Niebuhr, Know him?

 
The other day I was watching the Tavis Smiley Show and his guest was Gustav Niebuhr, who was on the show promoting his new book, Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America.  The interview turned especially interesting (to me) when Tavis brings up the relationship between Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tavis referring to Gustav’s great uncle, Rienhold Niebuhr: “...it must be something, though, to be a part of a legacy where his thinking, his writing, influences, impacts, changes the life of the person who I regard as the greatest American we've ever produced, Dr. King.   ...there is no King as we know him without his reading of Niebuhr." ¹

Hmmm! As soon as the show was over, I began searching through my King literature and sure enough a number of references appear. King says, “My reading of the works of Reinhold Niebuhr made me aware of the complexity of human motives and the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence. Moreover, I came to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.” ²

Certainly, most of us are aware of the influence Ghandi and Nietzsche had on MLK, but Niebuhr?

And it doesn’t end there. With a simple Google search, guess who else professes their 'love' of Niebuhr?  Barack Obama.

Obama states, "I love him. He's one of my favorite philosophers……I take away [from Niebuhr] 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, and not swinging from naive idealism to bitter realism." ³

I'll let you research Niebuhr at your leisure, but to get you started, two of his most influential books are:  Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) and The Irony of American History (1952).

“In these and other works, Niebuhr emphasized the mixed and ambivalent character of human nature - creative impulses matched by destructive impulses, regard for others overruled by excessive self-regard, the will to power, the individual under constant temptation to play God to history. This is what was known in the ancient vocabulary of Christianity as the doctrine of original sin. Niebuhr summed up his political argument in a single powerful sentence: ‘Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.’” ⁴

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¹ Smiley, Tavis. (2008).  Gustav Niebuhr interview.  The Tavis Smiley Show.  original airdate:  August, 15, 2008.  transcript here.

² King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1986). Pilgrimage To Nonviolence. In J.M. Washington (Ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (pp. 35–36).  New York:  Harper Collins.

³ Brooks, David. (2007). Obama, gospel and verse. International Herald Tribune. reprinted here.

⁴ Schlesinger, Arthur. (2005). Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr. New York Times. reprinted here