ABSTRACT
The multiple dimensions of crisis in the United States in the 1960s— combining race, war, the perceived failure of American institutions, moral turmoil—polarized Americans, Polarization, which extended beyond the decade, was made explicit in the politics of religious figures, radical and conservative. Philip Berrigan, a Catholic priest engaged in anti-war activity, drew on critics such as Herbert Marcuse to characterize America as a technological society swamped by material consumption and maintaining its economy through war and preparation for war. He believed it denied real human needs. The Church thus betrayed its true nature unless it challenged the society radically. But religious bureaucracies behaved in ways similar to secular ones and gained benefits from the state in doing so. Berrigan's hope was that Christians as individuals and in small, just communities would bear witness and aid the victims of society.
