The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War
Books / Hardcover
Books › Religion › Philosophy
ISBN: 0393057461 / Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, October 2003
The Serenity PrayerNew York Times
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In 1943, the renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer for a church service in a New England village. Its appeal for grace, courage, and wisdom soon became famous the world over. Here, Elisabeth Sifton, Niebuhr's daughter, reclaims the true history of the Serenity Prayer and, in a poignant narrative, recounts the accomplishments of the brave men and women who, like her father, devoted their lives to the causes of social justice, racial equality, and democratic freedom in a world spiraling into and out of economic depression and war.Throughout The Serenity Prayer, Sifton uses her account of the religious and political world into which she was born as a springboard for considering the current dire state of the American spirit. She contrasts her father's times with our present one, in which religion is used as a political weapon and prayer all too often becomes banal reassurance for people already convinced of their own righteousness. She reminds us of what is possible when the courageous moral voices of open-minded realists - not jealous fundamentalists or hawkish plutocrats - shape the conscience of the nation.
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