Moral Man, Immoral Society: The Public Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr





Krista Tippett composed a speaking of Faith segment about the book, “Moral Man and Immoral Society” by Reinhold Niebuhr. In Niebuhr’s book it expressed the idea and the present day relevance of the 20th century. He was a well respected man in religion and political topics going on during his era. His ideas about history, war, and politics were heeded by religious and atheist Americans alike. In the segment Chris Hedges said that Niebuhr “understood that because we live in a fallen world, because we often don’t get to pick between good and evil but between evil and more evil, we must always ask for forgiveness and be very frightened of hubris. During this segment of Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett asked three historians who have studied Niebuhr and his life to find out his belief, ethics, and ideas that he has brought to us in our lives today.

Reinhold Niebuhr was born in 1892, the German-American son of a Protestant minister. At 23, in 1915, he went to pastor a church in Detroit and there he became a force for labor rights and race relations. He wrote an early book about his years in Detroit, Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. In 1928 Niebuhr accepted an invitation to teach social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and there he stayed for three decades. Despite health problems from the 1950s on, he remained active in American life until his death in 1971.He was a pivotal figure in the American decision to enter World War II. Neither his ideas nor his example settle neatly into the religious and political categories of his day or ours. He was part of what is called "liberal Protestant tradition.” He innovated the term "Christian Realism," a middle way between idealism and arrogance. Niebuhr was also famous for his original prayers. One of them, now known as the Serenity Prayer, was adapted by Alcoholics Anonymous. Niebuhr was part of an unusual generation of religious intellectuals in mid-century American life, including the Christian existentialist Paul Tillich, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and his own brother H. Richard Niebuhr of Yale. But alone, Niebuhr embodied the idea of public theology. Niebuhr's understanding of human nature shaped his approach to every subject, including politics and foreign affairs. "Human beings," he said, "live in the tension between nature and spirit, between knowledge of our mortality and our intimations of transcendent meaning.

The first speaker was Richard Wightman Fox, who has written a secular biography of Reinhold Niebuhr. In this part of the segment, Fox said that “there was really no other religious person who had that kind of crossover stature into secular community.” Fox also said that the term responsibility was really key point that Niebuhr stated because it connotes, along with taking strong positions for social justice. Fox also said that when he was studying Niebuhr, he found that Christian faith for Niebuhr was full of paradox and irony. Niebuhr gave an example when Jesus said “You have to loss in order to gain.” Fox said that Niebuhr always tried to promote action in the interest of social justice, but the paradox was that those good people who took up such a challenge would inevitably sin in the process of doing good. Fox also said that Niebuhr ultimate paradox was that sin accompanies the quest for love and justice. Fox commented that the importance of Niebuhr was that he thought about all the issues that came up in his era, and gave his perspective on the relation between politics and religion. Niebuhr tried to make that bridge between the two. Niebuhr believed that religion was necessary but also dangerous. So he found a paradox from politics to religion. Niebuhr often stressed concepts like grace, judgment, mystery and especially sin were difficult for moderns to take seriously, but he often called original sin the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. Niebuhr said that “Individuals may strive to be moral, but collectively human beings are compromised and prone to immorality, even evil.”

The second speaker talked about Niebuhr was a Political theorist, Jean Bethke Elshtain. Elshtain wrote a book called Just war on Terror. Elshtain said that Niebuhr was a man that during his team dealt with his problems whether they were difficult or easy. He was a man of stood up for what he believed in and didn’t back down. She said that Niebuhr was a mix of figures. This mix of figures were people that thought about international relations and how states behaved. Also they were concern about moral values and so was Niebuhr.

The final guest on this segment on Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian and ethicist at the Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Robin Lovin. Lovin states that Niebuhr always approaches issues with two tensions that are in tension with each other. The first thing Niebuhr would do is tell us to be realistic. The second thing that Niebuhr always helps up is mutability. Lovin also chimed in with that Niebuhr way of understanding the forces at work in the international relations are very important to us today in our lives right now. He also states that Niebuhr says that the “institutions of history are always changeable and none of our accomplishments are ever as final as we would like them to be.” These changes of history that we affect is the responsibility we have of our own actions. Back To My Homepage