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Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics (LOA #263): Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic / Moral Man and Immoral Society / The Children ... History
From the 1920s through the 1960s, the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr was among America’s most prominent public intellectuals. As a pastor, teacher, and writer, he bridged the divide between religion and politics with perspicacity, grace, and singular intelligence, whether writing about pacifism and “just war” theory, the problem of evil in history, or the crises of war, the Depression, and social conflict. His provocative essays, lectures, and sermons from before and during World War II, in the postwar years, and at the time of the Civil Rights Movement offered searching analyses of the forces shaping American life and politics. Their profound insights into the causes of economic inequality, the challenges of achieving social justice, and the risks of adventurism in the international sphere are as relevant today as they were when he composed them.
This volume, prepared with extensive notes and a chronology by the author’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, is the largest, most comprehensive edition of Niebuhr’s writings ever published. It brings together the books Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic (1929), his personal reflections on his experiences as a young pastor in Detroit as it was being transformed by the explosive growth of the auto industry; Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), a brilliant and tough-minded work that draws out the implications of Niebuhr’s view that while individuals can sometimes overcome the temptations of self-interest, larger groups never can; The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944), a passionate defense of democracy written during World War II; and the essential study that Andrew Bacevich has called “the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy”: The Irony of American History (1952), a consideration of American conduct in the early Cold War years that takes equal aim at Soviet communism and at the moral complacency of the United States in its newfound global ascendancy.
These four works are supplemented with essays, lectures, and sermons drawn from Niebuhr’s many other books, as well as prayers—among them the well-known Serenity Prayer. The volume also includes a chronologically arranged selection of his journalism about current events, many of the pieces appearing here in book form for the first time. “We are bound to go back to Niebuhr,” the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once wrote, “because we cannot escape the dark heart of man and because we cannot permit an awareness of this darkness to inhibit action and abolish hope.”
This volume, prepared with extensive notes and a chronology by the author’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, is the largest, most comprehensive edition of Niebuhr’s writings ever published. It brings together the books Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic (1929), his personal reflections on his experiences as a young pastor in Detroit as it was being transformed by the explosive growth of the auto industry; Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), a brilliant and tough-minded work that draws out the implications of Niebuhr’s view that while individuals can sometimes overcome the temptations of self-interest, larger groups never can; The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944), a passionate defense of democracy written during World War II; and the essential study that Andrew Bacevich has called “the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy”: The Irony of American History (1952), a consideration of American conduct in the early Cold War years that takes equal aim at Soviet communism and at the moral complacency of the United States in its newfound global ascendancy.
These four works are supplemented with essays, lectures, and sermons drawn from Niebuhr’s many other books, as well as prayers—among them the well-known Serenity Prayer. The volume also includes a chronologically arranged selection of his journalism about current events, many of the pieces appearing here in book form for the first time. “We are bound to go back to Niebuhr,” the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once wrote, “because we cannot escape the dark heart of man and because we cannot permit an awareness of this darkness to inhibit action and abolish hope.”
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First published April 7, 2015
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About the author
Reinhold Niebuhr
126 books252 followersU.S. theologian. The son of an evangelical minister, he studied at Eden Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. He was ordained in the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1915 and served as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Mich., until 1928. His years in that industrial city made him a critic of capitalism and an advocate of socialism. From 1928 to 1960 he taught at New York's Union Theological Seminary. His influential writings, which forcefully criticized liberal Protestant thought and emphasized the persistence of evil in human nature and social institutions, include Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vol. (1941 – 43), and The Self and the Dramas of History (1955).
from The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
A 1958 interview with Reinhold Niebuhr: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/niebuhr_reinhold.html
from The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
A 1958 interview with Reinhold Niebuhr: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/niebuhr_reinhold.html
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April 18, 2020
Reinhold Niebuhr In The Library Of America
The Library of America aims to present the best of American thinking and writing. The many volumes of the series cover fiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, philosophy, and more from familiar and less-familiar writers. The latest book in the LOA series is this volume, "Major Works on Religion and Politics" by the 20th Century Protestant theologian and public intellectual, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 -- 1971). Niebuhr wrote prolifically on religious and political issues over a long career that spanned both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Cold War. His writings are difficult but have been and remain widely read and highly influential. Niebuhr modified his positions many times over his life. More often than not, he is regarded as part of the progressive trend in American political thought, but this characterization risks a great deal of over-simplification. This LOA volume was my first sustained reading of Niebuhr. The LOA kindly sent me a copy for review.
Many people who do not know Niebuhr's more formidable writings are familiar with at least one of his works without knowing the author. Niebuhr wrote a little prayer, "The Serenity Prayer" which, as given in this volume goes like this:
"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
The Serenity Prayer is included in this volume in a collection of Niebuhr's prayers. The editor of the volume, Elisabeth Sifton, wrote a book about the Serenity Prayer: "The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Time of Peace and War". Sifton is also Niebuhr's daughter and an editor and book publisher for over forty years. She selected the contents for this LOA volume and prepared a chronology of Niebuhr's life and notes on the texts.
The selection of prayers is only a small part of this book. The volume includes four full-length books of Niebuhr, selections from his writings on current events from 1928 -- 1967, and sermons and lectures on faith and belief. The book offers a great deal to read and to learn.
In my reading of these works, Niebuhr's theology and philosophy impressed me as more important than his more topical political writings. Theology and politics are interlaced in his works. Niebuhr is a somewhat conservative, I think, Augustinian theologian whose religious views and politics rest heavily on views of original sin and the human capacity for error and self-deception. He sees various forms of secularisms, including both communism and unbridled individualism as attempts both to deny the fallible, limited character of human thought and to see human life as included entirely within a social, mundane context. With a strong liberal tendency, Niebuhr's political thought has a strong pragmatic cast. Creative tension results from the relationship between Niebuhr's theology and his politics. He tends to view secularism as based upon an overly-optimistic view of human nature; but the American founders, for example, were well aware of the divisive, self-aggrandizing parts of human nature when the framed the Constitution. I want to comment briefly on each of the four major works included in this LOA volume and on the Lectures on Faith and Belief, both of which were of more interest to me than the prayers and the political writings.
