To begin to assess the Third Assembly of the-World Council of Churches, which met in New Delhi, India, November 18-December 5, it is necessary to keep firmly fixed in mind the' intended function of such an Assembly and, even more importantly, what is not its function.

This cautionary advice, normally the most threadbare of clichés, gains its validity from the present atmosphere surrounding the subject of Christianity. Spurred on by a number of factors, including the attitude of Pope John XXIII; unity has become a glamorous and bewitching, albeit extremely vague, concept to the general public and to the popular press. Unknown and dramatic events are constantly being anticipated.

The people of this country may at last have faced up to the realities of all-out nuclear warfare. Russia's resumption of nuclear tests and the 100-megaton bomb have awakened us, for a brief moment, from the dream of deterrence. Even if this has meant only ratiier panicky discussion of “shelter morality,” it is good that we have looked out on the world with open eyes. Before world events permit us to return again to our slumbers, this moment should be seized; the opportunity to think through the moral and political dilemmas long inherent in our massive deterrence policy should not be allowed to slip from us.

The highest task given to political ethics is the interpretation of the meaning of power. But to acknowledge that power is the fundamental category of political understanding is only to utter what has been the platitude of “realists” since Machiavelli. To define power is simple enough: it is the capacity to realize goals. But to grasp the configuration of components in any person's or organization's or nation's capacity to realize goals is a task of transcendent difficulty: it is to approach something like theological understanding itself. Moreover, to prescribe norms for the management of power is not simply a “political” assignment: it is ethics.