Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892—1971) was the leading Neo-Orthodox theologian in the United States. He began his career as a pastor in early industrial Detroit (1915-1928), famously taking stands against Henry Ford and the Ku Klux Klan. He then became an internationally recognized academic as a theologian at Union Theological Seminary in New York, working there for over 30 years. Early on he was a left-leaning social activist; he later dropped the Marxism and socialism. He was a star within the neo-orthodox movement. He is a favorite thinker of both Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein Obama.. He rejected the liberalism that dominated mainstream Protestantism in the 1920s.

Theology

Niebuhr couched his ideas in Christ-centered principles such as the Great Commandment and the doctrine of original sin.

World Affairs

Niebuhr supported the Allies during World War II and argued for the engagement of the United States in the war. As a writer popular in the secular as well as religious arena and a professor at the Union Theological Seminary he was very influential both in the United States and abroad. While many clergy proclaimed themselves pacifists because of their World War I experiences, Niebuhr declared a victory by Germany and Japan would threaten Christianity. He renounced his socialist connections and beliefs and resigned from the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. He based his arguments on the Protestant beliefs that sin is part of the world, that justice must take precedence over love, and that pacifism is a symbolic portrayal of absolute love but cannot prevent sin. Although they did not portray him favorably, Niebuhr's exchanges with his opponents on the issue helped him mature intellectually. Niebuhr debated Charles Clayton Morrison, editor of The Christian Century magazine about America's entry into World War II. Morrison and his pacifistic followers maintained that America's role should be strictly neutral and part of a negotiated peace only, while Niebuhr claimed himself to be a realist, who opposed the use of political power to attain moral ends. Morrison and his followers strongly supported the movement to outlaw war that began after World War I and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. The pact was severely challenged by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and in 1932, with his publication of Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr broke ranks with The Christian Century and supported interventionism and power politics, culminating in his support of the reelection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 and the publication of his own magazine, Christianity and Crisis. In 1945, however, Niebuhr charged that use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was "morally indefensible."

Niebuhr's defense of Roosevelt made him popular among liberals, as historian Morton White noted:

The contemporary liberal's fascination with Niebuhr, I suggest, comes less from Niebuhr's dark theory of human nature and more from his actual political pronouncements, from the fact that he is a shrewd, courageous, and right-minded man on many political questions. Those who applaud his politics are too liable to turn then to his theory of human nature and praise it as the philosophical instrument of Niebuhr's political agreement with themselves. But very few of those whom I have called "atheists for Niebuhr" follow this inverted logic to its conclusion: they don't move from praise of Niebuhr's theory of human nature to praise of its theological ground. We may admire them for drawing the line somewhere, but certainly not for their consistency.}}

Race

Niebuhr's thought on racial justice developed slowly after he abandoned socialism. Niebuhr attributed the injustices of society to human pride and self love and believed that this innate propensity for evil could not be controlled by humanity. However, he felt that a representative democracy could improve society's ills. Like Edmund Burke, Niebuhr endorsed natural evolution over imposed change and emphasized experience over theory. Niebuhr's Burkean ideology, however, often conflicted with his liberal principles, particularly regarding his perspective on racial justice. Though vehemently opposed to racial inequality, Niebuhr adopted an extremely conservative position on segregation. Yet while most liberals endorsed integration after World War II, Niebuhr remained focused on achieving equal opportunity and warned against imposing changes that could result in violence. The violence that followed peaceful demonstrations in the 1960s forced Niebuhr to reverse his position against imposed equality and witnessing the problem of the Northern ghettoes later caused him to doubt that equality was attainable.

Magnum Opus

His two volume work The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941) is considered to be his Magnum Opus.

Niebuhr against anti-Catholicism

During the Detroit mayoral election of 1925, Niebuhr's sermon "We fair-minded Protestants cannot deny" appeared on the front pages of both the Detroit Times and the Free Press. This sermon urged listeners to vote against the Protestant mayoral candidate Charles Bowles, who was being openly endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. The other candidate, who won by a narrow thirty thousand votes, was the Catholic incumbent John W. Smith. Niebuhr preached.

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that it was Protestantism that gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan, one of the worst specific social phenomena which the religious pride and prejudice of peoples has ever developed.... I do not deny that all religions are periodically corrupted by bigotry. But I hit Protestant bigotry the hardest at this time because it happens to be our sin and there is no use repenting for other people's sins. Let us repent of our own. .... We are admonished in Scripture to judge men by their fruits, not by their roots; and their fruits are their character, their deeds and accomplishments.