Upon graduating from Yale Divinity School, Niebuhr accepted a pastorate at a small church in Detroit where he served for thirteen years. Niebuhr kept a journal and in 1929 published excerpts in a book, "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic". This book offers an endearing, perceptive look at the life of a young clergyman, including his doubts about the worth of his calling. It also shows Niebuhr's developing views on pacifism and on the economic disparities and injustices he came to know in industrial Detroit. This is an accessible book, different from Niebuhr's later writings, and separately available in a LOA e-book and elsewhere.
The remaining three books combine theology with momentous, changing public events. The books have influence beyond their theological content because Niebuhr's insights can be restated in secular terms by those not religiously committed. In these books, Niebuhr's political views change with changes in events. "Moral Man and Immoral Society" was written during the Great Depression just before the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. Niebuhr argues that individual morality and political morality are governed by different causes and cannot be judged by the same standard. He continued to hold this position through the rest of his life. This is probably the most radical of Niebuhr's books with its criticism of capitalism and economic and social inequities and its support for strong forms of social dissent, including possibly violence in some instances.
Written during WW II, "The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness" tries to explain the basis for democracy in a way different from the Lockean-liberal explanation. The "children of light" are those who attempt to make human self-interest subject to a higher law. Niebuhr finds these "children" have to learn a good deal about human nature from the authoritarian "children of darkness". Interestingly, Niebuhr puts both liberals and Marxists in the camp of the "children of light".
"The Irony of American History" was published in 1952 during the Cold War. In this book, Niebuhr's position has shifted still further as he becomes aware of the communist threat to liberty and freedom. He has clearly come to regard communism as tyrannical and sees it the mission of the United States to defend the values of freedom, by military force if necessary. His position of "Christian realism" urges the United States not to lose sight of its own shortcomings or to adopt an absolutist position in the necessary fight against communism. This book enjoyed a wide readership during the Cold War and still deserves to be read.
The essays on faith and religion in this volume are varied and difficult. Niebuhr develops his own Augustinian, faith-based position and in the process offers many comparisons to secular liberalism, rationalism, Greek thought, Jewish thought, mysticism, and Catholicism. Besides its roots in Augustine, Niebuhr appears to me influenced by the Jewish thinkers Abraham Joshua Heschel, Franz Rozenzweig, and Martin Buber. Of the essays in this section, "Theology and Political Thought in the Western World", and "The Wheat and the Tares" seem to me to offer the best succinct summaries of Niebuhr's thinking. Thus Niebuhr writes in the former essay:
"[T]here is no 'Christian' economic or political system. But there is a Christian attitude toward all systems and schemes of justice. It consists on the one hand of a critical attitude toward the claims of all systems and schemes, expressed in the question whether they will contribute to justice in a concrete situation; and on the other hand a responsible attitude, which will not pretend to be God nor refuse to make a decision between political answers to a problem because each answer is discovered to contain a moral ambiguity in God's sight. We are men, not God; we are responsible for making choices between greater and lesser evils, even when our Christian faith, illuminating the human scene, makes it quite apparent that there is no pure good in history; and probably no pure evil either. The fate of civilizations may depend upon these choices between systems of which some are more, others less, just."
The Library of America is to be commended for its series and for this volume. Niebuhr is a complex, profound writer, worthy of inclusion in a series of the best of American thought. Readers interested in religious and social questions will be interested in this collection of the works of Niebuhr.
Robin Friedman
The Library of America aims to present the best of American thinking and writing. The many volumes of the series cover fiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, philosophy, and more from familiar and less-familiar writers. The latest book in the LOA series is this volume, "Major Works on Religion and Politics" by the 20th Century Protestant theologian and public intellectual, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 -- 1971). Niebuhr wrote prolifically on religious and political issues over a long career that spanned both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Cold War. His writings are difficult but have been and remain widely read and highly influential. Niebuhr modified his positions many times over his life. More often than not, he is regarded as part of the progressive trend in American political thought, but this characterization risks a great deal of over-simplification. This LOA volume was my first sustained reading of Niebuhr. The LOA kindly sent me a copy for review.
Many people who do not know Niebuhr's more formidable writings are familiar with at least one of his works without knowing the author. Niebuhr wrote a little prayer, "The Serenity Prayer" which, as given in this volume goes like this:
"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
The Serenity Prayer is included in this volume in a collection of Niebuhr's prayers. The editor of the volume, Elisabeth Sifton, wrote a book about the Serenity Prayer: "The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Time of Peace and War". Sifton is also Niebuhr's daughter and an editor and book publisher for over forty years. She selected the contents for this LOA volume and prepared a chronology of Niebuhr's life and notes on the texts.
The selection of prayers is only a small part of this book. The volume includes four full-length books of Niebuhr, selections from his writings on current events from 1928 -- 1967, and sermons and lectures on faith and belief. The book offers a great deal to read and to learn.
In my reading of these works, Niebuhr's theology and philosophy impressed me as more important than his more topical political writings. Theology and politics are interlaced in his works. Niebuhr is a somewhat conservative, I think, Augustinian theologian whose religious views and politics rest heavily on views of original sin and the human capacity for error and self-deception. He sees various forms of secularisms, including both communism and unbridled individualism as attempts both to deny the fallible, limited character of human thought and to see human life as included entirely within a social, mundane context. With a strong liberal tendency, Niebuhr's political thought has a strong pragmatic cast. Creative tension results from the relationship between Niebuhr's theology and his politics. He tends to view secularism as based upon an overly-optimistic view of human nature; but the American founders, for example, were well aware of the divisive, self-aggrandizing parts of human nature when the framed the Constitution. I want to comment briefly on each of the four major works included in this LOA volume and on the Lectures on Faith and Belief, both of which were of more interest to me than the prayers and the political writings.
Upon graduating from Yale Divinity School, Niebuhr accepted a pastorate at a small church in Detroit where he served for thirteen years. Niebuhr kept a journal and in 1929 published excerpts in a book, "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic". This book offers an endearing, perceptive look at the life of a young clergyman, including his doubts about the worth of his calling. It also shows Niebuhr's developing views on pacifism and on the economic disparities and injustices he came to know in industrial Detroit. This is an accessible book, different from Niebuhr's later writings, and separately available in a LOA e-book and elsewhere.
The remaining three books combine theology with momentous, changing public events. The books have influence beyond their theological content because Niebuhr's insights can be restated in secular terms by those not religiously committed. In these books, Niebuhr's political views change with changes in events. "Moral Man and Immoral Society" was written during the Great Depression just before the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. Niebuhr argues that individual morality and political morality are governed by different causes and cannot be judged by the same standard. He continued to hold this position through the rest of his life. This is probably the most radical of Niebuhr's books with its criticism of capitalism and economic and social inequities and its support for strong forms of social dissent, including possibly violence in some instances.
Written during WW II, "The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness" tries to explain the basis for democracy in a way different from the Lockean-liberal explanation. The "children of light" are those who attempt to make human self-interest subject to a higher law. Niebuhr finds these "children" have to learn a good deal about human nature from the authoritarian "children of darkness". Interestingly, Niebuhr puts both liberals and Marxists in the camp of the "children of light".
"The Irony of American History" was published in 1952 during the Cold War. In this book, Niebuhr's position has shifted still further as he becomes aware of the communist threat to liberty and freedom. He has clearly come to regard communism as tyrannical and sees it the mission of the United States to defend the values of freedom, by military force if necessary. His position of "Christian realism" urges the United States not to lose sight of its own shortcomings or to adopt an absolutist position in the necessary fight against communism. This book enjoyed a wide readership during the Cold War and still deserves to be read.
The essays on faith and religion in this volume are varied and difficult. Niebuhr develops his own Augustinian, faith-based position and in the process offers many comparisons to secular liberalism, rationalism, Greek thought, Jewish thought, mysticism, and Catholicism. Besides its roots in Augustine, Niebuhr appears to me influenced by the Jewish thinkers Abraham Joshua Heschel, Franz Rozenzweig, and Martin Buber. Of the essays in this section, "Theology and Political Thought in the Western World", and "The Wheat and the Tares" seem to me to offer the best succinct summaries of Niebuhr's thinking. Thus Niebuhr writes in the former essay:
"[T]here is no 'Christian' economic or political system. But there is a Christian attitude toward all systems and schemes of justice. It consists on the one hand of a critical attitude toward the claims of all systems and schemes, expressed in the question whether they will contribute to justice in a concrete situation; and on the other hand a responsible attitude, which will not pretend to be God nor refuse to make a decision between political answers to a problem because each answer is discovered to contain a moral ambiguity in God's sight. We are men, not God; we are responsible for making choices between greater and lesser evils, even when our Christian faith, illuminating the human scene, makes it quite apparent that there is no pure good in history; and probably no pure evil either. The fate of civilizations may depend upon these choices between systems of which some are more, others less, just."
The Library of America is to be commended for its series and for this volume. Niebuhr is a complex, profound writer, worthy of inclusion in a series of the best of American thought. Readers interested in religious and social questions will be interested in this collection of the works of Niebuhr.
Robin Friedman
December 23, 2020
Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, America began a meteoric ascent to world power that was not sought or desired by many Americans (or so goes the typical historical narrative). At the same time rapid industrialization created new societal problems and fascism & communism became existential threats to America’s way of life. As Americans tried to grapple with all of these sudden changes, Reinhold Niebuhr, a well-educated Christian minister, came on the scene to advocate for the working man’s needs and the moral necessity for America’s world leadership based on his Christian principles. This fine edition from the Library of America collects Mr. Niebuhr’s major works, including “The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness” and “The Irony of American History”, as well as a collection of his sermons, lectures, and prayers.
The first half of this book is made up of Mr. Niebuhr’s major books. These are perhaps the toughest sections to get through as Niebuhr’s education and vocabulary can sometimes be impenetrable. I found myself scratching my head quite a few times as I was reading through this book. Fortunately, one can learn from my mistake and frequent the chronology in the back of the book for greater context behind Mr. Niebuhr’s writings, though a lack of a preface from the editor means that one might struggle to fully understand Mr. Niebuhr’s thoughts unless one is already familiar with his life and work.
This book does become easier to read as it moves along though. As Mr. Niebuhr becomes more popular, his books, lectures, and sermons start to become friendly to the average reader. On top of that, though Mr. Niebuhr’s writings make his criticisms of fascism and communism quite clear, he was never chest-thumping cheerleader of American democracy. His earlier writings in particular show a willingness to critique American politics and culture for leaving the workers high and dry or believing too much in America’s superiority to its fascist and communist antagonists. Mr. Niebuhr maintains throughout that, while better than fascism and communism, democracy is not completely above reproach.
Ultimately, this book is for those who already have at least a decent knowledge of Mr. Niebuhr’s life and work. As I jumped into this edition blind, I feel I will have to reread this book at a later date once I have learned more about his life and the greater context of his work. That said, if you are looking for a definitive and accessible edition of Reinhold Niebuhr’s work, look no further than this.
The first half of this book is made up of Mr. Niebuhr’s major books. These are perhaps the toughest sections to get through as Niebuhr’s education and vocabulary can sometimes be impenetrable. I found myself scratching my head quite a few times as I was reading through this book. Fortunately, one can learn from my mistake and frequent the chronology in the back of the book for greater context behind Mr. Niebuhr’s writings, though a lack of a preface from the editor means that one might struggle to fully understand Mr. Niebuhr’s thoughts unless one is already familiar with his life and work.
This book does become easier to read as it moves along though. As Mr. Niebuhr becomes more popular, his books, lectures, and sermons start to become friendly to the average reader. On top of that, though Mr. Niebuhr’s writings make his criticisms of fascism and communism quite clear, he was never chest-thumping cheerleader of American democracy. His earlier writings in particular show a willingness to critique American politics and culture for leaving the workers high and dry or believing too much in America’s superiority to its fascist and communist antagonists. Mr. Niebuhr maintains throughout that, while better than fascism and communism, democracy is not completely above reproach.
Ultimately, this book is for those who already have at least a decent knowledge of Mr. Niebuhr’s life and work. As I jumped into this edition blind, I feel I will have to reread this book at a later date once I have learned more about his life and the greater context of his work. That said, if you are looking for a definitive and accessible edition of Reinhold Niebuhr’s work, look no further than this.
November 17, 2016
When A Moral Center meets the Real World - How can it Survive?
Like many, I read this off of John Blake's interview with Obama, which revealed Niebuhr as Obama's favorite philosopher / thought leader.
Basically Niebuhr asks the question repeatedly : How does one retain one's moral center when facing the realities of leadership in this world?
IE how do you retain your morality when facing an election, that requires you to play dirty to win? In Niehbur's case, how do you retain your religious ideals, when in a world of competition - you compete against others for leadership within a church, and your church competes with others for followers. How do you do this?
Well, the answer is not easy, and Niebuhr spent a lifetime wrestling with it. Obama, love him or hate him, found a way to push his leadership forward while retaining a moral center. You can argue with this of course haha, but you get my idea.
Regardless, I highly recommend this for leaders, those interested in morality, those interested in making a better world, and just about anyone else.
Like many, I read this off of John Blake's interview with Obama, which revealed Niebuhr as Obama's favorite philosopher / thought leader.
Basically Niebuhr asks the question repeatedly : How does one retain one's moral center when facing the realities of leadership in this world?
IE how do you retain your morality when facing an election, that requires you to play dirty to win? In Niehbur's case, how do you retain your religious ideals, when in a world of competition - you compete against others for leadership within a church, and your church competes with others for followers. How do you do this?
Well, the answer is not easy, and Niebuhr spent a lifetime wrestling with it. Obama, love him or hate him, found a way to push his leadership forward while retaining a moral center. You can argue with this of course haha, but you get my idea.
Regardless, I highly recommend this for leaders, those interested in morality, those interested in making a better world, and just about anyone else.
July 31, 2025
So this is the best. He is right. About everything. Tamed Cynic stuff is remarkable, Irony of American History too. Some of the most quietly wonderful writing I’ve ever read - accepting the tragic responsibility of morally hazardous choices without losing all moorings. Top stuff
January 24, 2025
Obama claimed Niebuhr as his favorite theologian. I guess it beats Paul Ryan claiming Ayn Rand his top philosopher (sic; he later backtracked and substituted the safer Thomas Aquinas, more dubiously). Niebuhr once loomed in the generation in which Barry O., my exact contemporary, being born in the same summer, may have inherited into his Protestant mainstream upbringing the same influence that Thomas Merton exerted over my Catholic post-Vatican II formative years. But neither thinker-cleric, in my estimation, has survived to truly dominate the religious scene since our Generation Jones cusp.
Both commented prolifically during Cold War America as to national hubris, imperial machinations, a political morass of misguided patriotism disguising capitalist rapaciousness, and materialism choking off spiritual aspirations and social justice inspiration. Niebuhr doles big chunks of historiography, his parental German-speaking cultural inheritance, and his pastoral experience into his dense writings.
His brand of mainstream Protestant Midwestern faith may be now, a century later and more from his first entries, rather arcane. Yet while his fellow Great Plains scribe, also receding rapidly from popular memory, Sinclair Lewis, dramatically captured in preaching phenomenon Elmer Gantry the tension of reconciling the demands of a pulpit career vs the allure of crowd appeal, Niebuhr in his less flashy manner also exposed the frustration of how American success clashed with the reality of the Gospels.
This anthology opens with his Notebooks from a Tamed Cynic, 1927. Loosely his dozen years in the ministry in a German church in working-class Detroit. Then, his in-depth analyses of WWI, the Marxist challenge, League of Nations and the rise of fascism, WWII, the morality of Allied bombings, peacetime diplomacy, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam and then-liberal stances take center stage. The datedness of the bulk of concerns, inevitably, aside, this material will be valuable for scholarship.
Even if it doesn't make for scintillating reading as lighter fare, it is instructive as to an era when a public intellectual could command an audience whose seminarians, clergy, policy makers, think-tanks, and academics, as well as at least a few on the community and activist fronts, might take no small direction from a figure neither a demagogue nor a dilettante. But a serious grappler with never facile pronouncements or glib soundbites. Although best known for his Serenity Prayer adopted by the ranks of 12-steppers, and bookmark manufacturers, Niebuhr for all his determined introspection and dogged prose nevertheless remains a leading exponent of serious commitment to higher pursuit of Christian principles acted out within the compromised realpolitik by flawed, fallen men and women.
Both commented prolifically during Cold War America as to national hubris, imperial machinations, a political morass of misguided patriotism disguising capitalist rapaciousness, and materialism choking off spiritual aspirations and social justice inspiration. Niebuhr doles big chunks of historiography, his parental German-speaking cultural inheritance, and his pastoral experience into his dense writings.
His brand of mainstream Protestant Midwestern faith may be now, a century later and more from his first entries, rather arcane. Yet while his fellow Great Plains scribe, also receding rapidly from popular memory, Sinclair Lewis, dramatically captured in preaching phenomenon Elmer Gantry the tension of reconciling the demands of a pulpit career vs the allure of crowd appeal, Niebuhr in his less flashy manner also exposed the frustration of how American success clashed with the reality of the Gospels.
This anthology opens with his Notebooks from a Tamed Cynic, 1927. Loosely his dozen years in the ministry in a German church in working-class Detroit. Then, his in-depth analyses of WWI, the Marxist challenge, League of Nations and the rise of fascism, WWII, the morality of Allied bombings, peacetime diplomacy, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam and then-liberal stances take center stage. The datedness of the bulk of concerns, inevitably, aside, this material will be valuable for scholarship.
Even if it doesn't make for scintillating reading as lighter fare, it is instructive as to an era when a public intellectual could command an audience whose seminarians, clergy, policy makers, think-tanks, and academics, as well as at least a few on the community and activist fronts, might take no small direction from a figure neither a demagogue nor a dilettante. But a serious grappler with never facile pronouncements or glib soundbites. Although best known for his Serenity Prayer adopted by the ranks of 12-steppers, and bookmark manufacturers, Niebuhr for all his determined introspection and dogged prose nevertheless remains a leading exponent of serious commitment to higher pursuit of Christian principles acted out within the compromised realpolitik by flawed, fallen men and women.
August 21, 2020
I was first exposed to the writings of Niebuhr in college but only briefly. In the ensuing years I have read several articles that reference his work and a few of his articles and speeches. Many prominent individuals have referenced Niebuhr as being a significant influence on their thinking including Martin Luther King. So, I decided to take a deeper dive. Niebuhr was brilliant but never seemed to allow the adulation that followed him to change him.
He was an independent and a sometimes-lonely critic of industrial society and his own Christian church. Niebuhr developed a “Christian” interpretation of “political realism”, a tradition traced from Thucydides’s and later Machiavelli and became the basis for modern political science. In brief if I remember correctly my political science studies - some things do not change – such as human nature and moral absolutes; some things can be changed – power can dislodge power; effective political action needs to acknowledge the difference.
This book is edited by Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton and includes his major works, prayers, sermons, lectures, and letters. Born in 1892 in Missouri to German parents, he grew up speaking German and English. He entered the Yale Divinity School in 1913. He never seemed to feel comfortable at Yale given his perceived social standing. In 1915 he became the pastor of a small, German-speaking middle-class parish in Detroit. He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1928 and began to rise to national fame. His writings were very influential on Martin Luther King Jr who invited him to join the Selma to Montgomery march. He sadly declined as he was recovering from a severe stroke. Niebuhr died 1971.
Niebuhr’s first book was "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic " (1929). The young pastor felt a fraud in his preacher’s gown. After three months of sermons he was out of ideas; each Bible reading was just a “different pretext for saying the same thing over again”. Could he really deliver “light and inspiration in regular weekly installments”? And where, Niebuhr wondered, “did anyone ever learn in the seminary how to conduct or help with a Ladies’ Aid meeting?” I particularly enjoyed his musings as a young pastor as it reminded me of my days as a young Bishop in the LDS tradition. Days that sometimes included both self-doubt and awe-inspiring moments when you realized that the work was bigger than one’s self.
In Detroit he witnessed the plight of autoworkers and was torn between giving comfortable, morally edifying sermons on compassion, and advocating for the workers. He observed their “manual labour is a drudgery and toil is slavery ... Their sweat and their dull pain are part of the price paid for the fine cars we all run.” He saw the gap was a failure of the church to focus on the human ethical problems. He attempted to address the ethical problems which emerge from the gap between absolute moral standards such as justice and equality on the one hand, and power, coercion, and other facts of social life on the other. Niebuhr wrote in one of his best-known books Moral Man and Immoral Society. “Social injustice cannot be resolved by moral and rational suasion alone, as the educator and social scientist usually believes. Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power.”
Niebuhr’s most famous quote has come to be known as the Serenity Prayer - “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Despite its name, it is not a prayer for serenity alone. It inspires us to seek and exercise courage and wisdom.
I think Niebuhr would take exception with those that interpret the Serenity Prayer as a call to simply turn our problems over to God. He saw it as accepting responsibility. Responsibility to change ourselves and the world around us. As one writer has said it is a “prescription for a strenuous moral life.” In other words a call not to accept easy religious and political answers.
Quotes:
“An adequate religion, is always an ultimate optimism which has entertained all the facts which lead to pessimism.”
“If a minister wants to be a man among men he need only to stop creating devotion to abstract ideals which every one accepts in theory and denies in practice, and to agonize about their validity and practicability in the social issues which he and others face in our present civilization.”
“The highest type of leadership maintains itself by its intrinsic worth, sans panoply, pomp and power. Of course, there are never enough real leaders to go around. Wherefore it becomes necessary to dress some men up and by other artificial means to give them a prestige and a power which they could not win by their own resources.”
“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
“Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”
“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. ”
“I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross.”
“The crown of Christian ethics is the doctrine of forgiveness. In it the whole genius of prophetic religion is expressed. Love as forgiveness is the most difficult and impossible of moral achievements. Yet it is a possibility if the impossibility of love is recognized and the sin in the self is acknowledged. Therefore an ethic culminating in an impossible possibility produces its choicest fruit in terms of the doctrine of forgiveness, the demand that the evil in the other shall be borne without vindictiveness because the evil in the self is known.”
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by that final form of love, which is forgiveness.”
“This conference on religious education seems to your humble servant the last word in absurdity. We are told by a delightful 'expert' that we ought not really teach our children about God lest we rob them of the opportunity of making their own discovery of God, and lest we corrupt their young minds by our own superstitions. If we continue along these lines the day will come when some expert will advise us not to teach our children the English language, since we rob them thereby of the possibility of choosing the German, French or Japanese languages as possible alternatives. Don't these good people realize that they are reducing the principle of freedom to an absurdity?”
