Opinion of Reinhold Niebuhr

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

1892-1971. Theologian and ethicist of some repute, from the days when such people could be credible public intellectuals. Founder (and only significant voice, really) of Christian Realism.

HP. He may have done a creditable job as a secular public intellectual but as a Christian voice he was absolutely atrocious, and is partially to blame for the psychological conflation of Christianity with perceived American national interests that many people have.

[Beet]

A product of his times.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

True, but other theologians of his times didn't actively support executing the Rosenbergs, or say that the problem with McCarthy was that he wasn't effective enough.

[DC Al Fine]

After a quick skimming of his wiki page, HP.

[Beet]

True, but other theologians of his times didn't actively support executing the Rosenbergs, or say that the problem with McCarthy was that he wasn't effective enough.

True, but after witnessing the deaths of 55 million people, the execution of two people for the treasonous act of selling atomic blueprints to a totalitarian state probably didn't seem like much for him. One could easily see a Moderate Hero of the time taking that position. The comments on McCarthy are just strange, it suggests he thought there were a lot of communists in the government which in retrospect is more weird and out of touch than anything else.

Edit: according to wiki, Niebuhr embodied the zeitgeist to an almost comical degree
- Became a Pacifist after WWI
- Was a socialist in the '30s
- Abandoned fellow travellerism in response to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
- Helped found the ADA

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

True, but other theologians of his times didn't actively support executing the Rosenbergs, or say that the problem with McCarthy was that he wasn't effective enough.

True, but after witnessing the deaths of 55 million people, the execution of two people for the treasonous act of selling atomic blueprints to a totalitarian state probably didn't seem like much for him. One could easily see a Moderate Hero of the time taking that position.

Oh, yes, obviously Niebuhr was a Moderate Hero (or, rather, committed to a particular type of hawkish liberalism that now strikes us as Moderate Hero-ish) rather than some sort of bloodthirsty reactionary. The problem is that for a Christian theologian to be this kind of Moderate Hero in a case like this is for a Christian theologian to betray his mission. Even Pius XII appealed to Eisenhower for clemency.

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He really was amazingly hawkish. Even secular anti-Communists were impressed by his commitment to extending American military power.

[Aliens]

One of my teachers in high school was hell-bent on trying to convince us that Niebuhr was a FF.  That's all I remember, so I'll abstain from voting on this one.

[patrick1]

I've taken comfort in the serenity prayer. Don't know anything else.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He really was amazingly hawkish. Even secular anti-Communists were impressed by his commitment to extending American military power.

But his wiki article says he opposed the Vietnam War. So in practice he was actually quite preferable to most of those and nowhere near as destructive.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

He really was amazingly hawkish. Even secular anti-Communists were impressed by his commitment to extending American military power.

But his wiki article says he opposed the Vietnam War. So in practice he was actually quite preferable to most of those and nowhere near as destructive.

Well, yes, and he admitted that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong. I reiterate that for a Christian theologian these are very low standards, and it's as a theoretician of religion as a justification for the extension of political power, rather than in his specific good or bad positions, that Niebuhr's awfulness really shines. Even then, you're right that there were obviously far worse and more damaging people in American religious life at the time--Francis Spellman, for instance, or Oral Roberts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Theologian to The Man; so I'm not really much of a fan.

[minionofmidas]

partially to blame for the psychological conflation of Christianity with perceived American national interests that many people have.

Dig up his bones and perform black rites with them, I suppose.