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Niebuhr and Judaism

Over the course of both his pastoral and academic careers Niebuhr made several bold assertions regarding Judaism. As a pastor in Detroit (around 30 years of age), he favored conversion of Jews to Christianity, scolding the status quo of evangelical Christians who then by and large ignored them. He did so by speaking out against "the unchristlike attitude of Christians" and what he then saw as his fellow Christian's "Jewish bigotry." He wrote several articles regarding the pre and post World War II plight of European Jews: "Jews After the War" (in 2 parts Nation February 21 and February 28, 1942, pages 214-216 and 253-255), "It Might Have Been" (Evangelical Herald March 29, 1923, page 202), "The Rapprochement Between Jews and Christians" (Christian Century January 7, 1926, pages 9-11), "Germany Must Be Told" (Christian Century August 9, 1933, pages 1014-1015, follow-up Letter to the Editor in to this article same journal May 27, 1936, p. 771). His 1933 article in the Christian Century was an attempt to sound the alarm within the Christian community over Hitler's "cultural annihilation of the Jews." Eventually his theology evolved to the point where "He [became] perhaps the first Christian theologian with ecumenical influence who developed a view of the relations between Christianity and Judaism that made it inappropriate for Christians to seek to convert Jews to their faith."

Niebuhr and Communism

After Stalin signed a pact with Hitler in August 1939), Niebuhr severed his past ties with any fellow-traveler organization having any known Communist leanings. In the 1950s his position became so anti-communist that he believed McCarthy was a force of evil not so much for disrespecting civil liberties as for being ineffective in rooting out Communists and their sympathizers. He thought the Rosenbergs should be executed, stating "Traitors are never ordinary criminals and the Rosenbergs are quite obviously fiercely loyal Communists....Stealing atomic secrets is an unprecedented crime".

His renunciation of liberal theology

In the April 26, 1939 issues of The Christian Century, Niebuhr published "Ten Years That Shook My World" (pages 542-546). Its first paragraph confesses that he has now rejected nearly all his earlier liberal views.

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...About midway in my ministry which extends roughly from the peace of Versailles [1919] to the peace of Munich [1938], measured in terms of Western history, I underwent a fairly complete conversion of thought which involved rejection of almost all the liberal theological ideals and ideas with which I ventured forth in 1915. I wrote a book, my first, in 1927 which when now consulted is proved to contain almost all the theological windmills against which today I tilt my sword. These windmills must have tumbled shortly thereafter for every succeeding volume expresses a more and more explicit revolt against what is usually known as liberal culture.

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This is a literary declaration of war against his own book Does Civilization need Religion? (1927, Macmillan).

Niebuhr and Dewey

Reinhold Niebuhr has been described as an intellectual opponent of John Dewey. Both men were professional polemicists. Their ideas often clashed despite both men holding sway over the same realms of liberal intellectual schools of thought. Niebuhr was a strong proponent of the Jerusalem religious tradition as a corrective to the secular tradition of Athens. Dewey was a strong proponent of Athens. In the book Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) a still intellectually young Niebuhr heavily criticized Dewey's philosophy. Two years later in a review of Dewey's book A Common Faith (1934), Niebuhr was surprisingly calm and respectful towards Dewey's "religious footnote" on his then large body of educational and pragmatic philosophy.

Influence upon Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" Martin Luther King wrote "Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals." (cf. Reinhold Niebuhr. Moral Man and Immoral Society. Scribner's, 1932.) This example shows that King valued Niebuhr's social and ethical ideals; another can be found in a letter from the Christianity and Crisis editor Wayne H. Cowan wherein it is stated that King attributed his own non-violent posture more to the influence of Niebuhr and Paul Tillich than to the example of Gandhi.

"The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world"

Jimmy Carter liked to quote Niebuhr's statement that "The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world". Time magazine explicitly stated that President Ronald Reagan, unlike Carter, would not use such a phrase.

Serenity Prayer

Niebuhr is often credited with writing the famous prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous. Niebuhr's daughter Elisabeth (now last name Sifton) wrote a book The Serenity Prayer (2003) about the prayer and her father.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

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Further reading

• Beckley, Harlan. Passion for Justice: Retrieving the Legacies of Walter Rauschenbusch, John A. Ryan, and Reinhold Niebuhr. (1992). 391 pp.
• Brown, Charles C. Niebuhr and His Age: Reinhold Niebuhr's Prophetic Role in the Twentieth Century. (1992). 317 pp.
• Doenecke, Justus D. "Reinhold Niebuhr and his Critics: The Interventionist Controversy in World War II." Anglican and Episcopal History 1995 64(4): 459-481. 0896-8039, by a leading conservative historian
• Fox, Richard Wightman. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography. (1985). 325 pp. the standard scholarly biography
• Rice, Daniel F. Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey: An American Odyssey. (1993). 358 pp.
• Rosenthal, Joel H. Righteous Realists: Political Realism, Responsible Power, and American Culture in the Nuclear Age. (1991). 191 pp. Compares Niebuhr with Hans J. Morgenthau, Walter Lippmann, George F. Kennan, and Dean Acheson
• Smith, David L. A Handbook of Contemporary Theology (1992), ch 2. a Fundamentalist view of Niebuhr
• Warren, Heather A. Theologians of a New World Order: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Christian Realists, 1920-1948. (1997). 199 pp.

• online books on Niebuhr

Primary sources

• Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses ed. by Robert McAffee Brown (1986). 264 pp.

External links

19 images of Niebuhr from Life Magazine (1948-1959)

• "The Definitive Reinhold Niebuhr", Richard N. Ostling, Time magazine Jan. 20, 1986
• Reinhold Niebuhr : prophet from America
• The Public Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr