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| Time Magazine cover: Reinhold Niebuhr, March 8, 1948 |
There was once a
time in America when philosophers, theologians, and public intellectuals who
thought deeply and critically about the world were respected and uplifted by American
society. From 1926 to 1962, influential theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul
Tillich, Karl Barth, Henry Sloane Coffin, and C.S. Lewis each appeared on the
cover of Time magazine. Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel was
frequently quoted in Time, and the magazine did an extensive profile of him
in 1956. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., appeared on Time’s cover
three times prior to his assassination in 1968. Until the 1990s, Time
devoted one page every week to a section on Religion and Theology. It is
impossible to know how much this mattered in the halls of power, but for most
of the 20th Century, Time was a pillar of the media landscape and one of
the most highly read publications in the world.
Time’s attention to
religion and theology may have simply reflected a more homogeneous American
society, a time when many of our elite institutions were dominated by liberal
Protestantism. By the latter half of the 20th century, America had gradually
transformed into a more pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and
increasingly secular society that paid far less attention to theologians and
religious institutions. But before the mid-1960s, Reinhold Niebuhr, who taught
at the Union Theological Seminary in New York for over 30 years, was among the
most influential theologians in modern American history.
Niebuhr wrote and lectured frequently
about the intersection of theology, history, foreign policy, politics, and
culture. He had a deep sense of history and its importance in explaining the
human experience within the larger scheme of things. And he reminded Americans
that, even as the most powerful nation on earth, we are but a small and limited
part of a wider human story.
Niebuhr was deeply committed to
social justice, stemming from his days as a young pastor in 1920’s Detroit
fighting the oppressive working conditions on Henry Ford’s assembly lines. He
believed deeply in the workings of democracy. Niebuhr’s writings blended a progressive
drive for social activism with a deeply conservative skepticism of human perfectibility.
He favored bold actions to advance the cause of justice. But he rejected
utopian thinking and realistically appraised the human condition as morally
ambiguous. His pragmatism appealed to liberals and conservatives alike. Barack
Obama once called Niebuhr “one of my favorite philosophers.” Other prominent admirers
of Niebuhr included Democrats Hillary Clinton and Hubert Humphrey and
Republicans John McCain and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former UN Ambassador to Ronald
Reagan.
Although he started out as a Christian
pacifist, in the 1930s Niebuhr watched with growing alarm the rise of Hitler
and Stalin. He came to view Christian pacifism as an inadequate response to the
global threats of fascism and totalitarianism. To address this deficiency, he developed
a philosophy known as Christian realism, which examines the world as it is, not
as we want it to be. As the United States tilted towards isolationism in 1940,
Niebuhr pushed for America to aid Britain in its fight against the Nazis. He
championed U.S. intervention in World War II because the future of democracy
and the entire world order was under attack.
Niebuhr believed that human
beings are by nature sinful, afflicted with excessive pride and a
self-preoccupation that frequently results in moral blindness. For Niebuhr,
this was an empirical fact rooted in history and experience. Moreover, the consequences
of humanity’s proclivity for sin were more damaging when committed by institutions
and groups, especially nations.
Although most Americans today are
turned off by the traditional concept of “sin” and prefer other words to
describe a fallen or lost humanity, Niebuhr’s views resonated in the generation
that wrestled with the moral depravity of Hitler and Stalin, the Holocaust, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation, racial injustice,
and economic inequality. When Time put a troubled-looking Niebuhr on the
cover of its magazine on March 8, 1948, it accompanied it with the caption,
“Man’s story is not a success story.”
An objective assessment of human history
supports Niebuhr’s beliefs about the nature of man. One need not be a Christian
theologian to recognize that humanity is deeply flawed. My Jewish
father-in-law, a professor of anthropology and psychology, often said (only half-jokingly)
about the human race when he was alive, “We are a rotten species.” However one
phrases it, the essential truth remains, human beings are by nature blinded by
self-interest and morally indifferent to injustice, even if we have the
capacity and desire to do good. It is why moral leadership is so important in
institutions and in nations.
Following the war, Niebuhr was an
early proponent of Cold War strategy as a necessary deterrent to Soviet
expansionism. But he became increasingly disillusioned with the excessive use
of American power throughout the world and was an outspoken critic of American hubris
and overreaching arrogance. In the Irony of American History (1952),
Niebuhr warned against the dangers of imperialism and exaggerated claims of
American virtue:
A nation with an inordinate degree of
political power is doubly tempted to exceed the bounds of historical
possibilities, if it is informed by an idealism which does not understand the
limits of man’s wisdom and volition in history.
Imperialism is a perennial problem of
human existence; for powerful nations and individuals inevitably tend to use
the weak as instruments of their purposes.
Niebuhr believed that America’s
certainty of its own righteousness led to the tragedy of Vietnam, which he called
“the most pointless, costly, and bloody war in our history.” He wrote presciently about the
hazards of America believing in its own inherent goodness. To confidently
assume that we alone have the capacity to eliminate evil and spread freedom in
the world, clouds our judgment in the exercise of military and economic power. The
complexity of the world requires a great deal of humility; American myths and
illusions distort our self-understanding as a nation.
