On the one hand, Niebuhr wrote in Leaves: “if a gospel is preached without opposition it is simply not the gospel which resulted in the cross.” Yet on the other hand, he avoided controversy at Bethel, especially regarding race: “Here I have been preaching for thirteen years, and crying, ‘Woe unto you if all men speak well of you,’ and yet I leave without a serious controversy in the whole thirteen years.”[33] This indicates that he did not engage the race issue—the greatest moral problem in American history—in any practical way.
