One of the most fruitful sources of self-deception in the ministry is the proclamation of great ideals and principles without any clue to their relation to the controversial issues of the day.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Controversial Situations
Topic: Wisdom & Understanding
“One of the most fruitful sources of self-deception in the ministry is the proclamation of great ideals and principles without any clue to their relation to the controversial issues of the day…. I have myself too frequently avoided the specific application of general principles to controversial situations to be able to deny what really goes on in the mind of the preacher when he is doing this.”
Reinhold Niebuhr, born Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr on June 21, 1892, in Wright City, Missouri, was a prominent American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. After graduating from Elmhurst College in 1910, he earned his seminary degree from Eden Theological Seminary in 1913 and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School in 1914. Ordained in the German Evangelical Synod of North America, Niebuhr served as a pastor in Detroit before joining Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1928, where he taught Christian ethics for over three decades. His work bridged theology and social ethics, addressing pressing issues of his time.
Niebuhr’s major works, including Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) and The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941-1943), explored human nature’s complexities, balancing creativity with destructiveness and altruism with self-interest. His reflections on original sin and humanity’s limitations shaped his critiques of political and moral systems. He argued that justice was achievable through democracy, famously stating, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” His ideas deeply influenced responses to historical events like the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.
Niebuhr’s influence extended beyond academia. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, he remains well-known for penning The Serenity Prayer, embraced by recovery communities and others. His reflections on the intersection of faith, politics, and human nature left a lasting impact. Niebuhr passed away on June 1, 1971, but his ideas continue to shape ethical and theological discussions today.
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. New York: Living Age, 1957, pp. 218-19,
Reinhold Niebuhr
Copyright © 2017 – 2024 LuminaryQuotes.com About Us
Martin E. Marty: Reinhold Niebuhr: Public Theology and the American Experience
His [Niebuhr’s] first book was dedicated to his pastor father and to his mother “who for twelve years had shared with me the work of a Christian pastorate,” [at the Bethel Evangelical Church, Detroit, Michigan] one which was memorialized in his most nearly autobiographical work, a sketchbook called Leaves from the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic.
Later, during his subsequent career at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, he said “that the Detroit facts determined my development more than any books which I may have read”–(“Intellectual Autobiography”).
Ten years after moving to New York he said “Even at Union the gradual unfolding of my theological ideas [had] come not so much through study as through the pressure of world events.”–[Ten Years that Shook my World,” Christian Century, April 26, 1939, p. 545].
–Martin E. Marty [Reinhold Niebuhr: Public Theology and the American Experience, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 54, No. 4, Oct., 1974) pp. 332-359.