Synopses & Reviews
For those living in the 1930s and 1940s who endured the devastation of the Depression, racial and social unrest, and the two World Wars ending in the Holocaust, the question of how to carry on the struggle for justice in a world seemingly filled with self-interest and evil became all-consuming. Many turned for an answer to the realistic, yet also optimistic, political and ethical writings of Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971).
As the eminent theologian Langdon Gilkey demonstrates in this book, Niebuhr was able to provide such a persuasive answer because his social understanding was a theological understanding, one accomplished by viewing human being in relation to God as well as in its political and economic relations. This "Biblical" understanding of human nature, while acknowledging the often deep ambiguity and hypocrisy of the real historical world, also revealed a divine hand guiding that history. To Niebuhr, it is God's participation in history that gives it meaning and a promise of fulfillment, and presents believers the possibility of a social realism that maintains its moral nerve rather than succumbing to cynicism or despair.
On Niebuhr provides the first systematic treatment of Niebuhr's mature theology in relation to his political theory and the crises of the 1930s and 1940s by a scholar who both understands the theology deeply and knew Niebuhr personally. The book begins with a look at Niebuhr's early political writings, then moves to Niebuhr's later understanding of human nature and history. On Niebuhr also presents a moving account of the role that Niebuhr's thought played in Gilkey's own experience as a prisoner of war and in his subsequent life's work. The result is an indispensable book for the many students and admirers of both these religious thinkers.
Synopsis
Langdon Gilkey's insightful, engaging book offers a detailed—and not uncritical—examination of one of the most influential American theologians of the twentieth century.
Synopsis
"Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the last great public intellectuals of American life. . . . Langdon Gilkey's fine new book on his theology can help counter the neglect into which his thought has fallen."—Roger S. Gottlieb,
TikkunThis insightful, engaging book offers a detailed-and not uncritical-examination of Reinhold Niebuhr, whose theology and ideas loom so large in the intellectual history of twentieth-century America.
About the Author
Langdon Gilkey has taught most recently at Georgetown University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he is the Shailer Mathews Professor of Theology (emeritus). He is the author of a number of books, including Shantung Compound, Gilkey on Tillich, and Nature, Reality, and the Sacred.
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Part 1: First Encounters and Early Political Writings
1. Early Encounters
2. The Structure of Niebuhr's Theology
3. Early Political Writings
Part 2: Niebuhr's Mature Theology
4. Meaning, Mystery, Myth, and Revelation
5. The Doctrine of Human Nature
6. Sin: Anxiety, Pride, and Self-Deception
7. Sin: In Bondage yet Free, Inevitable but Not Necessary
8. The Understanding of History
9. The Biblical Understanding of History
10. The Enigma of History and Eschatology
11. Reflections
Index