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John P. Diggins

Why Niebuhr Now? Hardcover – June 30, 2011

by John Patrick Diggins (Author)

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Barack Obama has called him “one of my favorite philosophers.” John McCain wrote that he is “a paragon of clarity about the costs of a good war.” Andrew Sullivan has said, “We need Niebuhr now more than ever.” For a theologian who died in 1971, Reinhold Niebuhr is maintaining a remarkably high profile in the twenty-first century.

In Why Niebuhr Now? acclaimed historian John Patrick Diggins tackles the complicated question of why, at a time of great uncertainty about America’s proper role in the world, leading politicians and thinkers are turning to Niebuhr for answers. Diggins begins by clearly and carefully working through Niebuhr’s theology, which focuses less on God’s presence than his absence—and the ways that absence abets the all-too-human sin of pride. He then shows how that theology informed Niebuhr’s worldview, leading him to be at the same time a strong opponent of fascism and communism and a leading advocate for humility and caution in foreign policy.

Turning to the present, Diggins highlights what he argues is a misuse of Niebuhr’s legacy on both the right and the left: while neoconservatives distort Niebuhr’s arguments to support their call for an endless war on terror in the name of stopping evil, many liberal interventionists conveniently ignore Niebuhr’s fundamental doubts about power. Ultimately, Niebuhr’s greatest lesson is that, while it is our duty to struggle for good, we must at the same time be wary of hubris, remembering the limits of our understanding.

The final work from a distinguished writer who spent his entire career reflecting on America’s history and promise, Why Niebuhr Now? is a compact and perceptive book that will be the starting point for all future discussions of Niebuhr.

Print length

152 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Publication date

June 30, 2011
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0226148831
ISBN-13

978-0226148830
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Editorial Reviews

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“It is a genuine blessing that John Patrick Diggins left us this brilliant reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr. In crisp and eloquent prose, his book explains as well as anything I have seen why we are experiencing a revival of our appreciation for Niebuhr—and, more importantly, why this is a very good thing. Diggins, like Niebuhr, always defied philosophical pigeonholing and, also like Niebuhr, never sought to evade the most difficult moral questions. If one may say so, this match of subject and author was made in heaven.”

-- E. J. Dionne, author of Why Americans Hate Politics

“Like many an American thinker skilled at enduring maxims, Niebuhr faced and still faces the problem of being reduced to an aphorist for that quintessential American product: the higher form of greeting card. In his final work, Diggins does the best any scholar possibly could to rescue Niebuhr from that fate.”

-- Carlin Romano ― Chronicle of Higher Education

"A good introduction to the works of a complex man, it adroitly places Niebuhr's thought among the 20th-century intellectual milieu that Mr Diggins spent a lifetime studying." ― Economist

"Intriguing. . . . Diggins gets Niebuhr right because, like his subject, Diggins was never a person comfortable with the certainties of either anti-war leftism or triumphant neo-conservatism." -- Alan Wolfe ― New Republic

“Why Niebuhr Now? offers a series of wide-ranging and spirited meditations on Niebuhr’s intellectual contributions that will inspire those inclined to view Niebuhr’s thought in broad strokes.” ― Modern Intellectual History

About the Author

John Patrick Diggins (1935–2009) was distinguished professor at the City University of New York and the author of many books, including Eugene O’Neill’s America and The Promise of Pragmatism, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; First Edition (June 30, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 152 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226148831
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226148830
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,186,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,273 in Church & State Religious Studies
- #6,307 in History of Religion & Politics
- #9,968 in Religious Philosophy (Books)

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Thomas J. Bieter

NIEBUHR A NIHILIST?

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2012

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Having read Professor Diggins' masterful study of pragmatism, The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority
I was delighted when I discovered the publication of Why Niebuhr Now ? Why Niebuhr Now?

I was unfamiliar with Niebuhr when I read in Professor Kloppenberg's excellent book Reading Obama Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition [New in Paper ]
that: "The columnist David Brooks in particular has written extensively about Obama's sustained engagement with the writings of Niebuhr, and Obama himself has often cited Niebuhr as an important influence on his thought." p. 120 Kloppenberg also describes Obama as a philosophical pragmatist. Intrigued by the apparent contradiction between Obama's Christianity and philosophical pragmatism, and interested in President Obama's intellectual worldview, I decided that I would investigate the life and thought of Reinhold Niebuhr.

Diggins (April 1, 1935 - January 28, 2009) was a first-rate historian. Thus, this is a brief history of Niebuhr. The author skillfully situates Niebuhr (June 21st, 1892 - June 1st, 1971) in relation to many significant people, ideas, and events of his time, often in fascinating but brief detail. For me, the work was an informative and enjoyable read.

Finally, when I began my investigation of Niebuhr, I came upon The Pragmatic God - On the Nihilism of Reinhold Niebuhr, by Professor Harry J. Ausmus. The Pragmatic God (American University Studies. Series VII. Theology and Religion)
Curious, I got the book from the library and read it quickly. Strangely, I was unable to find a review of the book. The author's thesis is that the logical consequence of Niebuhr's thought is nihilism, certainly a rather serious charge to make against a prominent theologian/preacher! In my opinion, the neglect of the challenge of the book's thesis by scholars in history, philosophy, and religion is culpable. One must speculate that perhaps many intellectuals avoid thinking about nihilism due to a fear that they may confront some nihilism in their thought.

