Commentary about The Serenity Prayer [Longer Commentary]

The text of The Serenity Prayer succinctly captures a profound reflection on wisdom: “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.” Originally distributed to soldiers and later adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, the prayer has become a guiding force for those seeking wisdom in discernment and acceptance.

The Serenity Prayer’s influence extends beyond religious spheres, touching various aspects of culture and personal development. Its timeless appeal and universal resonance with the pursuit of wisdom make it a significant symbol in modern spiritual and recovery communities. The prayer’s simplicity and focus on understanding underscore the enduring human need for wisdom, and Elisabeth Sifton Niebuhr’s book provides a comprehensive insight into this enduring piece of spiritual literature.

Niebuhr’s “eloquence and authority”

On the question “Who wrote the Serenity Prayer?” Reinhold Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, has the better of the theological argument. The famous prayer succinctly captures the tension at the heart of his ethics, which to the consternation of his critics of both the left and the right combined a realistic view of human nature (“serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed”) with an idealistic commitment to social justice (“courage to change the things that should be changed”) in a situation of profound moral ambiguity requiring humility and discernment (“the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other”). This ethical framework underlies his classic work Moral Man and Immoral Society, published in 1932, the book that first brought him to national attention. No one in America was espousing such a theological perspective at that time, certainly not with the eloquence and authority that he did. It is not surprising that the prayer might have gone through many variations of wording before it found its definitive formulation or that persons hearing the prayer following one of his powerful talks or sermons might have been moved to share it with others.

–Robert H. King [Yale Alumni Magazine, ’60 B Div, ’65 PhD].

Commentary About Reinhold Niebuhr by Arthur Schlesinger Jr: 

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; his capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary.”

–Reinhold Niebuhr

Niebuhr brilliantly applied the tragic insights of Augustine and Calvin to moral and political issues. He poured out his thoughts in a stream of powerful books, articles and sermons. His major theological work was his two-volume “Nature and Destiny of Man” (1941, 1943). The evolution of his political thought can be traced in three influential books: “Moral Man and Immoral Society” (1932); “The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense” (1944); “The Irony of American History” (1952).

In these and other works, Niebuhr emphasized the mixed and ambivalent character of human nature — creative impulses matched by destructive impulses, regard for others overruled by excessive self-regard, the will to power, the individual under constant temptation to play God to history. This is what was known in the ancient vocabulary of Christianity as the doctrine of original sin. Niebuhr summed up his political argument in a single powerful sentence: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” (Niebuhr, in the fashion of the day, used “man” not to exculpate women but as shorthand for “human being.”)

–Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr, Sept. 18, 2005].