The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

“Man’s capacity for justice
makes democracy possible;
but man’s inclination to injustice
makes democracy necessary.”

If ever we needed these words
which Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944
we need them now in the
present crisis of our nation.

In his The Children of Light and
The Children of Darkness he
develops this theme telling us
that the Children of Darkness

wield political power without
necessary ethical constraints
which gives them license to
pursue authoritarian rule.

The Children of Light, he says,
use power but constrain it
with an ethic rooted in genuine
democratic processes.

However, Niebuhr reminds
us that the Children of Light are
often unaware of their own quest
for power that is hidden 

beneath their claims of 
democracy and equity and
support for those who have
little power and recognition.

Those who claim the mantle
of the Children of Light as I do
must always stand under the
judgment of the collective wisdom

of the larger group in which
democratic processes prevail.
Without this check we Children
of Light can become as willful

as any Child of Darkness while
insisting that we are being
just and fair in our dealings 
with our companions.

I have found this to be true
as I discovered my whiteness
and how this whiteness has 
hidden from me

an unearned power and
privilege that I wield in all
my words and actions without
me being aware of it.

Niebuhr isn’t just speaking to
the Children of Darkness and
the evil I see being perpetrated
by them.

He is also speaking to me to
warn me against the self-deception
in which I hide from myself
my own lust for power. 

June 4, 2025