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    Why Niebuhr Now?
    Why Niebuhr Now?
    Why Niebuhr Now?
    Ebook136 pages2 hours

    Why Niebuhr Now?

    By John Patrick Diggins

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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.

     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateJun 15, 2011
    ISBN9780226148861
    Why Niebuhr Now?
    Author

    John Patrick Diggins

    John Patrick Diggins was distinguished professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was the author of numerous books, including On Hallowed Ground, The Proud Decades, The Lost Soul of American Politics, The Rise and Fall of the American Left, and Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy.

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    • 3/5
      The essence of Niebuhr as Niebuhr applied his thought to public policy.Sometimes Diggins' interpretations of the great theologian seem just a bit too pat or just a bit off base. The comparison of the German Nietzsche to the "American" Niebuhr is especially simplistic. Although Niebuhr was born in the American Midwest and was an Anglophile, his thought was shaped by his German-immigrant father and by the German pietistic tradition of his early education. Still, it is worthwhile to have some of Niebuhr's most important insights restated and to learn how the late Mr. Diggins applied them to the policies of George W. Bush.

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