Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice

Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice
Author: Peter B. Josephson
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2018-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1498576702

American public life is gripped by a tumult that it has not experienced in at least half a century. Resentment, distrust, despair, fear, envy, and outrage are the passions of the day. Yet it was not long ago that political scientists and theologians could speak of a “Niebuhr renaissance” marked by an appreciation of moral paradox, ethical nuance, and a recognition of the irony of American history. American political leaders from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to George Bush and John McCain referenced Reinhold Niebuhr as an important influence on their political understandings. Columnists like David Brooks commented on the political condition of contemporary America, and scholars from Gary Dorrien and Daniel Rice to Richard Crouter developed academic accounts of Niebuhr’s political realism. From an insistence on political purity, to a wariness of international institutions and the claims of expertise, to a rejection of whole categories of public goods – it would be difficult to find a more significant shift from the principles that shaped statecraft and public policy during Niebuhr’s prime to those that are foundational in the age of Trump. Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice: Christian Realism and Democracy in America in the Twenty-First Century explains the collapse of the Niebuhrian renaissance in public life and the ascendance of the “children of light and the children of darkness” in the 2016 election. Our focus is Niebuhr himself and what the encounter between his own theology and his practical political experience might reveal in our contemporary situation. Niebuhr tells us that he does not offer precise policy prescriptions. But Niebuhr was a prolific author, and his works offer insights both into what realistic and Christian public policies would look like, and perhaps more importantly into how citizens should think for themselves about the political challenges of our times. Our aim, then, is to reassert the possibility of a distinctly Niebuhrian public intellectualism and a distinctly Niebuhrian political practice in the wake of the 2016 election.

Reinhold Niebuhr and International Relations Theory

Reinhold Niebuhr and International Relations Theory
Author: Guilherme Marques Pedro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351722743

This is the first book in international relations theory entirely devoted to the political thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Focusing on the existential theology which lies at the basis of Reinhold Niebuhr’s theory of international politics, it highlights the ways in which Niebuhrian realism was not only profoundly theological, but also constituted a powerful existentialist reconfiguration of the Realist tradition going back to Saint Augustine. Guilherme Marques Pedro offers an innovative account of Reinhold Niebuhr’s eclectic thought, branching out into politics, ethics, history, society and religion and laying out a conceptual framework through which his work, as much as the realist tradition of international political thought as a whole, can be read. The book calls for the need to revisit classic thinkers within IR theory with an eye to their interdisciplinary background and as a way to remind ourselves of the issues that were at stake within the field as it was growing in autonomy and diversity – issues which remain, regardless of its disciplinary development, at the core of IR’s concerns. This book offers an important contribution to IR scholarship, revealing the great historical wealth, intellectual originality but also the limitations and paradoxes of one of the greatest American political thinkers of the twentieth century.

The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr

The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr
Author: Robin Lovin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 666
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192543059

Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian, writer, and public intellectual who influenced religious leaders and social activists in the United States over four crucial decades in the middle of the twentieth century. The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr traces the development of his work through those years and provides an introduction to the dialogue partners and intellectual adversaries whom he influenced and who shaped his own thinking. It deals with major topics in theology and ethics, providing systematic focus to Niebuhr's wide-ranging works that were directed to many different audiences. Later chapters examine Niebuhr's contributions to political thinking and policy making on issues including international relations, pacifism and the use of force, racial and economic justice, family life and gender equality, and environmental concerns. The concluding section examines Niebuhr's legacy and continuing influence.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr
Author: D. R. Davies
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2019-09-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1532693575

Excerpt from Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet From America In this he 15 a very untypical American, but very typical of prophetic Christianity. In his sociological thinking phe has anticipated a whole social development. He has kept one step ahead of history. That' 5 what makes him a prophetic, Christian revolutionary. But also it is what makes him difficult for so many good, uncomplicated souls to under stand. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
Author: Reinhold Niebuhr
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2011-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226584011

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, first published in 1944, is considered one of the most profound and relevant works by the influential theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and certainly the fullest statement of his political philosophy. Written and first read during the prolonged, tragic world war between totalitarian and democratic forces, Niebuhr’s book took up the timely question of how democracy as a political system could best be defended. Most proponents of democracy, Niebuhr claimed, were “children of light,” who had optimistic but naïve ideas about how society could be rid of evil and governed by enlightened reason. They needed, he believed, to absorb some of the wisdom and strength of the “children of darkness,” whose ruthless cynicism and corrupt, anti-democratic politics should otherwise be repudiated. He argued for a prudent, liberal understanding of human society that took the measure of every group’s self-interest and was chastened by a realistic understanding of the limits of power. It is in the foreword to this book that he wrote, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” This edition includes a new introduction by the theologian and Niebuhr scholar Gary Dorrien in which he elucidates the work’s significance and places it firmly into the arc of Niebuhr’s career.

The Ethics of Encounter

The Ethics of Encounter
Author: Mescher, Marcus
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2020-03-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608338401

"The author provides an ethical framework for the "culture of encounter" that Pope Francis calls us to build"--

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr
Author: P. Merkley
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 302
Release: 1975-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0773583394

During a lifetime of active involvement in American political life, Reinhold Niebuhr did much good and a certain amount of mischief. Both the good and the mischief are traceable to the same source: his faith. For too long, Niebuhr has been misrepresented by the political theorists and the historians as a link in the pragmatic tradition. It is time we began to do Niebuhr the justice of taking him at his own evaluation - as a dogmatic Christian. The meaning of his own life, he believed, was in the keeping of God. And so, he believed, was the meaning of his nation's history. He believed that history was radically open to all possibilities of both good and evil until its end—and he could thus nonchalantly apply to America's collective destiny the dictum of St. Paul that he applied to his own: that, "whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die we are the Lord's."

The Invention of International Relations Theory

The Invention of International Relations Theory
Author: Nicolas Guilhot
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0231152671

The 1954 Conference on Theory, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, featured a 'who's who' of scholars and practitioners debating what would become the foundations of international relations theory. Assembling his own team of experts, the editor revisits a seminal event in the discipline.

The Irony of American History

The Irony of American History
Author: Reinhold Niebuhr
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2010-01-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226583996

“[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—President Barack Obama Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace. “The supreme American theologian of the twentieth century.”—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Times “Niebuhr is important for the left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism. His thought offers a much better understanding of where the Bush administration went wrong in Iraq.”—Kevin Mattson, The Good Society “Irony provides the master key to understanding the myths and delusions that underpin American statecraft. . . . The most important book ever written on US foreign policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, from the Introduction

Religion in International Relations

Religion in International Relations
Author: F. Petito
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2003-06-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1403982368

Are the secular foundations of international relations sustainable at present? This comprehensive study shows how the global resurgence of religion confronts international relations theory with a theoretical challenge comparable to that raised by the end of the Cold War or the emergence of globalization. The volume tries to shake the secular foundational myths of the discipline and outline the need for an expansion into religiously inspired spheres of thought. It also challenges the most condemning accusation against religion: the view that the politicization of religion is always a threat to security and inimical to the resolution of conflict. Finally, the task of demystifying religion is taken further with an argument for a stronger and "progressive" political engagement of the worldwide religious traditions in the contemporary globalized era.