The cold war is dead and the autopsies have begun. It lasted nearly a quarter of a century, or twice as long as Hitler's thousand-year Reich. It left scarcely any nation of the earth untouched—and even extended into outer space—as America and Russia struggled over a world they thought must belong either to one or to the other. Caught in the grip of the equally powerful ideologies of communism and anti-communism, and in a consuming aspiration of world leadership, the two superpowers sought security in the elusive quest for military supremacy.

Now that Chiang Kai-shek and the American strategy of “containment” of Asian communism have grown old together, and the dream of the Nationalist reconquest of the Mainland has faded into nothingness with President Nixon's February meeting with Chinese Communist chieftain Mao Tse-tung and Premier Chou En-lai, there stirs a question that has lain largely dormant over the past two decades: What of the future, of Taiwan (Formosa)? More specifically, should not the United States, sworn protector of Taiwan, (make provision for the Taiwanese to have a voice in determining their own future destiny?

The U.S. professes to believe that people may properly be governed only with their consent. It supports the doctrine of self-determination of nations.

Recent setbacks notwithstanding, the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek still has a tight grip on Taiwan. Beyond maintaining effective control over its diverse constituents, the government has also brought reasonable prosperity. Just as clearly, however, the regime has feet of clay.

The entire political system of Nationalist China rests upon the myth that it is the government of all China. The myth has finally been exploded in the diplomatic realm, but on Taiwan it remains the fragile foundation of the regime's power and very existence. The legitimacy of the regime derives from legislative and electoral bodies elected on the Mainland in the 1940's.

Since no movement is without its extremists, we should not be surprised to discover in the current fuss over the environment an element committed to Preserving Our Great National Heritage, the Wilderness. Their devotion to the mystique of wilderness is very nearly tantamount to a new religion.

The wilderness bunch is unusual in that they are neither wild-eyed nor, in the conduct of their other day-to-day affairs, abnormal To the contrary, they are handsome, urbane and articulate people, highly educated, often professionally employed, well paid, and more given to conservative suits of expensive tailoring than to the flowing robes of, for example, the Jesus freaks.

Medieval schoolmen used to illustrate the problem of free will by telling the story of Buridan's ass. Standing at an equal distance between two bales of hay, the ass died of starvation, unable to decide whether to turn right or left. Modem theology is becoming anemic as it stands indecisively between two extremes. On the right everything is tagged by the prefix “re.” “Re” is going back —return, restore, revive, recover, repristinate. On the left the prefix is “de.” The “de” process is the style of modernist reductionism—demythologizing, desacralizing, dekerygmatizing, dehistoricizing, deeschatologizing. To escape the fate of Buridan's ass, an anemic theology needs another alternative.

I presented the following views at the American Jewish Congress Dialogue held at the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot, Israel, during the summer of 1971. Nothing was said during the Dialogue either to confront or confound my remarks, but—I hasten to add—the stated goals of the Dialogue were considerably at variance with my own remarks. This eccentric point of view may yet serve to stimulate real dialogue.

One of the strangest paradoxes of modem man, often reflected upon by various social commentators, is the fact that he seems to be infinitely malleable under the pressures of his institutional environment while at the same time he is constantly rebelling against it. The easiest solution of the paradox is to divide modern men into two categories, those who rebel and those who conform. Usually this split is additionally dramatized by identifying the rebels with the younger generation, while people roughly above thirty years of age are considered members of the “establishment.” Since the latter is morally compromising nowadays, not a few members of the “older” generation try to pass as youngsters or adolescents, adjusting to the clothes, manners, musical tastes, linguistic jargon and political argot typical of various youth groups and their sub- or countercultures.

In a seemingly paradoxical development, the major effect of the signing of the strategic arms limitation agreements in Moscow last May has been a resurgence of interest in the Administration's program to modernize the nation's strategic weaponry on an accelerated schedule. Almost before the ink was dry on the agreements, the Secretary of Defense appeared on Capitol Hill forcefully advocating a vigorous modernization program for U.S. strategic forces and stating that he could not support the arms control agreements without such compensating measures. Mr. Laird's position has been seconded by the President, although in a reserved fashion, and has been supported in the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

The current concern about the liberation of the oppressed, about the social revolution which is to transform the present order, about the counterviolence opposed to the violence which the existing order produces—and with which it defends itself—have all led many Christians to ask themselves about the attitude of Jesus regarding the political situation of his time. The question may surprise us. If so, it is because we take it for granted that Jesus was not interested in political life: his mission was purely religious.