H. Richard Niebuhr on Church

“In adapting itself to the conditions of a civilization which its founder had bidden it to permeate with the spirit of divine love, [the church] found that it was easier to give to Caesar the things belonging to Caesar if the examination of what might belong to God were not too closely pressed.”

“The church, as an organization interested in self-preservation and in the gain of power, has sometimes found the counsel of the Cross inexpedient. ... In dealing with such major social evils as war, slavery, and social inequality, it has discovered convenient ambiguities in the letter of the Gospels which enabled it to violate their spirit and to ally itself with the prestige and power those evils had gained.”