It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces. - Reinhold Niebuhr

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the ethical impotency of the modern church than its failure to deal with the evils and ethical problems of stock manipulation. Millions in property values are created by pure legerdemain. Stock dividends, watered stock and excessive rise in stock values, due to the productivity of the modern machine, are accepted by the church without murmur if only a slight return is made by the beneficiaries through church philanthropies [1927].

Passing one of our big churches today I ran across this significant slogan, calculated to impress the passing wayfarer: 'We Will Go Out of Business. When? When Every Man in Detroit Has Been Won to Christ.' Of course it is just a slogan and not to be taken too seriously, but the whole weakness of Protestantism is in it. Here we are living in a complex world in which thousands who have been 'won to Christ' haven't the slightest notion how to live a happy life or how to live together with other people without making each other miserable [1928].

Great achievement! I learn how to be tolerant when I become the victim of somebody else's spiritual pride [1928].