Having supported American efforts
in World War II and the early stages of the Cold War, and having lived through
and witnessed the horrors of the twentieth century, Niebuhr agreed that war was
sometimes necessary to confront evil. He cautioned, however, that the exercise
of military power must be a measured undertaking and not part of a holy crusade.
Any decision to engage in war must be made with a sense of human tragedy and a
profound concern for innocent human life. He warned that envy and pride would
lead to our downfall.
Toward the end of his life,
Niebuhr developed a close friendship with his Morningside Heights neighbor,
Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel. Like Heschel, Niebuhr’s theological
thinking was greatly influenced by the Hebrew prophets. He shared with them a
belief that morality and politics are closely connected and that the fate of
the earth rests on humanity.
It was why Niebuhr recognized the
imperative of a vital democracy in a free society. “Man’s capacity for justice
makes democracy possible,” Niebuhr wrote, “but man’s inclination to injustice
makes democracy necessary.” According to Richard Crouther, professor of
religious studies at Carleton College and author of Reinhold Niebuhr: On Politics, Religion, and Christian Faith (Oxford University Press,
2010), “Like most of us, Niebuhr knew in his heart that we must affirm and
appeal to a higher moral order amid the daily challenges of our individual and
collective lives. What gives depth to his teaching is the constant appeal to
history and the facts of our experience as limited humans who are surrounded by
the crises of a troubled and perplexing world.”
Perhaps Niebuhr is too complex a
thinker for America in the 21st century. But America could certainly use his
wisdom and guidance today. On September 22, the president of the United States stood
on the podium of the United Nations and threatened to “annihilate” the Iranian people and drive them “into hell with no chance of survival.” It was not the
first time Trump had threatened to annihilate an entire civilization. The irony
of such a statement before this international body, created in response to the
bloodiest and most violent conflict in human history to promote world peace and
international cooperation, should not be lost on anyone.
Niebuhr would have been horrified
by President Trump’s willingness to threaten friends and upset alliances cultivated
and nurtured through 80 years of diplomacy and mutual trust. He would have
condemned this administration’s military adventurism and unilateral exercises
of power to suit its own ends—the U.S.
war of choice in Iran; the unprovoked military invasion of Venezuela; Trump
declaring “to the victor belong the spoils” to justify his claims on Venezuelan
oil reserves; the illegal and extrajudicial killings of 227 civilians in the
Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; the president’s threats to invade Cuba,
Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Oman; his military strikes on seven
other countries in the past 18 months; and his utter disregard for
international law and diplomacy.
It would have been unthinkable in
Niebuhr’s time for a U.S. president to tell The New York Times, as Trump did, that the only limit on his power is “my own morality, my own
mind—it’s the only thing that can stop me.” Indeed, no modern president would
have so easily dismissed international law and norms established by the United
States and its allies after World War II to maintain world stability and
prevent another world war.
Niebuhr would have spoken
prophetically against Trump’s repeated lies that human-caused climate change is
a “hoax,” most recently spewed by Trump at the United Nations. Niebuhr believed
that, only when humanity has the moral will and practical wisdom to assume
responsibility for the consequences of our collective actions, will we have the
capacity to protect the earth, and with it, all of humanity.
Niebuhr also would have recoiled
at the absurdity and arrogance of Trump’s insistence on the geographical
designations “Lake of America” and “Gulf of America” and his promise to “make America
great again.” Niebuhr was harshly critical of American idolatry and blind
patriotism. He rejected unreflective assertions of America as the “greatest
country on earth,” which disregards how America empirically compares to other
countries on such things as universal access to health care, income inequality,
and other matters of economic and political justice.
Niebuhr embraced American
idealism and the ability of American democracy to correct past injustices at
home and excesses abroad. But he was suspicious of “true believers,” people who
never have doubts. For Niebuhr, an element of moral doubt was necessary for
self-awareness, for people and nations. He was concerned about “a deep layer of
messianic consciousness in the mind of America” that could eventually lead us
astray.
As the historian Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., a great admirer of Niebuhr, once wrote: “History is the best
antidote to delusion of omnipotence and omniscience. Self-knowledge is the
indispensable prelude to self-control for the nation as well as the individual,
and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing
perspectives.”
It is unlikely that Trump is acquainted
with the intellectual legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr and his pivotal role in
shaping twentieth-century American thought. But the modern world desperately
needs Niebuhr’s moral wisdom to counter Trump’s celebration of power over
principle, personal ego over morality, and raw self-interest over international
law.
At the end of The Irony of
American History, Niebuhr ominously warned what can happen to a great
nation blinded by overreaching pride, arrogance, and moral blindness:
For if we should perish, the
ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The
primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes
too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be
induced not by some accident of nature or history, but by hatred and vainglory.
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