Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American Christian theologian and writer on ethical and social problems. He was a foremost figure in the “Neo-Orthodox” movement in American Protestant theology, which reoriented the whole thrust of theological and biblical studies since the 1920s.
Born in Wright City, Missouri, the son of a clergyman, Niebuhr was educated at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School. He became an evangelical pastor in working-class Detroit 1915–28 and was a professor of Christian ethics at the Union Theological Seminary-New York 1928–60.
Niebuhr’s initial liberalism and social idealism eventually gave way to a more pessimistic theology known as Christian Realism. This system identified man’s sinfulness and propensity to abuse power and asserted that such recognition was necessary if the fight for social justice was to have any measure of success. A former pacifist, Niebuhr enthusiastically persuaded Christians to support the war against Hitler, and, after World War II, he had substantial influence in the U.S. State Department.
Niebuhr wrote Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932,) The Nature and Destiny of Man (2 vols., 1941–43,) Faith and History (1949,) The Irony of American History (1952,) Structure of Nations and Empires (1959,) and many other books.
Niebuhr is the author of The Serenity Prayer, a common name for a prayer. “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.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Reinhold Niebuhr
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Family
The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fullness of life which each man seeks.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Age, Serenity, Acceptance, Change, Wisdom, Peace
The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Sin
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Journalism, Journalists
Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Faith, Belief
Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Fanaticism
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Faith
The dimension of depth in the consciousness of religion creates the tension between what is and what ought to be. It bends the bow from which every arrow of moral action flies.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Religion
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Power
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Democracy, Justice
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
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, could 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 it is from our own standpoint; Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Hope, Forgiveness, Failure
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Pride
A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Religion
While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Duty, Justice
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Forgiveness, Love
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Justice, Duty
The finiteness, the dependency, and the insufficiency of man.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Creation
Man is both strong and weak, both free and bound, both blind and far-seeing. He stands at the juncture of nature and spirit; and is involved in both freedom and necessity.
—Reinhold Niebuhr
Topics: Mankind, Man
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