Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing”: A Christian Realist Reading

Abstract

When TIME magazine released its twenty-fifth anniversary issue in the early years of the Cold War, who was on its cover? Today’s observer may be surprised to know that it was Union Seminary professor and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, father of “Christian realism.” Niebuhr was a public intellectual that brought the full weight of his massive intellect, Augustinian-inspired theology, and early interest in Marxism to bear on the political problems of the day, most notably the war against the Nazis followed by the struggle against global Communism. Like Ronald Reagan, Niebuhr was a New Deal and FDR supporter. Niebuhr’s political perspective, Christian realism, resonated across the American political landscape—even across party lines—in part because it was matter-of-factly realistic and in part because it accorded with the cultural and civil religious sensibilities of the American public through the mid-1960s. Hence, when Ronald Reagan throws down the gauntlet that 1964 is a “time for choosing,” he employs themes rooted in this cultural milieu that resonate with the American public: “peace through strength,” no appeasement, moral choices, American values, and the like. This chapter specifically looks at Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech through the lens of Christian realism, first by elucidating the principles shared by Christian realists and then focusing specifically on how the Christian realist approach helps explain the presuppositions underlying Reagan’s twin emphases on an appropriate definition of peace and the moral content of US foreign policy.