Reinhold Niebuhr in Contemporary Scholarship

Bibliographic Data

ID14760201
AuthorsRobin W Lovin (0000-0003-2127-7204, Southern Methodist University, corresponding author), Robin Lovin
Year2003
Volume31
Issue3
Pages489-505
Publication date2003-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9795.00149
OpenAlexW2087554585
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited9

Recent studies of Reinhold Niebuhr's life and work demonstrate his continued importance in theology, ethics, and political thought. Historical studies by Heather Warren, Mark Kleinman, and Normunds Kamergrauzis provide new assessments of Niebuhr's role as a political and religious leader in his own time and trace the consequences of the movements in which he participated. They also show us more clearly how his work was connected to the ideas and programs of his contemporaries. Colm McKeogh offers a more systematic treatment of Niebuhr's political realism in relation to just war theory. Niebuhr's intellectual legacy remains disputed, with Stanley Hauerwas and Langdon Gilkey offering radically different assessments of his theology. Hauerwas sees in Niebuhr a close connection to the religious liberalism of William James that precludes any authentic Christian witness. Niebuhr's empiricism reduces God to a necessary feature of human consciousness. Gilkey notes Niebuhr's early use of James' psychology, but discerns a theology of history that is central to Niebuhr's mature work. In that theology, the ground of hope necessarily lies beyond human consciousness, and indeed beyond history itself

Consciousness · Epistemology · Politics · Relation (database · Scholarship · Sociology · Theology · Witness · Augustinian Studies and Theology · Law · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Religious studies · Theology and Philosophy of Evil

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