Does Civilization Need Religion? A Study in the Social Resources and Limitations of Religion in Modern Life

by Reinhold Niebuhr

First book by the American theologian and political philosopher, a study of liberal religious and political ideals that Niebuhr later largely rejected as unrealistic.

Genres: Nonfiction

242 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

U.S. theologian. The son of an evangelical minister, he studied at Eden Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. He was ordained in the Evangelical Synod of North America in 1915 and served as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Mich., until 1928. His years in that industrial city made him a critic of capitalism and an advocate of socialism. From 1928 to 1960 he taught at New York's Union Theological Seminary. His influential writings, which forcefully criticized liberal Protestant thought and emphasized the persistence of evil in human nature and social institutions, include Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vol. (1941 – 43), and The Self and the Dramas of History (1955).

from The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

A 1958 interview with Reinhold Niebuhr: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/niebuhr_reinhold.html

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EARLY "DEFENSE" OF RELIGION, FROM A FAMED THEOLOGIAN

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) was an American theologian and "public intellectual" during the mid-20th century. His other books include 'The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation' and 'The Irony of American History.'

This 1927 book was written while Niebuhr was still pastor of the Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan. (He went to teach at Union Theological Seminary the following year.) He begins by arguing that it is difficult to imagine man without religion, "for religion is the champion of personality in a seemingly impersonal world." (Pg. 4) However, "its social impotence is as responsible for its decline as is its metaphysical maladjustment." (Pg. 15-16)

He argues that to create a world view which "justifies a high appreciation of personality and fails to develop an ethic which guarantees the worth of personality in society, is the great hypocrisy. It is the hypocrisy which is corrupting almost all modern religion." (Pg. 31) Religion gives man "the assurance that the world of values really has a relevant place in the universe and that values are permanent and will be conserved." (Pg. 49) An ideal religion "makes reverence for personality the end of human action." (Pg. 79)

He suggests that "bibliolatry" is "one of the handicaps to moral progress in almost all religions." (Pg. 101) Lutheranism, on the other hand, is "more closely related to asceticism than Calvinism; for Lutheranism is the Protestant way of despairing of the world and of claiming victory for the religious ideal without engaging the world in combat." (Pg. 110)

Near the end, he states that "Religion has as much right to preach hope as it has to preach repentance." (Pg. 218) Religion will be "scientifically verified" if freedom and purpose "are found to have a place in the cosmic processes, and it is ethically justified if it helps to create and maintain creative freedom and moral purpose in human life." (Pg. 221)

While stylistically, this book seems terribly antiquated, its ideas are nevertheless still of interest, even in our "postmodern," "emerging church" era.