A primer on the current "Niebuhr revival" of the political left and right, this book traces the significance of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought for secular as well as deeply Christian minds. Placed in the context of religious and cultural history, Niebuhr's theological views deepen and challenge contemporary expertise on issues of war, peace, economic, and personal security. While rejecting cynical pessimism and naive optimism, Niebuhr's Christian realism reinvigorates age-old teachings of the Bible, St. Paul, Augustine, and Kierkegaard. His thought enriches present-day debates between science and religion and between atheists, agnostics, and believers. To live with Niebuhr's legacy is to combine critical acumen with humble self-awareness. It is to pursue a larger common good - for him, God-given - that is shared among individuals, nations, and the world community.
A distinguished American theologian provides a firm theoretical basis for understanding the widespread quest for religious experience in the midst of a technological society. The book describes elements of experience common to people today and presents them as moments of possible awakening to a new quality of perception. Religion is the perennial striving of men and women for orientation in a world they experience as a field of assailing powers. Dr. Niebuhr interprets human faith as a sense of alignment with general patterns of action within this power-world. In our electronically amplified age, we share in the experience of others to an extent that strains the resilience of the human spirit. Whatever else people in this age require, one is the capacity for inclusiveness or generosity on a new scale. Within this perspective, the author interprets the contemporary meaning of Jesus of Nazareth as a persuasive pattern of generous life manifesting the direction of true power.
This text brings together the best of the unpublished works of one of the outstanding American religious thinkers of the 20th century. These selected letters, sermons and essays show the breadth of H. Richard Niebuhr's interests and reveal his concern with integrating theology with practice.
This work represents the first study in English in over twenty years on the theological thinking of Friedrich Schleiermacher. It invites the reader to try on the "thinking in motion" of a pivotal figure in Protestant theology. The author believes that Schleiermacher has been misunderstood and misinterpreted first by Brunner and Barth, and consequently by other present-day theologians. Because so few of the "Barthian captives" have themselves troubled to undertake the eminently worthwhile study of the man's mind, Dr. Niebuhr, with meticulous attention to Schleiermacher's own words, documents and assesses anew his thinking on Christ, religion, and theology. Schleiermacher's thought is described here through a series of "moments." The first is his little-known dialogue, The Christmas Eve, which discusses human religion. The second and the third are his lectures on hermeneutics, which develop his conception of speech and understanding, and his lectures on ethics, which reflect on human reason and history. Part II of the book concentrates on the fourth "moment," his magnum opus, The Christian Faith. What emerges is a systematic theology which organizes and focuses, in and for its own age--using, as it must, its own age's words, symbols, and concepts--the content of the consciousness of the church. To acquaint oneself with Schleiermacher's "unending dialectic of nature and grace" is an intriguing and rewarding experience.
First published in 1985, this widely praised biography of Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the most important American theologian of the twentieth century, is once again in print. "By drawing for the first time on the vast correspondence between Niebuhr and his secular colleagues, Mr. Fox demonstrates that no American theologian ever had such an impact on unbelievers. And no one has since. . . . [Fox] paints a lively picture of the beloved teacher [and] frenetic political organizer . . . Niebuhr seems to have been."--Harvey Cox, The New York Times "Based on meticulous research which includes numerous interviews and a declassified FBI file, the book is written with a verve, grace, and depth of understanding worthy of its subject. Fox is remarkably successful in fusing criticism with sympathetic appreciation and in relating Niebuhr's evolving thought to his public career and private self-scrutiny."--David Brion Davis, The New York Review of Books Fox's book is bound to establish itself as an indispensable contribution not just to our understanding of Niebuhr but to an understanding of the history of twentieth-century liberalism, which Niebuhr did so much to redefine."--Christopher Lasch, In These Times
This important book is an accessible and detailed statement on faith by H. Richard Niebuhr, one of the leading American theologians of this century. Edited by the author's son, himself a distinguished writer and thinker on religious issues, it makes available Niebuhr's last major unpublished writings.
This reissue of a 20th century classic emphasizes an understanding of God's revelation that takes seriously both the Bible itself and modern ideas about the nature of history. Includes a new Foreword by Ottati, which sets Niebuhr's work in the context of his other writings and explores the significance of this book.
A distinguished American theologian provides a firm theoretical basis for understanding the widespread quest for religious experience in the midst of a technological society. The book describes elements of experience common to people today and presents them as moments of possible awakening to a new quality of perception. Religion is the perennial striving of men and women for orientation in a world they experience as a field of assailing powers. Dr. Niebuhr interprets human faith as a sense of alignment with general patterns of action within this power-world. In our electronically amplified age, we share in the experience of others to an extent that strains the resilience of the human spirit. Whatever else people in this age require, one is the capacity for inclusiveness or generosity on a new scale. Within this perspective, the author interprets the contemporary meaning of Jesus of Nazareth as a persuasive pattern of generous life manifesting the direction of true power.
Drawing on Niebuhr's manuscript "On Faith" and on the Stone Lectures he gave at Princeton Theological Seminary in the 1950s, this study considers the structure of human faith, the association between interpersonal faith and faith in God, and faith in everyday living
The Responsible Self was H. Richard Niebuhr's most important work in Christian ethics. In it he probes the most fundamental character of the moral life and it stands today as a landmark contribution to the field. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.
In 1978 and 1979 revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran marked a shift in the balance of power in South West Asia and the world. Then, as now, the world is once more aware that tribalism is no anachronism in a struggle for political and cultural self-determination. This books provides historical and anthropological perspectives necessary to the eventual understanding of the events surrounding the revolutions.
Friedrich Schleiermacher's groundbreaking work in theology and philosophy was forged in the cultural ferment of Berlin at the convergence of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The three sections of this book include illuminating sketches of Schleiermacher's relationship to contemporaries (Mendelssohn, Hegel and Kierkegaard), his work as public theologian (dialogue on Jewish emancipation, founding the University of Berlin) as well as the formation and impact of his two most famous books, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers and The Christian Faith. Richard Crouter examines Schleiermacher's stance regarding the status of doctrine, Church and political authority, and the place of theology among the academic disciplines. Dedicated to the Protestant Church in the line of Calvin, Schleiermacher was equally a man of the university who brought the highest standards of rationality, linguistic sensitivity and a sense of history to bear upon religion.
This work represents the first study in English in over twenty years on the theological thinking of Friedrich Schleiermacher. It invites the reader to try on the "thinking in motion" of a pivotal figure in Protestant theology. The author believes that Schleiermacher has been misunderstood and misinterpreted first by Brunner and Barth, and consequently by other present-day theologians. Because so few of the "Barthian captives" have themselves troubled to undertake the eminently worthwhile study of the man's mind, Dr. Niebuhr, with meticulous attention to Schleiermacher's own words, documents and assesses anew his thinking on Christ, religion, and theology. Schleiermacher's thought is described here through a series of "moments." The first is his little-known dialogue, The Christmas Eve, which discusses human religion. The second and the third are his lectures on hermeneutics, which develop his conception of speech and understanding, and his lectures on ethics, which reflect on human reason and history. Part II of the book concentrates on the fourth "moment," his magnum opus, The Christian Faith. What emerges is a systematic theology which organizes and focuses, in and for its own age--using, as it must, its own age's words, symbols, and concepts--the content of the consciousness of the church. To acquaint oneself with Schleiermacher's "unending dialectic of nature and grace" is an intriguing and rewarding experience.
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