Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971)
US Protestant theologian, a Lutheran minister. His Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) attacked depersonalized modern industrial society but denied the possibility of fulfilling religious and political utopian aspirations, a position that came to be known as Christian realism. Niebuhr was a pacifist, activist, and socialist but advocated war to stop totalitarianism in the 1940s.
| Niebuhr taught for more than 30 years at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Originally a strong exponent of Christian socialism, he became increasingly pessimistic about the possibility of achieving it, given humanity's irreducible egoistic pride, which he identified with original sin. He came to believe that liberal democracy must be sustained not because it can bring about human perfection but as a way of avoiding the systematic cruelty that comes with unrestrained power. From 1945 he founded Americans for Democratic Action and became an adviser to the State Department. |