I thought about the nihilism thesis when I read the following surprising paragraphs in WHY NIEBUHR NOW?:

"Whether a supreme being exists was of less importance to Reinhold Niebuhr than the message Christianity holds out to humankind. The theologian would describe God as the center of meaning, the source of love, and "the ground of existence and the essence which transcends existence:'2 But these formulations were for him a "mythical paradox." Niebuhr treated as symbolic many of the claims made about God, which he took seriously but not literally. The biblical tale's depiction of the human condition had no inevitability of death.

Niebuhr felt God as more an absence than a presence, and he attempted to describe what God's absence meant for the self, which is the core of human existence. For Niebuhr the self is finite and in a state of constant anxiety, susceptible to self-seeking and self-deceit. Niebuhr's quarrel was not with God but with God's fallen creatures, especially men and women who refuse to face the limits of their own human nature and strut high and mighty through life, victims of pride and blind to sin." (Underlining added)
John Patrick Diggins. Why Niebuhr Now? (Kindle Location 1252-1261). Kindle Edition.

And I wondered: Did Niebuhr actually believe that the historical person, Jesus Christ, was a Supreme Being?

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W. J. Chambers

Could be much better

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2017

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Disappointing. Often it's difficult to determine if Diggins is presenting what Niebuhr thought,or what Diggins thinks, and never really gets around to answering the question in the title. It feels like a partial draft of what could become a much better book. Gilkey, while far from an easy read, is much clearer on all levels.

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Don't Read Much Fiction

Perfect book title for an intriguing IR theorist

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2016

This short, very quotable book is a biography of sorts, tracing Niebuhr's philosophical evolution. It is set against the background of his secular, Christian and communist contemporaries and our current maladies. Therefore, Niebuhr's convictions speak directly to today's debates in: race relations, gender issues, culture wars, religious power abuses, all forms of exceptionalism and international relations in application.

Niebuhr distrusted power politics due to pride. American exceptionalism was one form of that destructive pride. He condemned humanism for its neglect of sin, which he deemed empirically evident in history. His belief in sin labeled him a realist but politically he held to many socialist principles. Niebuhr argued that capitalism could not be satisfied but not necessarily for the same reasons that Marxism developed its theory of capitalist takeover.

To many of his readers and critics, he lacked a final solution to his political theories. As a result he was called by some as a "Christian existentialist". It was not a lack of solution, however, that unsettled his critics but his solution that placed love before power.

An early pacifist, Niebuhr adopted a stance more in line with Luther and Bonheoffer on the necessity to just violence. Niebuhr held that pacifism was "... bad faith of a conscience trying selfishly to retain its innocence in an amoral and power-driven world (pg 4)." Self-righteousness was the enemy of personal responsibility and also the corruptor of national agendas on the world's power stage.

Diggins also described the correspondence Niebuhr had with Martin Luther King Jr., along with Niebuhr's personal opinion on the feminist movements. It is not a contradiction to admit that women are physically and emotionally different from men in terms of child rearing and still believe that women will succeed next to men in the workplace. As in the Biblical teaching on marriage, not mentioned by Niebuhr, mutual respect is the basis of sincerely supporting the other in all things. The stronger has a mandate to love more deeply yet too often pride rejects and abuses the mandate to selflessness.

Niebuhr wrote at the convergence of two philosophical streams. One blamed Christian meekness for not acting swiftly and the other blamed prideful self-interest for taking violence to a self-righteous and unjust end. The middle ground is a faith-based warrior, learned enough to self-restraint but wise to execute the exceptions to peace with ethical, not compromising, actions. Niebuhr never settled on the solution to "choose the lesser of two evils".

What sits uneasy in the hearts and minds of the culture war right is that Niebuhr's philosophy admittedly may not lead to national dominance or international power... but it will be closer to justice. Only Christ can defeat sin. The tools of liberalism, democracy, politics and especially capitalism against the target of evil is a self-destructive objective. The latter tools, without Christ, could be the worst of monsters. Democracy is an imperfect tool butnecessary because societies are immoral. Liberalism and power are constantly entangled. Liberalism, as Niebuhr seemed to imply, easily becomes "religion" without the grace of Christ.

Without Christ, democracy's power, liberalism and capitalism will miss the true nature of the foe. "The tragic hero, Niebuhr taught, perishes not because he is weak but because he is strong, possessed of the proud delusion that evil can be annihilated and history redeemed (pg 76)."

Politics cannot bring peace. Only God's plan of love and forgiveness can. Where Niebuhr strays from more mainstream Christianity is in his role for the Church along with other relativistic scriptural interpretations. Niebuhr, undoubtedly influenced by WWII events, was wholly disgusted with the orthodox church response to Nazi Germany but he did consider the redeeming value of individual church members against the same evils. Diggins depicts Niebuhr as a reluctant pastor, critical of the church's capacity to lead. He eventually left church "service" for more active "leadership".

The title of this book is perfect as so many search for the proper place of politics and religion in national and international matters. Diggins also describes a theologian philosopher that is appealing to those skeptical of organized religion and fearful of exclusive religious teachings. Niebuhr's flexible and relativistic Christian theology is also more palatable to a political platform. This book, and Niebuhr in general, is a good read for all sides of the religious and political debate. Yet somehow, Niebuhr paradoxically leaves readers both morally satisfied but politically and spiritually wanting. Perhaps there is a good reason why religion should never rest easy in politics.

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