Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55051 in Books
• Published on: 1987-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Brown, a former friend and student of the influential theologian, concentrates on Niebuhr's theological essays. PW stated that "although this is not a representative selection of Niebuhr's religious, political and social thought, the anthology offers a useful introduction to his work."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Niebuhr was the towering giant of Protestant theology in his time, and also an incisive political thinker during the tumultuous years from the Great Depression to Vietnam. This collection, which brings together Niebuhr's most penetrating and enduring essays on theology and politics, should demonstrate for a new generation that his best thought transcends the immediate historical setting in which he wrote. It also shows why Niebuhr, with his dialectical approach to the central questions of God, man, and history, will likely remain a perennial disturber of the complacencies and cliches of the standard "left" and "right." The anthology is ably edited by Robert McAfee Brown, whose introduction succinctly presents the central features of Niebuhr's life and thought. Mel Piehl, History Dept., Valparaiso Univ., Ind.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"This splendid volume has very great potential as ecumenically significant, useful to Catholics and Protestants alike."�Choice (Choice )

"The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr is a treasure of little-known essays and sermons framed by a brilliant introduction. It reminds us, once again, how eloquently Niebuhr speaks to the problems of our age."�Peter Beinart, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (on the new edition) (Peter Beinart )

"To return to these penetrating reflections is to be reminded yet again of the intellectual void�still today unfilled�left by Reinhold Niebuhr''s passing.��Andrew J. Bacevich, Boston University (on the new edition) (Andrew J. Bacevich )

Customer Reviews

An important collection
Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the giants of twentieth century theology. His theology was not contained in a massive, multi-volume systematic treatment, but rather in the practical and spiritual applications he drew out of his philosophical and theological meditations. This collection of essays shows both the practical and spiritual aspects of what Niebuhr was about - they deal with ethics, politics, justice, the interplay of science and religion, and above all, God's grace and mercy that extends to the entire world.

The first book of Niebuhr's that I read was 'Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic', in which Niebuhr reflects on life, society, and his time as a pastor at a church. That set the stage for a lifelong love of Niebuhr's way of thinking (if not always his particular conclusions), a love that is obviously shared by the theologian Robert McAfee Brown, the editor of this collection. These essays are somewhat different in tone from the first book I read, but there is a consistency of spirit. According to Brown, 'Niebuhr's resources in this sort of writing were always two: (1) the particular heritage of the Christian faith that he had appropriated, drawing especially on the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, Paul, the Reformation and Kierkegaard, and (2) a viewpoint in scrutinising the world around him not only in the light of this faith, but also with the tools of social science, political philosophy, and history that he acquired during his adult life.'

Niebuhr's influences drew him into a prophetic ministry. Prophetic ministry is not one in which the minister predicts the end of the world, but rather one in which the minister dares to speak the truth (and tells the consequences of such actions in no uncertain terms). Thus, Niebuhr called upon the Christian community to be engaged in the world. One wants to be careful to not read into Niebuhr that he is going to automatically be a proponent of any kind of social or military action - Niebuhr resisted the isolationism of the American Christian community prior to the second world war, but might not be a particular advocate of Cold War and post-Cold War military engagements such as we have now. After all, in the same essay in which Niebuhr argues against a general pacifist view, he also states, 'A simple Christian moralism is senseless and confusing. It is senseless when, as in the World War, is seeks uncritically to identify the cuase of Christ with the cause of democracy without a religious reservation.'

Niebuhr's work is very good at identifying the tensions in which Christians must live - the tension between following prophetic calls and being good stewards, between love and judgement, between righteousness and mercy. He identifies dangers in the prevalence of the secular culture, including its influence in the church itself. The paradox of the search for meaning and the ubiquitous nature of mystery is one that guides an early essay in this collection, also paradoxically named, 'Pessimistic Optimism'.

Niebuhr also looks at the Jewish-Christian relationship over time, and draws conclusions helpful for the bettering of relations for the future. He is distrustful of supersessionist views by Christians toward the Jewish people and culture.

This is an important collection of Niebuhr's thought

Essential indeed
Niebuhr was not only one of the great Protestant theologians of the last century: he was one of very few thinkers ever to have derived a sophisticated and illuminating approach to the worldly order from theological premises. This collection of his writings contains some truly essential expressions of his philosophy, in the form of shorter essays and addresses.

The volume's consistent theme is the Augustinian realism that Niebuhr expounded in the darkest years of modern history, when the western democracies faced the tyrannies of Nazi Germany and expansionist Communism. Against these messianiac creeds, Niebuhr posited the merits of democracy, *not* because of its supposed congruence with the characteristics of the Kingdom of God but because of its effect in tempering the destructiveness of man's urge for dominion.

He did so, moreover, when many Christians were susceptible to the romantic illusion that discipleship required them to oppose the militant defence of western values. No one has better exposed these pretensions than Niebuhr in his essay 'Why the Christian Church is not Pacifist', included in this volume. Those Christians' mistake was to fail to understand the nature of evil. To regard the Sermon on the Mount as a manual for political action without seeing it in the context of Jesus's expectation of the irruption of the Kingdom of God into human history is a misreading. The message of the Gospels is not non-violence, but the immanence of the Kingdom. Niebuhr argues that while conflict is not part of the Kingdom of God, it does not thereby dissipate if Christians act as though they are already living in the Kingdom.

This is a powerful corrective to much wishful thinking that passes for Christian social ethics. It ought to be read urgently by anyone who imagines that the sentimentality of today's anti-war movement, when the western democracies are fighting an enemy as destructive and nihilistic as any seen in the last century, is an expression of the Law of Love.

It is not essential to red every essay
If you are not at least an armature scholar of theology/philosophy it might be wise to read these essays selectively. Some essays read like technical commentaries upon the works of various great thinkers and if you are not already familiar with these works you will find it difficult to get lot out of these commentries. The essay that are not too "technical" are very insightful into the meaning of the christian faith (generally it seems as seen from an ecumenical point of view).