He was an independent and a sometimes-lonely critic of industrial society and his own Christian church. Niebuhr developed a “Christian” interpretation of “political realism”, a tradition traced from Thucydides’s and later Machiavelli and became the basis for modern political science. In brief if I remember correctly my political science studies - some things do not change – such as human nature and moral absolutes; some things can be changed – power can dislodge power; effective political action needs to acknowledge the difference.
This book is edited by Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton and includes his major works, prayers, sermons, lectures, and letters. Born in 1892 in Missouri to German parents, he grew up speaking German and English. He entered the Yale Divinity School in 1913. He never seemed to feel comfortable at Yale given his perceived social standing. In 1915 he became the pastor of a small, German-speaking middle-class parish in Detroit. He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1928 and began to rise to national fame. His writings were very influential on Martin Luther King Jr who invited him to join the Selma to Montgomery march. He sadly declined as he was recovering from a severe stroke. Niebuhr died 1971.
Niebuhr’s first book was "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic " (1929). The young pastor felt a fraud in his preacher’s gown. After three months of sermons he was out of ideas; each Bible reading was just a “different pretext for saying the same thing over again”. Could he really deliver “light and inspiration in regular weekly installments”? And where, Niebuhr wondered, “did anyone ever learn in the seminary how to conduct or help with a Ladies’ Aid meeting?” I particularly enjoyed his musings as a young pastor as it reminded me of my days as a young Bishop in the LDS tradition. Days that sometimes included both self-doubt and awe-inspiring moments when you realized that the work was bigger than one’s self.
In Detroit he witnessed the plight of autoworkers and was torn between giving comfortable, morally edifying sermons on compassion, and advocating for the workers. He observed their “manual labour is a drudgery and toil is slavery ... Their sweat and their dull pain are part of the price paid for the fine cars we all run.” He saw the gap was a failure of the church to focus on the human ethical problems. He attempted to address the ethical problems which emerge from the gap between absolute moral standards such as justice and equality on the one hand, and power, coercion, and other facts of social life on the other. Niebuhr wrote in one of his best-known books Moral Man and Immoral Society. “Social injustice cannot be resolved by moral and rational suasion alone, as the educator and social scientist usually believes. Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power.”
Niebuhr’s most famous quote has come to be known as the Serenity Prayer - “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Despite its name, it is not a prayer for serenity alone. It inspires us to seek and exercise courage and wisdom.
I think Niebuhr would take exception with those that interpret the Serenity Prayer as a call to simply turn our problems over to God. He saw it as accepting responsibility. Responsibility to change ourselves and the world around us. As one writer has said it is a “prescription for a strenuous moral life.” In other words a call not to accept easy religious and political answers.
Quotes:
“An adequate religion, is always an ultimate optimism which has entertained all the facts which lead to pessimism.”
“If a minister wants to be a man among men he need only to stop creating devotion to abstract ideals which every one accepts in theory and denies in practice, and to agonize about their validity and practicability in the social issues which he and others face in our present civilization.”
“The highest type of leadership maintains itself by its intrinsic worth, sans panoply, pomp and power. Of course, there are never enough real leaders to go around. Wherefore it becomes necessary to dress some men up and by other artificial means to give them a prestige and a power which they could not win by their own resources.”
“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
“Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”
“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. ”
“I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross.”
“The crown of Christian ethics is the doctrine of forgiveness. In it the whole genius of prophetic religion is expressed. Love as forgiveness is the most difficult and impossible of moral achievements. Yet it is a possibility if the impossibility of love is recognized and the sin in the self is acknowledged. Therefore an ethic culminating in an impossible possibility produces its choicest fruit in terms of the doctrine of forgiveness, the demand that the evil in the other shall be borne without vindictiveness because the evil in the self is known.”
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by that final form of love, which is forgiveness.”
“This conference on religious education seems to your humble servant the last word in absurdity. We are told by a delightful 'expert' that we ought not really teach our children about God lest we rob them of the opportunity of making their own discovery of God, and lest we corrupt their young minds by our own superstitions. If we continue along these lines the day will come when some expert will advise us not to teach our children the English language, since we rob them thereby of the possibility of choosing the German, French or Japanese languages as possible alternatives. Don't these good people realize that they are reducing the principle of freedom to an absurdity?”
January 22, 2024
It is becoming progressively problematic, for me, trying to remember a time before Nixon’s Southern Strategy, when “Christian Conservative” didn’t sound like a tautology (at least with respect to America’s WASPier cohorts). There is a lot in Niebuhr’s writing to elicit thought, but what strikes me most is that all of our great social experiments are pointless, while undertaken within materialistic communities, driven by the individual acquisition of property (both real property, sanction by the threat of state-sponsored violence, and crypto-property, enabled through social and personal deviousness). We all have our own conception of The Good, which trait of individuality isn’t likely to change, for our species, as we pursue The Good with personal piles of stuff (what Rawls called Primary Goods). To escape our materialism, we need to see the bulk of our piles as immaterial (e.g., luck, lucky attributes of personality) or quasi-immaterial (e.g., the love of parents and a stable, nurturing community). Societies seem to require Capital Accumulation, which is not something we tend to do well as non-autocratic collectives, but the personal accumulation of capital, with the social necessity of hiding or otherwise protecting that capital, can create problems—sometime enormous social problems—of maldistribution. Niebuhr probably sees the problem as a nail, subject to the “hammer” he has in his own little pile of stuff. He could be right; it would be nice for things to be that simple (to say nothing of soluble),
May 6, 2018
Niebuhr's works are profoundly different from what one has come to expect from IR studies today. Where contemporary IRT deals with strictly defined variables, system dynamics and social structures, the great American theologian in turn offers a set of powerful narratives - about the nature and fallibility of Man, about innocence, morality, evil and hope.... about the ironies of history and the sheer hubris of the cult of reason and the quest for perfection in what is ultimately a Fallen world.
In a strange way, Niebuhr's writings remind me a lot of the great J.R.R.T. One deals with the drama and recalcitrance of human history while the other is an inventor of worlds imaginary, that is true, but there is a certain kinship in their thoughts pertaining to the nature and destiny of Man that I personally found extremely interesting.
Still, if there is one major lesson to be learned from this collection of works, it is one of humility. To quote the Serenity Prayer, "God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other".
In a strange way, Niebuhr's writings remind me a lot of the great J.R.R.T. One deals with the drama and recalcitrance of human history while the other is an inventor of worlds imaginary, that is true, but there is a certain kinship in their thoughts pertaining to the nature and destiny of Man that I personally found extremely interesting.
Still, if there is one major lesson to be learned from this collection of works, it is one of humility. To quote the Serenity Prayer, "God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other".
January 8, 2022
By no means an "easy read," this Library of America collection of some of Niebuhr's most important works is well worth the effort. The volume begins with some of his daily notes and reflections from his days as a young minister in Detroit, which gave me a sense of Niebuhr as a person and helped to prepare me for the much weightier works to come. Indeed, some of it was hard work, but in the end very much worth the effort. Niebuhr was a deep and original thinker about some of the most vexing moral and political challenges of the 20th century--challenges that remain very much with us as we struggle to make sense of the 21st.
February 3, 2024
Reinhold Niebuhr begins "Major Works on Religion and Politics" by admitting that as a young man of twenty-three years old, when he was the pastor of a church with eighteen families in it, that he thought he was not good at composing sermons. The members of his congregation disagreed. He began to serve at the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan in 1915. Initially his congregation consisted of 66 members. It grew to nearly 700 by the time he left in 1926.
In 1928, Niebuhr left Detroit to become Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He spent the rest of his career there.
Most of the members of his congregation in Detroit were factory workers. Because of conversations with them and visits to factories he saw factory life as tedious, low paying, and unhealthful. By the time factory workers in Detroit reached middle age they were used up, and unable to keep up with the rhythms of the speed up on assembly lines.
This attracted him to the labor movement and to the American Socialist Party. Initially he supported America’s entry into World War I. By the depth of the depression he, like many others, saw the First World War as a tragic and a futile mistake, caused by capitalist rivalry. In “Moral Man and Immoral Society,” written in 1932 he wrote, “the communist oligarch would seem to be preferable in the long run to the capitalist one.”
At that time he saw Marxism as the way working class people would naturally feel about life. My experience with Marxists leads me to believe that Marxism is a philosophy that appeals to those born into the middle class, who fail to achieve their goals in life, and who fall into the working class. Those born into the working class who stay there seem to accept their lot in life without much in the way of resentment and reflection.
Eventually he became disillusioned with the Soviet Union. He does not seem to have come to the awareness that the way to combine what is good in American capitalism and Soviet communism, while excluding what is not good, is to combine representative democracy with a mixed economy. There should be a high minimum wage, strong labor unions, and a well financed public sector of the economy paid for by steeply progressive taxation.
This is the combination that has been reached by Scandinavian social democracy.
He supported America’s entry in the Second World War, and was asked to leave the American Socialist Party as a result. The American Socialist Party has a bad record on war: it opposed America’s participation in the Second World War, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it supported America’s role in the War in Vietnam.
The way to get places in politics is to articulate and channel sentiments that already exist. During the War in Vietnam the kind of people who supported the War were unlikely to support socialism. The kind of people who supported socialism were likely to oppose the war in Vietnam. The American Socialist Party committed suicide with its policies on the Second World War and the War in Vietnam. What survived was the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which evolved into Democratic Socialists of America.
I was thinking about joining Democratic Socialists of America until they took the side of Hamas in its war with Israel. When I belonged to Democratic Socialists of America virtually everyone supported Israel against its enemies.
After the Second World War Niebuhr opposed the Soviet Union, favored work on the atomic and hydrogen bombs, but opposed Senator Joe McCarthy.
Later on he opposed America’s role in Vietnam.
I was disappointed in Niebuhr’s purely theological writing. That is my fault, rather than his. I have read the Bible, including the Apocrypha nine times in eight English translations. I attend church regularly. Nevertheless, when I approach Christianity intellectually I prefer the higher criticism of the Bible, and Biblical archaeology. I am less interested in theology. I say this because I do not want to discourage others from reading the theological parts of "Major Works on Religion and Politics."
In 1928, Niebuhr left Detroit to become Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He spent the rest of his career there.
Most of the members of his congregation in Detroit were factory workers. Because of conversations with them and visits to factories he saw factory life as tedious, low paying, and unhealthful. By the time factory workers in Detroit reached middle age they were used up, and unable to keep up with the rhythms of the speed up on assembly lines.
This attracted him to the labor movement and to the American Socialist Party. Initially he supported America’s entry into World War I. By the depth of the depression he, like many others, saw the First World War as a tragic and a futile mistake, caused by capitalist rivalry. In “Moral Man and Immoral Society,” written in 1932 he wrote, “the communist oligarch would seem to be preferable in the long run to the capitalist one.”
At that time he saw Marxism as the way working class people would naturally feel about life. My experience with Marxists leads me to believe that Marxism is a philosophy that appeals to those born into the middle class, who fail to achieve their goals in life, and who fall into the working class. Those born into the working class who stay there seem to accept their lot in life without much in the way of resentment and reflection.
Eventually he became disillusioned with the Soviet Union. He does not seem to have come to the awareness that the way to combine what is good in American capitalism and Soviet communism, while excluding what is not good, is to combine representative democracy with a mixed economy. There should be a high minimum wage, strong labor unions, and a well financed public sector of the economy paid for by steeply progressive taxation.
This is the combination that has been reached by Scandinavian social democracy.
He supported America’s entry in the Second World War, and was asked to leave the American Socialist Party as a result. The American Socialist Party has a bad record on war: it opposed America’s participation in the Second World War, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it supported America’s role in the War in Vietnam.
