Nuclear Weapons and the Conflict of Conscience
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962. First edition/first printing [Scribner's "A"]. Hardcover. 191, [1] p. 22 cm. Footnotes. Maps. Reading List. Index of Major Issues Discussed. Substantial pencil underlining noted. Ink notation inside front cover. The Rev. John C. Bennett was a theologian whose views on religion, politics and social policy influenced American thinking for decades. From 1963 to 1970, he served as the 11th president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He also made a lifelong study of Communism and repeatedly warned against turning the cold war into a religious crusade. That was a time in which he was growing increasingly disturbed about American involvement in Southeast Asia, so much so that he and Rabbi Abraham Heschel formed Clergy and Laity Concerned About the Vietnam War. But Mr. Bennett, ordained in the Congregational Church, was never a pacifist-above-all: in 1941, he opposed American isolationism in the face of Nazi conquests and was a co-founder with Reinhold Niebuhr of the magazine Christianity and Crisis. He studied at Williams College and did graduate studies at Oxford University in England and at Union Theological Seminary. He held various religious and teaching posts, joining the faculty of Union Theological Seminary, an interdenominational institution in Morningside Heights, in 1943. He became dean of the faculty in 1955 and was acting president for a brief time before assuming the presidency. In 1970, Mr. Bennett was one of three theologians invited by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify on the war in Southeast Asia. In retirement, he continued to write and lecture and to condemn nuclear warfare. More