Difference between revisions of "Reinhold Niebuhr"

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===Influence upon Martin Luther King, Jr.===
 
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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 Neibuhr. ''Moral Man and Immoral Society''. Scribner's, 1932.) This is one example where it has been shown that King greatly 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 influence of Niebuhr and [[Paul Tillich]] than to the example of [[Gandhi]].<ref> [http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/niebuhr-rediscovered/d72.shtml April 13, 1970 Letter to Niebuhr]</ref>
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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 Neibuhr. ''Moral Man and Immoral Society''. Scribner's, 1932.) This is one example where it has been shown that King greatly 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]].<ref> [http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/niebuhr-rediscovered/d72.shtml April 13, 1970 Letter to Niebuhr]</ref>
  
 
==="The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world"===
 
==="The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world"===

Revision as of 19:12, May 16, 2009

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892—1971) began his career as a Christian 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 espousing various pro-Marx positions, some of which he would later renounce. He was a star within the neo-orthodox movement. He is a favorite thinker of both Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein Obama. Obama has stated that Niebuhr is "one of my favorite philosophers.'"[1]. Niebuhr's willingness to renounce communism and his life-long pro-Jewish sentiments suggest that although left-leaning at times, he never actually held a liberal Christian viewpoint.

Liberals missing the mark

The adoption of Niebuhr's ideas often miss the mark—while Niebuhr would couch his ideas in Christ-centered principles such as the Great Commandment and the doctrine of original sin, his admirers rarely grasp and generally ignore the underlying Christian theology.

The inherent weaknesses—i.e., various speculations and assumptions—found in Niebuhr's scriptual interpretations are often conflated by students—Niebuhrians—making additional misinterpretations of his writings or lectures. A representative example is some verse written by a student—Alan Richardson—who had studied Niebuhr in the late 1940's under C.H. Dodd, a professor at Oxford University[2]:

  • Thou shalt love the Lord thy Dodd and thy Niebuhr as thyself. [Note: This follows the pattern of the Great Commandment ]


  • At Swanwick, when Niebuhr had quit it
  • A young man exclaimed 'I have hit it'
  • Since I cannot do right
  • I must find out, tonight
  • The right sin to commit—and commit it.

By the late 1950's, within the American academy, it was in fact observed that one robust group of academics answered the question of What is religion? by pointing to their secular and humanist readings of Niebuhr's works. These academics were labeled "Atheists for Niebuhr"[3]


“ 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.[4] ”

Magnus Opus

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

Niebuhr and Ku Klux Klan

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[5]:


“ 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. ”

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." [5] 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." [5] 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." [6] Niebuhr's early and later views on Judaism show that he was never truly a member of Liberal Christianity, which is known for its anti-Semitism. "[Jews] were heartened by the clarifying moral perceptions of Reinhold Niebuhr, but were aware that he and his pragmatic-moralistic school of thought did not represent the mainstream of American liberal Protestantism"[7].

Niebuhr and Communism

After Stalin signed a pact with Hitler (apparently signed in Moscow on August 24, 1939 but dated August 23), Niebuhr severed his past ties with any liberal or liberal organization having any known Communist leanings. In the 1950's 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[8]. 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"[8].

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.[9]


“ ...About midway in my ministry which extends roughly from the peace of Versailles [June 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. ”

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 opponent of such a position. [10] In the book Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) a still intellectually young[11] 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.[12]

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 Neibuhr. Moral Man and Immoral Society. Scribner's, 1932.) This is one example where it has been shown that King greatly 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.[13]

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

Jimmy Carter[14] liked to quote Niebuhr's statement that "The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world". Time magazine explicitedly stated that President Ronald Reagan, unlike Carter, [15] would not use such a phrase.

Serenity Prayer

Niebuhr penned 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.


“ 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.

”

References

  1. ↑ "Reinhold Niebuhr is Unseen Force in 2008 Elections", September 27, 2007, Benedicta Cipolla, Religion News Service of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
  2. ↑ Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography, Richard Wightman Fox, Pantheon Books, 1985, page 181
  3. ↑ Religion, Politics, and the Higher Learning, Morton White, Harvard University Press, 1959 p.88
  4. ↑ Religion, Politics, and the Higher Learning, Morton White, Harvard University Press, 1959 p.117-118
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography, Richard Wightman Fox, Pantheon Books, 1985, ISBN 0394516591, ISBN 9780394516592, 340 pages
  6. ↑ 1998 Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 8 of Micropædia article on Reinhold Niebuhr, pages 694-695
  7. ↑ American Protestantism and a Jewish State, Hertzel Fishman, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1973, ISBN 0-8143-1481-3, p. 11
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography, Richard Wightman Fox, Pantheon Books, 1985, page 252
  9. ↑ Sources of the American Mind: Volume II, Loren Baritz, John Wesley, 1960
  10. ↑ Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey: An American Odyssey, Daniel F. Rice, 1993, State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-1345-4, page 146
  11. ↑ Moral Man and Immoral Society offended many of Niebuhr's intellectual Christian friends (some never to return). It lost sight of Christian love and espoused pro-Marxists views.
  12. ↑ Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey: An American Odyssey, Daniel F. Rice, 1993, State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-1345-4, pages 43-58 (these pages are Chapter 5 titled "A Common Faih")
  13. ↑ April 13, 1970 Letter to Niebuhr
  14. ↑ "Jimmy Carter's Big Breakthrough", Time magazine Monday, May. 10, 1976
  15. ↑ "Ronald Reagan: a Man of Certitudes", Time magazine Monday, May. 06, 1985

External links

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

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