The way to get places in politics is to articulate and channel sentiments that already exist. During the War in Vietnam the kind of people who supported the War were unlikely to support socialism. The kind of people who supported socialism were likely to oppose the war in Vietnam. The American Socialist Party committed suicide with its policies on the Second World War and the War in Vietnam. What survived was the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which evolved into Democratic Socialists of America.
I was thinking about joining Democratic Socialists of America until they took the side of Hamas in its war with Israel. When I belonged to Democratic Socialists of America virtually everyone supported Israel against its enemies.
After the Second World War Niebuhr opposed the Soviet Union, favored work on the atomic and hydrogen bombs, but opposed Senator Joe McCarthy.
Later on he opposed America’s role in Vietnam.
I was disappointed in Niebuhr’s purely theological writing. That is my fault, rather than his. I have read the Bible, including the Apocrypha nine times in eight English translations. I attend church regularly. Nevertheless, when I approach Christianity intellectually I prefer the higher criticism of the Bible, and Biblical archaeology. I am less interested in theology. I say this because I do not want to discourage others from reading the theological parts of "Major Works on Religion and Politics."
May 9, 2020
The back cover says: Barack Obama called the great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr "one of my favorite philosophers." It goes on to say that several other American leaders were influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr and after reading this book I can see why. As a collection of his works the book is well organized and flows nicely. Very interesting and I often found myself loosing time as I was drawn into one of his writings.
January 24, 2023
Definitely not smart enough or focused enough to understand all that he's saying (and it doesn't help that some of this writing is outdated, rambling, or not organized), but the stuff I do understand and can focus on is amazing
September 19, 2024
The ones that impressed reading:
Children of Light, of Darkness
Sermons and Lectures on Faith and Belief
Moral Man and Immoral Society
Children of Light, of Darkness
Sermons and Lectures on Faith and Belief
Moral Man and Immoral Society
May 23, 2016
The Library of America is a growing national treasure of the United States. (I don't say "America", because that term actually includes North, Central and South America.) It is comprised of exquisitely bound copies of the works of writers throughout American History. While I support the Library, the truth is, copies of its books are much less expensive on Amazon.
Reinhold Niebuhr is one of the great thinkers on religion and politics of the 20th century. Most people know the serenity prayer, recited at all AA and Al-Anon meetings as well as at other 12-step based meetings and programs. Few know that it was written by Reinhold Niebuhr. This book is a collection of some of his most important works, gathered in one volume, printed on acid free paper and bound in a very high quality manner. This book is meant to last.
Included here are some of his major writings on both religion and politics, such as:
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic
Moral Man and Immoral Society (a work whose relevance increases as we move into the 21st century)
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
The Irony of American History
Other writings are included, such as essays on the current events of his time, from 1928 to 1967), many of the prayers he composed and some of the sermons and lectures he gave on Faith and Belief. Also included are a chronology of his works, notes on the various writings in this volume and an Index.
This is an exquisite book, collecting some of the most important works of this important writer. Highest recommendation.
Reinhold Niebuhr is one of the great thinkers on religion and politics of the 20th century. Most people know the serenity prayer, recited at all AA and Al-Anon meetings as well as at other 12-step based meetings and programs. Few know that it was written by Reinhold Niebuhr. This book is a collection of some of his most important works, gathered in one volume, printed on acid free paper and bound in a very high quality manner. This book is meant to last.
Included here are some of his major writings on both religion and politics, such as:
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic
Moral Man and Immoral Society (a work whose relevance increases as we move into the 21st century)
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
The Irony of American History
Other writings are included, such as essays on the current events of his time, from 1928 to 1967), many of the prayers he composed and some of the sermons and lectures he gave on Faith and Belief. Also included are a chronology of his works, notes on the various writings in this volume and an Index.
This is an exquisite book, collecting some of the most important works of this important writer. Highest recommendation.
May 30, 2018
I have not attended a religious ceremony in about ten years and do not I have a great interest in the future of religion but this book and this writer are both very valuable to me. What I find most appealing about Niebuhr is his extreme interest in doing the right thing. The problems he focuses on are timeless and even though he at sometimes shows a penchant for the white-male-centeredness common to his era, I rarely found myself disagreeing with him on any topic. Niebuhr bemoans the alignment of the church with the establishment capitalist class of 20th century America because it led folks to the church for purposes of their own social advancement rather than a desire to simply do good unto others.
One word that Niebuhr uses that I always found odd was “transmutation”, as in “Patriotism transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism.” I am not sure but I assume this word may have been more widely used in the first part of the 20th century because of Ernest Rutherford’s transmutation of Nitrogen into Oxygen isotopes in 1919. I bring it up here because I think the analogy to Chemistry is interesting. Niebuhr was interested in transmuting our society into one that was more compassionate and equal. If the elements can be changed by nuclear transmutation then perhaps there is some hope that our world society can be transmuted into something better as well.
One word that Niebuhr uses that I always found odd was “transmutation”, as in “Patriotism transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism.” I am not sure but I assume this word may have been more widely used in the first part of the 20th century because of Ernest Rutherford’s transmutation of Nitrogen into Oxygen isotopes in 1919. I bring it up here because I think the analogy to Chemistry is interesting. Niebuhr was interested in transmuting our society into one that was more compassionate and equal. If the elements can be changed by nuclear transmutation then perhaps there is some hope that our world society can be transmuted into something better as well.
January 31, 2016
Niebuhr's early notes are sensitive and perceptive, but some of his later work is tiring and programmatic. This collection focuses on the implications of Marxism on Christianity and American culture. He has a gift for displaying the freshness of biblical thought even when he seems most strongly in the grip of socialist realism.
October 6, 2020
dense reading but worth it. one of Obama's favorite authors
May 22, 2016
Constantly thought provoking, timeless, appropriate for current societal issues
Read
June 19, 2015241 N665 2015
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