman remained unmarried, she fulfilled "her calling in accord with the essential image of herself only when these fundamental characteristics, which are designed for wifehood and motherhood, undergo a sublimating transformation but still remain discernible" (January 15, 1964). But other essays supported Friedan’s perspective. Hannah Bonsey Suthers, identified as the "wife of an Episcopal minister," argued that Christian women faced a more devastating problem: they had to escape a "Christian mystique," which "sells woman short . . . by producing theology that claims that women are ‘mysteriously different"’ and "by limiting women’s church work to housekeeping-teaching-calling functions and omitting capable women in the policymaking, executive or liturgical areas." "All of which," Suthers concluded, "adds up to a failure to see women as persons" (July 21, 1965).

The Century did not say much editorially about women’s rights issues until 1970, when "women’s rights" finally appeared as a separate index entry and the Senate considered the Equal Rights Amendment for the first time. Editors offered clear and unwavering support for the ERA and for women’s rights from that point on (for example, October 25, 1972).

Women also made gains in church life during these years, especially in the number of women serving in ordained ministry and defining the church’s theology. The Century had written approvingly of the actions taken in 1956 by both the Methodist and Presbyterian churches to extend ordination to women (January 23, 1957). Editorial sympathies in this regard remained consistent in the one or two brief mentions of women in ministry throughout the 1960s. In March 1970, a young public health nurse named Jeanne Richie urged Century readers to help end the "sex-caste system" defining "women’s work" in the church. Her analysis marked the beginning of more serious attention to issues surrounding women as clergy (January 21, 1970).

The Century’s first mention of "feminist theology" appeared in 1971. The short news piece emphasized feminist criticism of "male-dominated theology." Quoting Mary Daly, the editors registered the feminist complaints that God is referred to by male pronouns, that Catholic theology has emphasized both a male incarnation and the role of Mary as a "sexless" mother, and that the Genesis story is utilized in the church to proclaim Eve responsible for sin in the world (May 26, 1971). The item also noted that the new feminist theology already had "at least one male critic," James Hitchcock, a theology professor at St. Louis University.

Interested in ameliorating the polarizing tendencies present in American society during the 1960s, the Century invited essays from both Hitchcock and Daly. These essays were published in the fall of 1971, and together they represent the first discussion of feminist theology truly accessible to mainline Protestants. Hitchcock defended his criticisms of "ecclesiastical women’s lib" by stating that they equally applied to movements led by men (other forms of liberation theology). Both practiced a form of "secularization theology" and served mostly political ends (September 22, 1972).

The shift toward the use of inclusive language in the Century began between 1970 and 1972, especially when feminists were doing the writing. By the late 1970s, the argument on behalf of inclusive language had established a definite foothold in mainline Protestantism and in some corners of neo-evangelicalism. The Century published articles that examined how male images in language affected women in the church (Casey Miller and Kate Swift, April 14, 1976), how generic terms exist in the English language and need to be better utilized in the church (Rosa Shand Turner, March 16, 1977), and how translations of scripture added prejudicial meanings not contained in the original languages (James F. White, December 13, 1978). Over the next two decades, essays in the Century urged better use of feminine images for God to counterbalance the habitual use of male pronouns and symbols for God, and the liturgical use of the trinitarian formula (e.g., Pamela Payne Allen, April 23, 1986; Ruth C. Duck, May 19-26, 1993; Amy Plantinga Pauw, November 17-24, 1993).

In an essay examining the literature about the subject in 1988, Ann-Janine Morey reported that church magazines tended to blame the woman involved rather than the pastor (October 5, 1988). Other substantive essays also appeared in the Century (Pamela Cooper-White, February 20, 1991; Marie Fortune, August 26-September 2, 1992). By the end of 1993, the exposure given to numerous cases of pastoral sexual abuse throughout that year led the editors to name clergy sexual abuse as its top story of the year, up from number four the year before.

The Century has not necessarily taken the lead in feminist issues, but it has opened its pages to the contributions of those who have. A rereading of the Century brings to mind the remarkable changes of the past few decades, as women have moved from the margins to the center of theological endeavors and the life of the church. Their work has forced a renewed understanding of the value of human experience in theology. The women who entered the ministry during these years have had to challenge prevailing assumptions and model new alternatives more congenial to the gospel. These are qualities that usually make for a mighty good preacher.

Part of the fabric of public life in America during the post- World War II years, perhaps the cross-stitch that held the symbolic boundaries in place, was anticommunism. Most mainline church editors were part of it. The launching of Sputnik in 1957 provoked a "crisis" and, explained a Century editorial, exploded the "assumption of a kind of general, built-in American superiority" (January 1, 1958). Over the next few years, the editors became certain there existed an absolute incompatibility between Christianity and communism. Though a 1961 editorial warned readers not to "commit the great blasphemy of confusing democracy with the kingdom of God," its author, most likely Harold Fey, intoned that "Christianity and communism cannot coexist in the same person any more than Christianity can share the same disciple with Buddhism or Islam" (November 15, 1961).

Under Fey’s leadership, however, the Century could also hold positions that made it rather unpopular with average anticommunist groups and individuals. The journal strongly sought United Nations recognition of the People’s Republic of China (July 10, 1957). On the issue of space, even given the threat of initial Soviet successes, Fey condemned American exploration as a "fantastic waste" of economic resources (May 24, 1961). The Century welcomed the change in Cuba from Fulgencio Batista, who had been backed by the U.S., to Fidel Castro and criticized the Bay of Pigs invasion as a "debacle" (May 3, 1961). The editors also argued for de facto recognition of the East German communist regime in the Berlin crisis (August 30, 1961). Just after the Cuban missile crisis, they insisted that Americans look to the "enemy within" for part of the cause of the crisis itself, especially "the shameful history of [American] exploitation of Cuba" (November 7, 1962). Clearly, the Century’s anticommunist position had some sophisticated and reflective edges to it.

The Century heralded the birth of the Republic of South Vietnam in November of 1955 and said not another meaningful word about it until April 25, 1962, when it demanded that President Kennedy tell the truth about why "American soldiers [were] dying almost every day in South Vietnam." A plane carrying 93 American soldiers to Vietnam had crashed into the Pacific. This event woke the editors from their slumber. Why were there nearly 5,000 American troops, accompanied by ships and planes, in a country over 10,000 miles away? If a communist takeover seemed imminent, why did the president not inform Congress to let it act accordingly in a proper debate concerning a declaration of war (April 25, 1962)?

In 1962, the Century’s editors feared a communist takeover in southeast Asia as much as anyone else did. They did not question the fact that South Vietnam needed help. The domino theory made limited sense to them at the time. The editors objected primarily because Kennedy had acted alone when the UN should have been contacted to deal with the situation. They recognized the legitimacy of the cause against communism throughout 1963 and 1964. Editorials denounced President Diem’s denial of religious freedom to the Buddhists (September 4, 1963), argued against expansion of the war into North Vietnam (March 11, 1964), and called for an early, peaceful, negotiated withdrawal (December 23, 1964). Without exception, however, editorials during this period accepted the necessity of American action in Vietnam and expressed a cautious affirmation of the general lines of U.S. policy there.

The prospect of a presidential election at such a crucial time concerned the editors. Just before the Republican Convention in 1964, Harold Fey wrote an editorial entitled "Goldwater? No!" He figured that Goldwater might be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party and believed his ideological bent "would inflame the cold war" and probably escalate the war in Vietnam (July 1, 1964). Just after Fey retired in September Kyle Haselden, in one of his first tasks as editor endorsed President Johnson for reelection. He was confident that a Johnson-Humphrey team would handle Vietnam with wisdom and could be trusted to avoid the "hair-trigger action" of a Goldwater. Johnson, he wrote, would work toward peace and prevent any move toward all-out nuclear confrontation. Haselden also favored Johnson’s much better history on civil rights issues (September 9, 1964).

The presidential endorsement not only cost the journal its tax deductible status for two years, but also led to a more realistic understanding of politics and less willingness to wed Christian goals to the election of particular leaders. Johnson’s policies forced the Century editor to eat his words. Haselden’s profound disappointment with Johnson found expression as early as May 1965.

The Pentagon Papers later revealed that Johnson, prior to the election, had already taken steps to escalate the war. By the end of 1965, troops in Vietnam numbered over 185,000; one year later they would number 385,000, building eventually to over 540,000 troops. These developments jarred the Century. The 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing presidential authority in sending American troops to Vietnam had originally brought barely a whimper. By early 1966, editors had decided the resolution had blown "a hole in the Constitution of the United States big enough to drive an undeclared war through" (February 16, 1966).

When Senators Leverett Saltonstall and Edward Kennedy, both from Massachusetts, presented a bill in the Senate to give public recognition to God through requiring the post office department to cancel all postage with the words "For God and Country," Century editors replied: "If the nation really wants to give public recognition to God let it abandon its unjust crushing of the aspirations of little peoples in various parts of the world" (April 6, 1966).

By the end of 1965, editorials more frequently defended dissent. "It is a spurious argument to say that the protests weaken and embarrass this nation abroad and comfort its enemies," wrote the editors. "Demonstrations within peaceful bounds are not a shame but an index of our glory" (November 3, 1965). Stepped-up and indiscriminate bombing had its effect. The members of the staff became more active in expressing their own dissent.

Kyle Haselden and Martin E. Marty were both members of the National Emergency Committee of Clergy Concerned about Vietnam, a group of religious leaders pressing the president to work toward negotiation and de-escalation (January 29, 1966).

Haselden joined the march on Washington in early 1967 (February 15, 1967). Alan Geyer wrote a defense of selective conscientious objection in early 1966 (February 2, 1966), and he became the Century’s editor two years later. Haselden and staff picked up the just war defense of selective-objector status after Geyer offered it and encouraged the church to speak to the issue. Marty joined 17 other religious leaders and signed a statement pledging "to risk fine or imprisonment to assist young men who resist[ed] the draft on grounds of conscience" (December 13, 1967).

Century opposition to the draft is clear throughout this period, well before Vietnam was ever an issue. At the pinnacle of the Vietnam war, editors argued that the draft, as long as America used it, ought to be as equitable as possible. They were especially concerned about its tendency to include more blacks than whites, poor than rich, illiterate than educated. Interestingly enough, in the late ‘60s, the editors became rather vocal about the need to do away with the ministerial and seminary exemptions from the draft. These positions were consistent with the support for conscientious-objector status, for they felt that removing clergy exemption would force clergy to clearer expression of their convictions on the issue (February 1, 1967).

As editor Geyer oversaw perhaps the strangest (and easiest to write) editorial ever published by the Century. It summed up very well the journal’s feelings about the early Nixon administration’s conduct in the war. Titled, at the top of the page, "Beyond Rhetoric: The Positive Record of the Nixon Administration in Matters of Justice and Peace, January -- June 1969," the editorial left the rest of the page blank. Strong editorial resistance to the war effort continued right down to the implementation of Nixon’s "peace with honor" which the magazine, under new editor James M. Wall, damned as the "final self-deception" (February 7, 1973).

Nonetheless, it is clear that they spoke from faith in a transcendent God who meted out justice and cared deeply for the poor and outcast, whether in Vietnam or in America.

The struggles of these Christians among the mainstream who chose to speak out about Vietnam illustrate well the new setting occasioned by Protestant displacement in American culture. The old setting, where Americans in power could count on the presence and support of clergy to undergird prevailing social mores, had passed. But, as the editors of the Century acknowledged, many in the church preferred the old environment to the new and did not appreciate clergy who challenged it.

By 1968, editorials more regularly faced and addressed the shortcomings of American life. At approximately the time when Geyer replaced the ailing Kyle Haselden as editor, the journal printed an editorial titled "Universal Moral Myopia." The Soviet Union had just invaded Czechoslovakia. But the editor was in no mood to engage in simple anti-communist banter. Instead he pointed to America’s "two evils," racism and Vietnam, and stated that the Russian invasion should not serve as "a scapegoat for our own guilt." Though the editorial took seriously the situation in Czechoslovakia, it compared the invasion to both the American intervention in Vietnam and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. Communism, in other words, had no monopoly on immorality. The editor defended his position with solid theological reasoning. He pointed out that Americans "live as if the meaning of our lives was ours alone to create" (September 4, 1968). This theological approach to the culture enabled the Century to assume a more prophetic posture toward American society as a whole.