Changes

==Career==

==Career==

Niebuhr grew up in Lincoln, Illinois, where his father Gustav was a pastor in a German-speaking Evangelical congregation.<ref>The Evangelical denomination was the American branch of the established Prussian Church Union in Germany; it is Calvinist and is now part of the United Church of Christ.</ref> His family spoke German; his brother H. Richard Niebuhr became a famous historian of religion, and another brother Hulda Niebuhr became a divinity professor in Chicago.  He attended Elmhurst College,  Eden Theological Seminary and took a master's degree (but not a doctorate) at Yale Divinity School, noting that Yale gave him intellectual liberation. Ordained in the Evangelical Synod of North America (1915), he served as pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit,  until 1928, when he became professor of Christian ethics and the philosophy of religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York City until his retirement in 1960.  In 1931 he married Ursula Keppel-Compton, a learned and religious woman who later became chairman of the Religion Department at Barnard College (the woman's college of Columbia University); they had two children.  

Niebuhr grew up in Lincoln, Illinois, where his father Gustav was a pastor in a German-speaking Evangelical congregation.<ref>The Evangelical denomination was the American branch of the established Prussian Church Union in Germany; it is Calvinist and is now part of the United Church of Christ.</ref> His family spoke German; his brother H. Richard Niebuhr became a famous historian of religion; his sister Hulda Niebuhr became a divinity professor in Chicago.  He attended Elmhurst College,  Eden Theological Seminary and took a master's degree (but not a doctorate) at Yale Divinity School, noting that Yale gave him intellectual liberation. Ordained in the Evangelical Synod of North America (1915), he served as pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit,  until 1928, when he became professor of Christian ethics and the philosophy of religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York City until his retirement in 1960.  In 1931 he married Ursula Keppel-Compton, a learned and religious woman who later became chairman of the Religion Department at Barnard College (the woman's college of Columbia University); they had two children.  

===World War I===

===World War I===

The problem is that Niebuhr never talked to the workers. He assumed they were automatons with crushed feelings. In fact, as many studies of assembly lines have shown, the work may have been dull but the workers had complex motivations and boasted about their jobs and tried hard to place their sons on the assembly line.  Ford tried and failed to control work habits, then, after extensive sociological studies in which they DID interview the workers, management realized that the workers' were much more interested in controlling their home life than their work life. The Ford solution was [[welfare capitalism]], paying very high wages with added benefits, such as vacations and retirement, that reduced turnover amd appealed primarily to family men. Niebuhr should have asked his own parishioners.<ref>  Stephen Meyer, ''The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921,'' (1981); David Brody, ''Workers in Industrial America,'' (1980) ch 2 on welfare capitalism in 1920s; see also Richard M. Steers and Lyman W. Porter, eds. ''Motivation and Work Behavior'' (1979)</ref>

The problem is that Niebuhr never talked to the workers. He assumed they were automatons with crushed feelings. In fact, as many studies of assembly lines have shown, the work may have been dull but the workers had complex motivations and boasted about their jobs and tried hard to place their sons on the assembly line.  Ford tried and failed to control work habits, then, after extensive sociological studies in which they DID interview the workers, management realized that the workers' were much more interested in controlling their home life than their work life. The Ford solution was [[welfare capitalism]], paying very high wages with added benefits, such as vacations and retirement, that reduced turnover amd appealed primarily to family men. Niebuhr should have asked his own parishioners.<ref>  Stephen Meyer, ''The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921,'' (1981); David Brody, ''Workers in Industrial America,'' (1980) ch 2 on welfare capitalism in 1920s; see also Richard M. Steers and Lyman W. Porter, eds. ''Motivation and Work Behavior'' (1979)</ref>

and attacked the appeal of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] to Protestants. He collaborated with the nascent labor unions and abandoned the Social Gospel for a form of socialism in the late 1920s; however by 1932 he had dropped the Marxism and socialism.  In the 1920s Niebuhr built a national reputation among churchmen as a commentator and analyst of social problems for ''The Christian Century.''

and attacked the appeal of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] to Protestants. He collaborated with the nascent labor unions and abandoned the Social Gospel for a form of socialism in the late 1920s; he ran for Congress on the Socialist ticket in 1932, but in 1940 quit the party.  

 

===Theology===

===Theology===

In 1939 he explained his theological odyssey:<ref>Niebuhr, "Ten Years That Shook My World", ''The Christian Century'' (April 26, 1939) in ''Sources of the American Mind: Volume II,'' ed. by Loren Baritz, (1960) pp 542-546 </ref>

In 1939 he explained his theological odyssey:<ref>Niebuhr, "Ten Years That Shook My World", ''The Christian Century'' (April 26, 1939) in ''Sources of the American Mind: Volume II,'' ed. by Loren Baritz, (1960) pp 542-546 </ref>