Twentieth Century Theologians

1. Twentieth Century Theologians American Religious History – Post Civil War to the Present Dr. Donald E. Harpster

2. Twentieth Century Theologians • Introduction • The Liberal Background of the late 19th and early 20th centuries • Neo-Orthodoxy • H. Richard Niebuhr • Paul Tillich • Reinhold Niebuhr • Conclusions

3. The Liberal Background • Accepted biblical criticism and ideas on evolution • Social Gospel Movement • Emphasized a ministry to humanity’s physical needs as well as its spiritual needs • Spoke out against the against the great ills of society including the great divide between the rich and the poor • Called for reform in the political arena • In the Progressive Tradition

4. The Liberal Background • Optimistic – belief that the “Kingdom of God” could become a reality here in the social structures of this earth • Then came World War I with its accompanying disillusionment following the war and the 1920s

5. Neo-Orthodoxy • Reaction to the teachings of Liberal Theology • Re-evaluation of the teachings of the Reformation heritage • Strong emphasis on a transcendent God • European and American • Three best examples in the American experience would be the H. Richard Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich

6. H. Richard Niebuhr • 1894-1962 • Minister of Evangelical Synod, later UCC • Ph.D. from Yale University • President of Elmhurst College (1924-1927) • Professor of Theology • and Christian Ethics at Yale (1931-1962)

7. H. Richard Niebuhr • Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929) • Concern about the variety of different religious groups and why they came into being • Theology and Polity – inadequate, turned to study of history, sociology, and ethics • Differences based on social class, nationalism, and in the U.S. sectionalism (east versus the frontier, north versus south), immigration (tied to nationalism) and race • Great sensitivity to ways in which expressions of faith differ from one another

8. H. Richard Niebuhr • Critique of the liberal Social Gospel • “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” - The Kingdom of God in America (1937)

9. H. Richard Niebuhr • Christ and Culture (1951) • Christ Against Culture – early church, monasticism • Christ of Culture – see Jesus as the great philosopher and educator, theological liberalism • Christ Above Culture – synthesis of Thomas Aquinas, provides of values for society • Christ and Culture in Paradox – tension of two authorities, obedience to God requires obedience society’s institutions and obedience to Christ, Martin Luther • Christ the Transformer of Culture - St. Augustine in The City of God, Paul, John Calvin

10. Paul Tillich • (1886-1965) • B. in Germany and Reinhold Niebuhr encouraged him to leave during the rise of Hitler in 1933 • Taught at Union Seminary, Harvard & University of Chicago

11. Paul Tillich • Major concern was to speak to the culture of his day • Ultimate Concern “Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.”

12. Paul Tillich • Faith “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” “Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.”

13. Paul Tillich • The Self and Others “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.” “Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.” “The first duty of love is to listen.”

14. Reinhold Niebuhr • (1892-1971) • B. Wright City, Missouri • Education – Elmhurst, Eden Seminary & Yale Divinity School • Pastor, Bethel Evangelical Church, Detroit, Michigan (1915-1928) • Professor at Union Seminary (1928-1960)

15. Reinhold Niebuhr • Pastoral years in Detroit • Church membership increase from 66 to 700 • Detroit was 4th largest city in U. S. by early 1900s • Attracted numerous migrants from rural South as well as Jewish and Catholic ethics from eastern and southern Europe • WWI – made appeals to German Americans to be patriotic, pacifist at heart, saw need for compromise as a necessity, support war in order to find peace • Sympathy for workers, critical of Henry Ford

16. Reinhold Niebuhr • Pastoral years in Detroit • Visited Europe in 1923, reinforced his pacifist views • 1930s was leader of Socialist Party of America • Cofounded Union for Democratic Action, which favored strongly military interventionist policy, internationalist foreign policy & pro-union, liberal domestic policy

17. Reinhold Niebuhr • Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) • Individuals are capable of agape or self-giving love, even to the point of dying for another • Institutions of society are another matter, not capable of agape and of willing their own demise in a just cause, the most one can expect is justice • Power is the significant moral persuasion in large groups, just society is result of politics rather than education • Critical of liberalism in the churches which looked idealistically for a time when the Kingdom of God be established on this earth

18. Reinhold Niebuhr • Relationship between Love and Justice • Love demands justice – Struggle to secure justice is not alien to love, need to be concerned with structures of society • Love transcends justice - every idea of justice stands under the higher standard of love, higher norm of love is always revealing the limitations of justice • Love fulfills justice – love meets specific needs of man through justice • Love redeems justice – ever seeks justice, finds wanting our high achievements

19. Reinhold Niebuhr • Concept of Irony • Apparently fortuitous incongruities in life which are discovered on closer examination to be not merely fortuitous. • If virtue becomes vice though some hidden defect in virtue; if strength becomes weakness, because of the vanity which the strength may prompt the man or mighty nation; if security is transposed into insecurity because too much reliance is put on it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not know its own limits, in all such cases the situation is ironic

20. Reinhold Niebuhr • Irony • New England Puritans and problems with alternate views and alleged witches • Innocent nation but not so innocent with regard to our relationships with Native Americans, recent immigrants, etc. • American Messianism or Exceptionalism

21. Reinhold Niebuhr • Nature of Man – Genesis 1-3 • Created in image of God • Radical freedom • Creature with limitations • Limitations create anxiety • Leads to pride • Irony in Creation Story – Humanity tries to be something it can not be, i.e. all powerful, all knowing, etc.

22. Conclusions • Neo-Orthodoxy • Three major voices – H. Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich & Reinhold Niebuhr • Speak to the culture of the day – Paul Tillich • Call to Political Realism – Reinhold Niebuhr • Critique of idealism of Christian liberals of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries