Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr's Christian Realism (Staat – Souveränität – Nation) 3658344636, 9783658344634

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Staat – Souveränität – Nation

Christoph Rohde Editor

Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism

Staat – Souvera¨ nita¨ t – Nation Beiträge zur aktuellen Staatsdiskussion Series Editor Rüdiger Voigt, Netphen, Germany

Bis vor wenigen Jahren schien das Ende des souveränen Nationalstaates gekommen zu sein. An seine Stelle sollten supranationale Institutionen wie die Europäische Union und – auf längere Sicht – der kosmopolitische Weltstaat treten. Die Zustimmung der Bürgerinnen und Bürger zu weiterer Integration schwindet jedoch, viele Menschen sind der Ansicht, dass die supranationalen europäischen Institutionen zu viel Macht haben. Internet-Giganten, die Unmengen an privaten Daten speichern und vermarkten, aber auch multinationale Unternehmen und Milliardäre entziehen sich staatlicher Steuerung. Die demokratische Legitimation politischer Entscheidungen ist zum Gegenstand kontroverser Diskussionen geworden. Das unbedingte Vertrauen in die Politik scheint abzunehmen. Die „Staatsabstinenz“ scheint sich jedoch auch in der Politikwissenschaft ihrem Ende zu nähern. Aber wie soll der Staat der Zukunft gestaltet sein? Dieser Thematik widmet sich die interdisziplinäre Reihe „Staat – Souveränität – Nation“, die Monografien und Sammelbände von Forscherinnen und Forschern aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen einem interessierten Publikum vorstellen will. Das besondere Anliegen von Herausgeber und Wissenschaftlichem Beirat der Reihe ist es, einer neuen Generation von politisch interessierten Studierenden den Staat in allen seinen Facetten vorzustellen und sie zur Diskussion anzuregen. Until a few years ago the end of the sovereign nation state seemed to have come. It was to be replaced by supranational institutions such as the European Union and—in the longer term—the cosmopolitan world state. However, public support for further integration is waning, and many people think that the supra national European institutions have too much power. Internet giants, which store and market vast amounts of private data, but also multinational companies and billionaires elude state control. The democratic legitimacy of political decisions has become the issue of controversial discussions. The unconditional confidence in politics seems to be declining. However, the "abstinence of the state" seems to be nearing its end in political science as well. But how should the state of the future be structured? The interdisciplinary series “State – Sovereignty – Nation” is devoted to this topic and aims to present monographs and edited volumes by researchers from various disciplines to an interested audience. The special concern of the series’ editor and the board of advisors is to present the state in all its facets to a new generation of politically interested students and to stimulate discussion. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat/Board of Advisors: Oliver Hidalgo, Regensburg; Dieter Hüning, Trier; Violet Lazarevic, Melbourne; Oliver W. Lembcke, Bochum; Dirk Lüddecke, München; Massimo Mori, Torino; Peter Nitschke, Vechta; Emanuel Richter, Aachen; Stefano Saracino, Wien; Jula Wildberger, Paris; Anita Ziegerhofer, Graz.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/gp/series/12756

Christoph Rohde Editor

Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism

Editor Christoph Rohde LMU München München, Germany

ISSN 2625-7076 ISSN 2625-7084 (electronic) Staat – Souveränität – Nation ISBN 978-3-658-34463-4 ISBN 978-3-658-34464-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1 © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Responsible Editor: Jan Treibel This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Preface

The following anthology on Reinhold Niebuhr’s understanding of the state fills a lacuna in the vast body of literature that deals with the famous American theologian. The fact that it is published by the seminal German publishing house Springer and is integrated into the series state—sovereignty—nation of Rüdiger Voigt and Samuel Salzborn proves the importance of the project. A quarter of a century ago, Christoph Rohde, the editor of the volume and my student, has published his excellent master’s thesis The Image of political man in Reinhold’s Niebuhr’s Christian Realism under consideration of International Politics. I am glad that in his scholarship he has never lost interest in the significant work of Niebuhr (1892-1971). The theologian and social philosopher with German roots is not only considered as the ”founding father“ of the influential school of thought in international politics called political realism that encompasses high ranking diplomats such as Henry A. Kissinger, George F. Kennan or Paul Nitze. Niebuhr’s students were eminent scholars like Kenneth W. Thompson, Robert E. Osgood and Kenneth Waltz. Niebuhr was one of the first critics of the so called ”historical optimism“ that believed in history as a process of continuing progress; both American style liberalism as well as Marxism were guilty of overestimating the rational and moral perfectibility of man. For Niebuhr, rationality was always the servant of the constructive as well as the destructive potentialities of men; the individual self was free and unbound. His attempts to realize even his highest ideals in political affairs were always obfuscated by the corruptive power of self-interests. Man, who is successful in mastering nature severely fails to tame himself and, in his attempts, to design a sustainable peaceful social surrounding. The fact of his finiteness left him in a state of existential insecurity that he tended to compensate with the help of the accumulation of power and prestige,

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especially in the world of competing nation-states. In a world of unavoidable competition and a permanently working security dilemma the will-to-power tempted nation-states to pursue imperialistic strategies. With help of his approach Niebuhr could explain to a disillusioned American public why the Cold War was the result not of evil powers but of unavoidable balance-of-power dynamics. But it is less well known that Niebuhr developed a sophisticated approach towards democracy as well. Therefore, the following book that convenes experts in the field of politics and religion from the United States, Israel, Italy, and Germany offers new insights into Niebuhr’s understanding of the state. How did Niebuhr think about the newly founded state of Israel? How did he define the relationship between the individual and community? What reasons did he recognize for the breakdown of the young German democracy? How did he try to reconcile biblical and secular perspectives towards society? How did he personally engage to support resistance against totalitarian systems? The current Corona crisis confronts a technologically advanced, digitalized society with its vulnerabilities. Resilience is needed not only to defeat the dangerous virus, but also with respect to protect democratic freedoms. In these times such a compendium can contribute to inspire a self-reflective view on our society. Christoph Rohde three years ago has published an important book concerning Niebuhr’s Christian Realism in the German language with the title Reinhold Niebuhr—the birth of Christian Realism out of the Spirit of Resistance. It is my hope that his recent book will initiate a spirited discourse concerning the future of the nation-state and democracy in times of crisis. 15th May 2020

Prof. Dr. Dr. h c. Kindermann

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been made possible if my idea had not been confidently supported by the publishers of the influential series State—Sovereignty—Nation, Rüdiger Voigt and Samuel Salzborn. These experts have published numerous important books in the science of government (Staatswissenschaft). Both editors have the courage to extend the range of this subject into interdisciplinary spheres like public international law, theology, sociology, and philosophy. This has led to an enormous accumulation of wisdom in this field of inquiry. Jodok Troy gave me some valuable advice concerning the field of political theology. Uwe Siemon-Netto supported me in the understanding of Martin Luther’s quite complex teaching of the two kingdoms. Theologian Axel Toussaint provided me with insights into the German theology of the 20th century. Political Scientist Alexander Reichwein gave me important information concerning the development of a European discipline of International Relations that more and more incorporates ideas of political theology. First and foremost, I owe my gratitude to the authors of this book. They had a lot of patience with me, as I had to postpone the publication for a longer period because of a serious health problem in the year 2019. Luca Castellin supported me with important insights into the current Niebuhr reception. Ben Mollov and David True helped me to bring a better structure into my contributions. My good friend Helmut Herrmann looked over some of my manuscripts and identified grammatical errors and the inappropriate use of language and showed a lot of patience with me. Martin Gerhold supported me by formatting the manuscript what he did already in my previous publications and was an important emotional support by finishing the manuscript. Ingmar Niemann was an important critic who brought my ideas into a “realistic” perspective. My parents supported me with a paycheck when it was necessary for an extraordinary expense. In many

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respects, this book was not only an academic endeavor, but also an exercise in Christian solidarity and friendship. The services of the Bavarian State Library during the difficult times of the pandemic were of great help. Also of help were the research services of the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich and the extensive services of the employees of the Library of Congress in Washington D. C., who swiftly answered my requests and sent me original papers of the Niebuhr Papers that are stored there. After much study, I can now fully understand the wise man, King Salomon, who in the Old Testament summarized it in this manner: And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh (Ecclesiastes 12: 12). With regards to the content of the book, I take full responsibility for statements or words which might be judged as not adequate or incomplete. Email: [email protected]

Abbreviations

Formalities ROA—remark of author Niebuhr Books (date of publication of 1st edition) 1929 Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic—NTC 1932 Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics—MM 1934 Reflections upon the End of an Era—REE 1935 An Interpretation of Christian Ethics—ICE The Nature and Destiny of Man—NDM (two volumes) 1939 Vol. I Human Nature—NDM I 1941 Vol. II Human Destiny—NDM II 1944 The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness—CL 1946 Discerning the signs of the times. Sermons for today and tomorrow— DST 1953 Christian realism and political problems—CRPP 1955 The Self and the Dramas of History—SDH 1959 The Structure of Nations and Empires—NE 1963 A Nation So Conceived—NSC 1965 Man’s nature and his communities—MNC Love and Justice. Edited by D. B. Robertson—LaJ with Paul E. Sigmund: The Democratic Experience: Past and Prospects—DE Journals C&C—Christianity & Crisis

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Abbreviations

CC—Christian Century WT—World Tomorrow Publishing Houses CUP—Cambridge University Press H & B—Harper & Brothers OUP—Oxford University Press PUP—Princeton University Press R & L—Rowman & Littlefield PUP—Princeton University Press Scribner—Charles Scribner’s Sons UCP—University of Chicago Press VS—Springer Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft WJK—Westminster John Knox Press YUP—Yale University Press Institutions ADA—Americans for Democratic Action AFGF—American Friends of German Freedom BLM—Black Lives Matter CDG—Council for a Democratic Germany ERC—Emergency Rescue Committee NB—Neu Beginnen GG—Grundgesetz (German constitution) TKD—Two-Kingdoms Doctrine USEM—U.S. Education Mission to Germany UTS—Union Theological Seminary Quotations from the Bible are cited after the following principle: Books in the Old Testament Lev.—Leviticus Letters in the New Testament: Romans 7; 14-16—Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Chapter Religion and Democracy in Reinhold Niebuhr‘s Christian Realism, Vers 14-16

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Books of the Gospel John 8; 12—Gospel of John, Chapter Reinhold Niebuhr: State Governance in Times of Crisis, Vers 12 Luke 4; 13—Book of Luke

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christoph Rohde

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Part I The Art of Living Together: The Relationship Between Individual and Society in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Political Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Luca G. Castellin

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How Niebuhr’s Interpretation of Martin Luther, Karl Barth and Calvinism Influenced His Understanding of the State . . . . . . . . . . . . Christoph Rohde

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The State and Prophetic Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David True

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Part II Reinhold Niebuhr and the State of Israel: A Study in the Foreign Policy of a Christian Realist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ben Mollov and Shmuel Sandler

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Niebuhr’s Complex Relationship with Germany: How Did His Experiences Influence His Image of the State? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christoph Rohde

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Part III Religion and Democracy in Reinhold Niebuhr‘s Christian Realism . . . . Michael Plathow

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Reinhold Niebuhr: State Governance in Times of Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ingmar Niemann

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Niebuhr and the Race Question: Can the State Successfully Eliminate Racism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christoph Rohde

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Editor and Contributors

About the Editor Dr. Christoph Rohde was research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2004–2010), of the Hochschule for Politik Munich (2011–2016) and of the University of the Bundeswehr (2008). Currently he works as a consultant for a private security company and as a teacher in the adult and migration education sectors. His latest publications are Reinhold Niebuhr—die Geburt des Christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes, Berlin 2016 and Das Kreuz und der Krieg—Prämissen einer realistischen katholischen Friedensethik.Rückersdorf üb. Nürnberg: Lepanto Verlag 2021. Email: [email protected]

Contributors Luca G. Castellin is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan, Italy). His research focuses on the History of international thought in modern and contemporary age. His research has been published with the International History Review, The European Legacy, Filosofia politica, Storia del pensiero politico, among others. He is the author of Ascesa e declino delle civiltà. La teoria delle macro-trasformazioni politiche di Arnold J. Toynbee (2010), Il realista delle distanze. Reinhold Niebuhr e la politica internazionale (2014), and Società e anarchia. La “English School” e il pensiero politico internazionale (2018). Email: [email protected]

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Editor and Contributors

Web profile: https://docenti.unicatt.it/ppd2/it/#/it/docenti/17674/luca-gino-cas tellin/profilo David True is Associate Professor at Wilson College and co-editor of the journal Political Theology and co-convener of the Political Theology Network. He is the editor of Prophecy in a Secular Age (Pickwick Publications 2021) and co-editor of Paradoxical Virtue: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Virtue Tradition (Routledge 2020). He has published articles and book chapters on Reinhold Niebuhr, secular fundamentalism, just war theory, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Wilson College 1015 Philadelphia Ave. Chambersburg, PA 17201 [email protected] Shmuel Sandler, a Johns Hopkins University Ph.D., Professor emeritus of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University, and Senior Research Fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. The author of over 80 academic publications among them his latest book: The Jewish origins of Israeli Foreign policy (London: Routledge, 2018). Serves now as the President of the Emunah-Efrata College in Jerusalem. President of Emunah-Efrata College, Jerusalem Senior Research Associate, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan Israel 52900 [email protected] Dr. Ben Mollov is on the faculty of the Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences and the Graduate Program in Conflict Management at Bar-Ilan University. He specializes in conflict management from an intercultural perspective and the Jewish political tradition. He is the author of Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience. 2002 and Israel at the Polls 2003, coeditor with Shmuel Sandler and Jonathan Rynhold, Taylor and Francis, London, 2005 and writes numerous articles for the Journal of Church and State, Israel Affairs and other journals in the field. Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel 52900 Email: [email protected] Prof. emeritus Dr. Michael Plathow, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. His latest publications are: Liebe und Recht. Zur Theologie der Liebe, Leipzig 2018, ´Denkgläubigkeit‘. H. E. G. Paulus´Bild von Luther und Reformation, in: Chr.

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Spehr (Ed.), LUTHER G(E)DENKEN, Leipzig 2019, 155—176; Eine transatlantische Beziehung. Dietrich Bonhoeffer und Reinhold Niebuhr, in: DPfBl 120 (2020), 204-210. Bonhoeffer und Reinhold Niebuhr, in: DPfBl 120 (2020), 204-210. Wiss. Theol. Seminar, Kisselgasse 1, 69181 Heidelberg [email protected] Ingmar Niemann Lecturer at Technical University Munich, University of Kempten, New European College Munich and Budapest Business School [email protected] Humplgassl 6, 82515 Wolfratshausen

Introduction Christoph Rohde

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, the scientific relevance of the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his Christian Realism is explained. The purpose of this book is to discuss Niebuhr’s understanding of the state. Actually, Niebuhr received attention in the scientific community as an expert in political theology and social ethics. The contributors of this anthology show, why Niebuhr’s thinking is important as a vindication of liberal democracy as well. Keywords

Reinhold Niebuhr • Christian Realism • Crisis of liberal democracy Democracy and power

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Introduction Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed. Reinhold Niebuhr

In the United States, the American theologian with German roots, Reinhold Niebuhr, belongs to the most important intellectual figures of the twenty-first century. In Germany, however, only fragments of his impressive work are known and C. Rohde (B) München, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_1

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the number of publications about Niebuhr is quite limited. This neglect can be explained. As the nation that has deeply fallen into the abyss of great power politics and failed imperialism and has witnessed the abuse of power, intellectual approaches that deal with the issue of the problem of power are avoided. This mentality is no less recognizable in the overly restrained German foreign policy which eschews military commitments as far as possible although the country is currently involved in several out-of-area missions. But these commitments are mostly vindicated in pacifist terms. Strategic reasoning is replaced by moralistic justifications in foreign policy decision-making (Rohde 2021, pp. 38–40). German historian Hans-Peter Schwarz described this mentality in a brillant small polemic with the title Die gezähmten Deutschen—Von der Machtbesessenheit zur Machtvergessenheit what could be translated as “The Tamed Germans—from power obsession to power oblivion” (Schwarz 1985). German academia is driven by a one-sided preference for peace research, discursive approaches to international relations and civilian affairs as well. Therefore, the influential school of foreign policy realism is not popular at all. It is nearly impossible to build an academic career as a representative of political realism (Masala 2016, p. 17). Shortly after the Second World War, the situation was different. Since many influential German intellectuals knew Niebuhr’s writings and the facts about his support for the set-up of a democratic system in Germany after World War II, the theologian has been recited by important intellectuals like Theodor Heuss, Golo Mann, or Willy Brandt. The emerging Cold War was another factor why strategic thinking remained relevant in the early 1950s in Germany. The times of the containment of the Soviet Union in Western Europe and the necessary rearmament of Germany as partner of the new NATO alliance required reflections about strategic questions like the nuclear guarantees of the United States and conventional defense capabilities. But soon after the consolidation of the spheres of influence in Europa, the Germans had transferred the international responsibilities to the United States and NATO. The public could retreat into the world of trade and normative designs. Subsequently, political realism has lost ground in the German community of the academic analysis of international politics.

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The Intellectual Focus of This Book

Therefore, this book intends to cover three tasks: firstly, a compact version of Niebuhr’s Christian realism shall be introduced to a wider German public; secondly,

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Niebuhr’s understanding of the state in general and of liberal democracy specifically that becomes apparent in his writings is analyzed in its intellectual development. This is an intellectual perspective that has not yet been explicitly examined. It can be shown that it is not justified to reduce Niebuhr either to his role as an influential Protestant theologian or as a prominent expert in international relations. His Christian Realism can be made fruitful to discuss the problems of and opportunities for democratic systems as well. It can be vindicated on the grounds of a sophisticated anthropology. And thirdly, the fruitful dialogue between politics and religion, that has proven a necessity by virtue of recent developments in global political affairs, is strengthened, as here scholars are gathered that dispose of an impressive history of expertise in this intellectual intersection. Furthermore, the fact that an international and interdisciplinary authorship contributes to this anthology can increase the originality of the collected ideas.

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Niebuhr Interpretations Placed in a Current Political Context

In times of crisis in which Western democracies find themselves, trust has become of short supply. But instead of developing the courage to find the real causes for this lack of confidence, elites in politics and media frequently blame these developments on single causes (Crouch 2004, pp. 2 ff.)—be they evil individuals like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin or the Hungarian President Victor Orban who have turned the world upside down in an evil way or the so-called populists of right and reactionary movements; Islamic ideology or returning communist movements in some regions of the globe. Although these isolated causes explain some negative developments, they do not tell the whole story about a world in turmoil. These kinds of simple, emotionally attractive narratives would offer simple remedies in the fight against evil in the world but do not do justice to the complexities that have built up since the end of the Cold War; In the bipolar structure, the world could easily be perceived as a morally, intellectually, and strategically quite transparent scene. The post-cold war world, however, has become much more complex. Therefore, the classical nation-state although still the most important entity in world politics—and its functionality is challenged in several respects in the process of globalization (Voigt 2017, p. 44). The more complex the world develops, the simpler are the answers that find the way into the public discourse. The technical conditions of digital and social media allow the rapid spread not only of information and knowledge, but also of rumors, propaganda and targeted fake news that quickly generate destabilizing results that can threaten the integrity of

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the institutions of nation-states. An open conflict between publics with passionate and untamed interests and elites who believe they have the right to educate this public has broken out (Gurri 2018). What is both frightening and interesting is the fact that most Western democratic societies show divisions that approximate a 50:50 relationship between so called conservatives on one side and on the other side co-called progressive forces. This is not only reflected in the U.S. Elections of November 2020, in which Joe Biden has celebrated a narrow victory, and Congress was surprisingly taken over by the Democrats as well in the closest possible way. Divisive tendencies pervade the European political landscape as well. The covid-19 pandemic, however, has amplified these crisis tendencies in world politics. Democratic governments have to react to a health crisis of unprecedented dimension in times in which rule is based on modern administrative systems. On the one hand, the nation-state has regained power as this is frequently the case in states of emergency and what was theoretically justified by the German jurist, political theorist and Nazi apologist Carl Schmitt (Scheuerman 1999). Many citizens in Western countries fear that a clear distinction between a state of emergency will be sustained and the freedoms they are accustomed to are suspended in the long term. In the name of higher values, democratic procedures can be abolished. In Germany, some cities have declared a “climate emergency” in order to justify legislative action that would perhaps not be accepted by a wider public. The constitutional principles even in mature Western democracies have come under enormous stress. In the U. S., the Defense Production Act was invoked by President Trump at the end of March 2020 to force companies to manufacture ventilators, personal protective equipment, and to execute further measures to contain the impact of the pandemic (vanden Brook 2020). For some people, Trump acted way too hesitantly, while for other observers this executive act was an attack on democratic freedoms. In liberal societies, the liberal claims and emergency necessities collide. Some people claim centralized measures in the battle against the pandemic (Kreitner 2020); other people stress the advantages of federalist solutions concerning adequate emergency standards. In Germany, local authorities have shown resilience in dealing with different crisis situations, be it severe corona outbreaks in huge slaughterhouses or in senior’s homes or asylum shelters. The infection protection law (Infektionsschutzgesetz) basically offers extended opportunities for the executive branch to restrict the freedom of citizens. Government agencies such as the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, the medical advisory board Robert-Koch-Institute in Berlin, and the Government’s economic advisory board, as well as the Ifo (Institute for Economic Research) have offered guidance in order to cope with the medical, economic and social effects of the pandemic;

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their results are made public by an extensive media coverage that is intended to offer transparent decision-making processes. Nevertheless, at the end of the year 2020, the mitigation measures provoke more and more resistance in the German population. Conspiracy theories are on the way, but the increase in demonstrations contains persons economically and socially directly affected by the emergency measures as well as political extremists from all sides that want to force their radical agenda; especially the right-wing opposition attempts to delegitimize the state interventions into basic legal rights. Although in every single country there exist specifics that support these tendencies towards polarization and radicalization processes, the similarities are conspicuous. Social scientists basically agree on the assumption that these processes are the result of various side effects of globalization. The global effects of the pandemic clearly point to the costs of the high degree of interdependence. In this context it is important whether you define the term globalization as an active process of corporate, technological, and digital integration or as a process of unintended effects which cannot be ascribed to individual players. The technical conditions of digitalization, for instance, have made it relatively easy for single interest groups to gain influence at the expense of traditional and mainstream parties that basically represented the pluralistic structure of society altogether. Phenomena like shitstorms, flash mobs, social media groups, online petitions and other technically conditioned collective group effects that oftentimes are the result of digitally produced fake news show that spontaneous emotional outbursts can easily apply enormous pressure on institutional political processes; politics becomes more and more volatile. Global digital players like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple (Gallaway 2020), Huawei and many others increasingly play roles as political actors that become pace setters and agenda setters that decisively weaken the power of various nation-states. And all these technical developments take place in a context in which the globalization altogether is perceived by many people and domestic and transnational protesters as a project the elites benefit from one-sidedly; the underprivileged as well make use of the creative potential of globalization to challenge the social balance-of-power. Forms of spontaneous, emotion driven activism have replaced classical forms of political participation. German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk used the term “lethargocracy” that describes a style of politics that is characterized by “the marriage of power instinct and indolence” (Williams 2015). The strategy to disguise or suppress conflicts or problems leads to an apathetic public that is more entertained than informed; irresponsible forms of polarizations and simplifications lead to the aforementioned phenomenon of divided societies. What is rational for the preservation of power of governments in the short term undermines the interests of the people in the long

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run. We witness these kinds of perilous dynamics in the United States not only since the election of Donald Trump as well (Been 2015, p. xii). During the era of hysterical McCarthyism Reinhold Niebuhr diagnosed the problem of a destructive “party spirit” that could endanger the democratic process: “…the necessity of party government makes it all the more important to curb the excesses of the party spirit which our fathers (The Founding Fathers, ROA) feared so much” (Niebuhr 1954a, p. 3). Niebuhr criticized in this context the loss of democratic sanity in America and the immature demonization processes inside the political discourse: “…it is becoming very clear that discriminating judgment is the basis of democratic health and sanity. Discrimination is required to know that an opponent is not necessarily an opponent on every other issue” (Niebuhr 1954b, p. 3). Democracy would not heal the human tendency towards simplification: “It is one of the embarrassing similarities between tyranny and a corruption in a democracy that… outrageous charges create an atmosphere in which the most implausible charges are believed” (Niebuhr 1954b, p. 4). The current emotional divisions can have serious implications for the stability of democratic societies because the conflicts are not limited to specific issue areas but touch the overall question what life is all about: “..the key feature of polarization is not necessarily ideological or social distance, which most conventional definitions emphasize. Rather, it is how the process of polarization simplifies the normal complexity of politics and social relations. Polarization does so by aligning otherwise unrelated divisions, emasculating cross-cutting cleavages, and dividing society and politics into two separate, opposing, and unyielding blocks” (Somer and McCoy 2018, p. 3). The problem is based on identities, and this is a political domain where compromises are hard to find. Niebuhr’s first question in his magnum opus The Nature and Destiny of Man remains up-to-date: “Man has always been his own vexing problem. How shall he think of himself?” (Niebuhr 1964, p. 1) The same irreconcilable group dynamics Niebuhr described in his Augustinian worldview have come to the surface once again. The pluralism of interests has been replaced by uncompromising opposition between camps that question or even deny each other’s legitimacy. These identity conflicts tend to be self-sustaining.

2.2

Post-democratic Elitism Versus Reactionary Populism

Colin Crouch has coined the term post-democracy. He represents the thesis that democratic institutions in Western countries have steadily been weakened by antagonistic processes. Democratic institutions remain formally intact but have been

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taken over more and more by privileged groups. With help of subtle camouflage tactics, they establish a monopoly of decision-making that is disguised as technocratic governance while the pluralistic structure of society is weakened step by step. The ruling class tends to accept growing inequality while simultaneously ignoring or demonizing dissenting opinions or alternative worldviews. Media, economic players, artists and other social groups benefit from an ideological closeness to the political elite or can even be considered as part of it (Crouch 2004, pp. 2–6). The challengers of this elite are tempted to resort to undemocratic strategies as well. Inside a vicious circle self-interested representative produce the resistance of self-interested opponents: democratic values fall by the wayside. The pluralistic consensus that the early Jewish scholar Harold Laski1 (Laski 2009) famously defined has been abandoned by several interest groups that have fallen back into the mentality of radically claiming absolute demands, a group egoism that Niebuhr so vividly described in his book Moral Man and Immoral Society (MM). Moderate groups are crushed between these extremist poles. The opponents of a paternalistic style of democracy, however, tend to represent authoritarian ideas. They set their hopes in a charismatic leader, fuel resentment against particular groups, question the institutional framework of representative democracy altogether and claim the exclusive right to represent “the people”. The extreme right can capitalize on unanswered misgivings and construct conspiracy theories that can easily be distributed through social media and that are professionally made so that they appear rather realistic. The escalation of formerly peacefully arranged conflicts is a huge peril for the stability of democracies and nation-states in general.

2.3

Unsolved Democracy Deficits in Integration Processes

The transfer of sovereignty as the result of an on-going European integration, a form of diffuse and sometimes undemocratic “multi-level government”, has lost its vision and legitimacy due to internal and external crises like the financial and subsequent Euro crises of the years 2007 and 2009 as well as the refugee crisis of 2015 which revealed structural deficits in important policy fields of the Union and that led to a re-nationalization in these issue areas. In these cases nation-states are not prepared to transfer their sovereignty to supranational structures because they 1

Niebuhr met Laski in the year 1943 in London, where they had to hide under a table during a German air raid. Brown (2002, p. 111).

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consider these issues as vital interests. Niebuhr hoped that processes of regional integration could help to overcome the conflict-laden anarchic system and the establishment of a more peaceful world order in the long run, but that would initially require the development of robust community structures that would have the potential to transcend conflict stimulating identity conflicts (Scheuerman 2011, pp. 68–76). But as current events demonstrate the modern nation-state is far from obsolete. The “post-national constellation” proclaimed by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (Habermas 2001, pp. 58–61) has proven as being empirically premature. In times of crisis, populations are demanding clear and robust solutions of the state whose task has been and still is first and foremost the supply of security in a narrower and later in a comprehensive (social) sense. Populations that feel that the aforementioned processes lead to insecurities in every aspect of their lives are demanding strong measures by the state executive to manage this crisis; the intervening state has witnessed a surprising renaissance that was not anticipated by representatives of cosmopolitan ideas. But not only in times of crises the nation-state has proven capable of answering creatively to the challenges globalization has created. The nation-state, not always being the cause of conflicts and an atavistic model of social organization, has shown itself resilient in a decade in which intergovernmental cooperation in many cases has been the key to problemsolving. Forms of regional organization have proven effective solely in areas in which relatively stable nation-states exist. In other words: The classical state was the requirement for international cooperation, not an obstacle to realize a more multilateral international order.

2.4

The Instability of Existing Nation-States as a Problem of Global Politics

Congruously, one of the great problems that afflict the international order therefore are failed states; these are states that no more can fulfil the basic responsibilities that constitute a sovereign state for various reasons; usually these are territories in which no legitimate authority exists anymore which is capable of making collective decisions and in which anarchical conditions prevail. This is so because the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force has been destroyed in these kinds of states and private actors have taken over control of substantial parts of the territory of the once functioning state. Additionally, in these cases the international community has no official counterparts to interact with. The existence of

Introduction

9

failed states frequently leads to a spill-over effect that can negatively affect entire regions (Masala 2016, pp. 100–109). These unstable regions, however, have become playgrounds for great powers to expand their influence. Domestic conflicts like in Syria or Libya have become bloody proxy wars with no end in sight. A new tragic renaissance of great power competition (Mearsheimer 2014, p. xi) has emerged; Examples for power related behavior include a rising and challenging China, a revisionist Russia, a capricious and neo-isolationist U. S., a geopolitically marginalized European Union and some aggressive regional powers like North Korea or Turkey- Furthermore, new forms of warfare in cyberspace, in space, all kinds of asymmetrical warfare, the use of artificial intelligence and killing robots. hybrid warfare and information warfare, frozen conflicts as results of war as profitable business, a growing privatization of security, transnational terrorism; The character of war is changing fast; a fact that requires innovative strategic and ethical answers that keep pace with these rapid changes so that international disasters can be avoided. Niebuhr witnessed processes of radical technological and political transformations during his career as well. These developments caused perceptions of insecurity as well; for Niebuhr, the ambivalence of technical progress always had ambivalent consequences: “The conclusion most abhorrent to the modern mood is that the possibilities of evil grow with the possibilities of good, and that human history is therefore not so much a chronicle of the progressive victory of the good over evil, of cosmos over chaos, as the story of an ever-increasing cosmos, creating ever-increasing possibilities of chaos” (Niebuhr 2013, p. 97). The beginning of the nuclear arms race, bloody wars of independence as well as proxy wars in the process of decolonialization led to apocalyptic nightmares on the part of the informed public that feared the end of our civilization as we know it. The scenarios of a possible nuclear holocaust (Morgenthau 1961) were not “prophecies of doom” but real possibilities that motivated decision-makers to take action in order to avoid the worst (McQueen 2017, pp. 100–101). Not only individual death, but the annihilation of the whole human race had become a realistic scenario. The history of humankind could be extinguished forever. Niebuhr believed that the threat of absolute annihilation could help American politicians to get rid of mental structures of wishful thinking. In the year 1956, he wrote: “…atomic weapons, particularly the hydrogen bomb, had changed this grim fact of history, and in Churchill’s eloquent phrase, ‘Security has become the child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation’” (Niebuhr 1956b, p. 17). Today we witness similar crisis situations that concern the costs of climate change caused by reckless forms of industrial production, the excessive exploitation of natural resources, population explosion and global poverty, the

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consequences of various pandemics and so forth. But is the resort to strategic alarmism, the conscious creation of apocalyptic scenarios or the targeted exertion of moral pressure really the appropriate strategies to enforce improvements in these areas? The world stage also had changed dramatically in the late forties and early fifties when Niebuhr was at the peak of his international career. Stalinist Russia was an assumed leader of a Communist empire from the Elbe river to the Pacific, Israel had become an independent nation-state, India had gained independence from Britain, Indonesia from the Netherlands and France struggled in Indochina. Niebuhr supported the development of the H-Bomb as a necessary means to deter the Soviet Union and its technological ambitions. The lack of mutual trust in the international sphere made morally dubious acts unavoidable. “…common fear prompts (all nations, ROA) into all kinds of ad hoc arrangements such as NATO …which do in effect erode unqualified national sovereignty” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 2). Niebuhr as pragmatist preferred small realizable diplomatic steps to big words without substance: “In community-building… the motto must be ‘precept upon precept’, ‘line upon line’… But we must be cognizant of the fact that some people have the habit of fleeing to ultimate ideals as a way to evade immediate responsibilities” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 2). Only with the benefit of hindsight we reconstruct the Cold War as a period that was characterized by rather stable systemic conditions and rational political actors (Waltz 1979).

2.5

Challenges for Individuals and Social Systems

Which kind of impositions do the dynamic and uncontainable transformations, produced by the process of globalization generate for human beings and societies? How can a modicum of order be sustained to avoid unnecessary conflicts? Where are the starting points for political reforms that can deal effectively with these incredibly dynamic and unpredictable developments? There are no limits in the progress science makes in fields like artificial intelligence, stem cell research, nanotechnology, and further forms of materials science. The rapidity of these developments requires new and innovative forms of government because we witness an erosion of democratic laws and shared social beliefs even in nation-states that seem to be on the list of stable and long-lasting democracies. During the pandemic, less developed countries have become more and more dependent on the stronger powers again. Only these stronger states can absorb the costs of the health crisis, the lockdown, and the development of countermeasures of all sorts with help of central banks that are buying up large quantities of government

Introduction

11

debt. The weaker countries are facing rising borrowing costs and do not possess options to invest into innovative countermeasures like the development of tracing applications, vaccines, or economic stimuli (James 2020).

2.6

Why Do Many Politicians Rediscover Niebuhr Now?

It is time to discuss the foundations of democracy and the future of the nationstate in these turbulent times once again. And for that matter it is very useful to canvass Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realist understanding of democracy and the state, although the theologian has earned his international reputation primarily through his analysis of the structures of international politics. Many “Politicians love to quote Reinhold Niebuhr” (Christiansen 2017); President Barack Obama’s political rhetoric reflects elements of Niebuhr’s world view which becomes evident most clearly in his Nobel Prize speech from Oslo in 2009 (Felice 2010). In his recently published biography, he confirmed this: “With the help of Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power, I wrote a first draft, drawing on the writings of thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr and Ghandi to organize my argument: that war is both terrible and sometimes necessary…” (Obama 2020, p. 445). Other prominent and still living personalities who refer to Niebuhr are, amongst others, Jimmy Carter, John McCain, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. In Germany Bundespräsident Theodor Heuss praised Niebuhr’s work; chancellor Willy Brandt referred to Niebuhr as democratic socialist while chancellor Helmut Schmidt (both have been social democrats) was influenced by Niebuhr’s international perspective. Even former F.B.I. director James Comey had the idea to make use of the handle @Niebuhr for his secret Twitter account, Christiansen adds (Christiansen 2017). Niebuhr’s thoughts concerning the constitution of the state in general and analyses of specific domestic political problems in connection with international issues are not less elaborate than his reflections concerning international politics. Niebuhr, the man who is rediscovered in crisis situations (Bellmann 2018, p. 400), and who was called by the doyen of the school of political realism, Hans J. Morgenthau, “the father of us all”, did not focus primarily on the legal aspects of the state but on psychological and philosophical aspects of community building and the maintenance of social stability.2 Niebuhr’s anthropological approach is complex and should be a smart intellectual precept that helps to take into account the 2

The German Jew Hans J. Morgenthau, however, disposed of a legal background and wrote extensively about the character of the state, especially in disputes with the contested German

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pluralism of human interests and values so that monolithic and totalitarian ideas could be intellectually deconstructed. The theologian described man as biological, rational, social and spiritual being by drawing on a smorgasbord of theological and philosophical sources. The ability to conquer the natural world—with more and more visible damaging effects for the global ecological system—and the inability to restrain itself and its will to power characterizes the human condition, Niebuhr stated several times. And this image of man being torn between necessity and freedom produces restless and anxious souls. The concept of anxiety constitutes a key pillar in Niebuhr’ specific form of realism (Pedro 2017, p. 109). Niebuhr concluded with references to theologians like Søren Kierkegaard and Emil Brunner that this form of insecurity as basic human condition had to be considered in the construction of any social institution that claimed a modicum of justice. Especially as groups were particularly prone to act aggressively to achieve its objectives it was necessary to shatter the convenient liberalism that especially prevailed in Protestant circles in the U. S.: “Failure to recognize the stubborn resistance of group egoism to all moral and inclusive social objectives inevitably involves them in unrealistic and confused political thought” (Niebuhr 1961, p. xx). Niebuhr altered his stance from a socialist internationalist to become a passionate supporter of a liberal democratic state that could practice a careful social interventionism; moreover, he had the vision for political processes that would transcend the rule of the nation-state that was always prone to a destructive nationalism, in the long run (Scheuerman 2011, p. 74). The idea of a world state was an inaccessible ambition, but it served him as a benchmark for the appraisal of the progress of international cooperation in world politics (Pedro 2017). But for Niebuhr, a world community had to come first, because no constitutional mechanism could overcome the political and cultural divides that characterized this world (Niebuhr 1959a, p. 266). Already in 1934, after Hitler’s first but failed attempt to occupy Austria in July, he anticipated the coming Second World War (Niebuhr 1934b, p. 132). The theologian had an intuition concerning the dangers liberal democracies could permanently face, being exposed to the Janus-faced threats of totalitarianism and violent anarchy that mostly were the result of social inequalities. Therefore, ever since he had taken over a public role he pleaded for a moderate interventionist state that would realize a “realistic” social ethics (Dorrien 2009).

jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt who supported national socialism. See Jütersonke (2010).

Introduction

13

The cognitive recognition of this book is unique with respect to the exclusive focus on Niebuhr’s understanding of the state. As he did not systematically approach the subject of the nation-state although he wrote about a multiplicity of related topics the authors of this book attempt to work out Niebuhr’s attitude toward the institution of the nation-state in different historical and political contexts. His work developed steadily so that we cannot discover a static concept of the state. But we can clearly work out what constructive or destructive roles a nation-state could play domestically and in the international sphere in specific historical periods which Niebuhr commented on. Under what conditions did Niebuhr pay increased attention towards the functionality or dysfunctionality of states? What strategic, moral, or ethical problems did he diagnose in his reflections? To Niebuhr a state is neither a purely rational nor an exclusively organic entity. It reflects traditions as well as rationally designed procedures and institutions. Therefore, Niebuhr vehemently spoke out against mechanical forms of social engineering that would easily lead to paternalistic if not totalitarian structures (Niebuhr 1952, p. 8) as well as against the abuse of the organic factors that constitute communal bonds for primitive nationalistic purposes. This evil distraction of a positive and reflexive form of patriotism was practiced by especially effective demagogues (Niebuhr 1933, p. 369). A balance between rational and organic factors was required to safeguard the emotional loyalty of the citizens to the state that was a necessary condition for a stable system especially in difficult times. Because of the imperfectability of man, resources for resistance against unjust rule have always to be existent in every political system—inside the state with the help of institutional checks and balances (currently we witness the limits of such a design in times of bitter partisan hostilities inside different democratic systems that threaten the pluralistic structure of whole societies)—but from outside the political sphere as well. For Niebuhr it required prophets not only in the religious sense to tell the truth in the case of massive abuse of power but also in a political sense (True 2020; Stone 1972, 2005; Walzer 1985). Niebuhr gave emphasis to the legitimacy of state power. He did not construct a coherent ontology of the state; instead, he evaluated the quality of the execution of authority in different states and systems out of a historical (Niebuhr 1959a) and a contemporary perspective; in doing so, he published an abundance of articles in journals that directly reacted to current events. He witnessed the disintegration of most of the young and politically and economically weak democracies in Europe and concluded that legal systems like the League of Nations that were not backed by hard power were not viable in times in which no stable international balance of power between the great nations existed.

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Therefore, he was critical of purely rationalistic contractual theories of the state as well of international institutions. He preferred a “realistic social contract”; as to this idea, he was inspired by the later Calvinist constitutionalists. “The right of resistance to unjust government was affirmed by the simple expedient of asserting that the rule of a prince assumed a ‚covenant between the ruler and the ruled which was violated by injustice” (Niebuhr 1956a, p. 190). Derived from his anthropology of ambivalence, rule and resistance were twin brothers. Because of the dangers in the use of power there always had to be emergency exits. In his first widely read and quite radical book MM he dedicates a whole chapter to “The Morality of Nations”. Here Niebuhr basically represents a parsimonious formal definition of a state. “Nations are territorial societies, the cohesive power of which is supplied by the sentiment of nationality and the authority of the state. The fact that state and nations are not synonymous and that states frequently incorporate several nationalities, indicates that the authority of government is the ultimate force of national cohesion (Niebuhr 1933, p. 83). For Niebuhr, the following factors—common language and traditions—are decisive for the stability of the state. In this book he still believed that a higher measure of domestic justice would lead the nation-states to a more peaceful international behavior. Over the long term he hoped that class solidarity could substitute the loyalty and altruistic behavior of the citizen towards his nation, which as a “secular God” could always inspire dangerous forms of nationalism. The nation-state possessed the appropriate size to inspire the imagination of its population and to represent symbols for greatness. He describes this logic as follows: “What lies beyond the nation, the community of mankind, is too vague to inspire devotion. The lesser communities within the nation, religious, economic, racial and cultural, have equal difficulty in competing with the nation for the loyalty of its citizens” (Niebuhr 1933, p. 91). Symbols and historical rituals as well as displays of military power could tempt both citizens and statesmen to make idolatrous claims. In his most widely read book The Irony of American History Niebuhr explicitly criticized the myth of Manifest Destiny that imagined America as the chosen nation and the City upon the Hill, the nation that evoked its own selfishness in sometimes excessive ways.3 Niebuhr’s mission was to support American’s role as the indispensable leader of the free world in the Cold War period on the one hand while teaching the young, diplomatically unexperienced nation to stay humble in the realization of this role.

3

One striking example for this thinking during his time may be Luce 1941.

Introduction

3

15

The Structure of the Book

Part I of the book addresses the question in which ways Niebuhr’s specific anthropology influenced his functionalist and normative understanding of the state. In an opening chapter Luca Castellin not only points to the complex relationship between the individual and society in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism. Furthermore, he gives a very useful and comprehensive overview of Niebuhr’s extensive work and the most important pillars of his Christian Realism by reference to the problem of the state. With his excellent knowledge of the literature, he let Niebuhr speak as he extensively made use of citations; this method helps the reader to get an impression of the powerful language Niebuhr made use of and of his way of thinking altogether. At the start of his contribution, Castellin carefully reconstructs Niebuhr’s widely read book MM that to some extent contains polemical streaks but nevertheless is a useful starting point to get an appropriate overview about Niebuhr’s implicit philosophy of the state. Castellin makes the argument that Niebuhr’s main thesis in this book that assumes the existence of a radical divergence between the moral and social behavior of both individuals and groups has sometimes led to a misunderstanding of Niebuhr’s elaborate thought about social issues and structures. While the individual would be capable of moral and altruistic acts, groups behave aggressively towards each other, and are not self-reflexive in order to restrain their own actions. But this sharp dichotomy that Niebuhr produced in the period of his socialist activism, does not represent the richness of his social ethics. During his career he more and more became aware of some weaknesses inside the Protestant individualism he was born into. Being critical of parts of Martin Luther’s, Calvin’s, and Karl Barth’s social thinking (see Rohde’s contribution in this book) he found inspiration in Jewish and Catholic traditions as well as in a mature political liberalism. These intellectual sources allowed Niebuhr to develop a social ethic based on the Jewish civic virtue of justice (mishpah) and righteousness (tsedeqah) as well as a catholic social pragmatism (Rohde 2016, p. 249). What are the requirements for a stable state in his Christian Realism? It is a synthesis of material and ideological components: “political power ‘is partially derived from the actual possession of physical instruments of coercion, economic or martial’, but it also depends ‘to a large degree upon its ability to secure unreasoned and unreasonable obedience, respect, and reverence’” (Castellin, p. quotes Niebuhr 1960, p. 237). Castellin shows that despite the tendency towards group egoism, Niebuhr believes that human beings can partially tame this disposition to achieve tolerable forms of justice, inspired by the never fully achievable ideals of

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love and equality. The author deserves credit for clearly working out the conditions that Niebuhr deemed necessary for a stable state and a peaceful co-existence in an anarchic international surrounding. Finally, he points to the fact that Niebuhr did not accept a dangerous status quo that was solely based on an ever-precarious balance-of-power in times of an acute risk of a nuclear war. Despite his realistic anthropology he incarnated the hope for the development of an international system in which the narrow interpretation of the individual interests of nations could be transcended—“the art of living together” could at least be imperfectly realized in global politics. Christoph Rohde reconstructs Niebuhr’s intellectual dispute with the famous theologian Karl Barth as well as his harsh criticism of Martin Luther’s ostensibly unconditional obedience towards the authorities of his time. Luther’s apologetic behavior towards the authorities of his time had led to catastrophic consequences not only for the peasants and oppressed of the sixteenth century but also for the future course of German politics, according to Niebuhr. His sometimes polemic and decontextualized Luther interpretations nevertheless allow a clearer picture of his preferred functions and values of a stable and sufficiently just state. It becomes also evident that Niebuhr’s judgements were not always balanced and sometimes excessive. His political agenda was more important to him than a fully accurate exegesis; but this was perhaps unavoidable due to the sheer amount of his commitments. Drawing on the criticism of several scholars, Rohde shows that Niebuhr’s fierce attacks especially in the direction of Karl Barth were the result of an underestimation of Barth’s theology with respect to its constructive potential for resistance against unjust rule. Niebuhr admired Barth’s private role in the support of resistance efforts against the Nazis and the way in which he helped to rescue persecuted people out of the hands of the Nazis. Nevertheless, he interpreted Barth’s theology as being “quietistic” and “otherworldly” (Niebuhr 1959a, p. 156). His interpretation is not fully inappropriate but demands some qualifications. With respect to Martin Luther, Niebuhr quite uncritically follows the Luther interpretation of the German liberal theologian Ernst Troeltsch that was widely accepted in the U.S. because it perfectly confirmed the negative image of Germany that came up here during and after World War I (Siemon-Netto 2007). After World War II, Luther was even more instrumentalized for a consistent image of “the German” as a Fürstenknecht (slave to princes) because the Germans were distracted by Luther’s seemingly dangerous theology of obedience and subsequently ran from one historical disaster into another. But as Sockness argues, “Niebuhr misses the soteriological point of Luther’s distinction between the two kingdoms and the significance of salvation for life in society” (Sockness 1992, p. 93). In

Introduction

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order to establish a theologically framed social ethic Niebuhr had to connect the two domains of the religious and the political. Distracted by this method, Niebuhr did not understand the importance of Heilsgeschichte for the understanding of Luther’s Teaching on the two Kingdoms, Rohde concludes. But Niebuhr’s line of argument was intended to support the idea of an activist state. This kind of state should care for socially balanced conditions and should be capable of shaping citizens that developed a spirit of democratic humility and that were ready to actively defend their democratic achievements if necessary. In this context, Niebuhr adequately pointed to severe weaknesses in the Protestant theology of the state that led to a too apologetic role of the church towards an increasingly nationalist state (Anselm in Heinig 2017). In the end, Niebuhr is captured in his self-made paradox that on the hand he confirmed arguments about the German mentality and its national character that were brought up by advocates of the collective guilt thesis that should legitimize harsh peace terms against the defeated Hitler Germany like Henry Morgenthau or Lord Vansittard; on the other hand he was very critical of the treatment of post-war Germany in terms of this collective guilt assumption (Rohde 2016, pp. 160 ff). David True makes the argument that Niebuhr understood the prophetic to align with the struggle for justice. That is, prophetic religion is critical of the state (on grounds of justice) but does not dismiss or simply denounce the necessity of its existence. In fact, just the opposite, the prophetic calls for the state to intervene on the side of justice. God’s sovereignty allows human beings to build and destroy social orders. The paradox of being a finite but also radically free being leads to ambivalent results concerning his moral performance. Furthermore, True works out why Niebuhr was very sensitive concerning the role of power. Even if it is used for allegedly moral purposes, its political application tends towards tyrannical conditions. Especially Marxism was prone to the abuse of power. Nevertheless Niebuhr shared classical Marxism’s realism about the state, and this in two respects: it unmasked the naive belief that the state could simply be abolished, while some kind of primitive social harmony and justice could easily be achieved; otherwise, it deconstructed the idea that the liberal nation-state would act incrementally in the best interest of its citizens. But Niebuhr did not stop here, True maintains. The currency of power was necessary for the realization of more justice in the world—despite the risks its use implied. Power had the task to balance existing social forces and it had to be centralized in order to achieve a social organization that was not prone to anarchical conditions. But this centralization had to be organized in the context of cohesive communities that worked out effective checks on its application.

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Part II of the book shows how Niebuhr interpreted his prophetic attitude towards authority under concrete circumstances. Ben Mollov and Shmuel Sandler, both eminent experts in the analysis of the role of religion in international relations with special reference to Israel, examine Niebuhr’s relationship with the Jewish people under the aspect of the foundation of the nation-state Israel. They point out that Niebuhr recognized at an early stage the danger Nazism would pose for the Jews in Germany. Niebuhr was well aware that “his” religion, Protestantism in the broadest sense, had deep roots of religiously or ethnically originated antisemitism from the start. But there are more reasons why he was emotionally and intellectually close to the case of Zionism: “Niebuhr’s unequivocal support for the Jewish state must be explored in his relationship with Judaism, American Jewry as well as his unique religious and ethical understanding of Jews and their destiny, history and values” (Mollov/Sandler in this book, pp.) The authors show that Niebuhr’s support for Israel fits clearly into his overall Christian Realism; on the other hand, the support for the foundation of a new state in the area of the Arab world was highly disputed in the American public. Subsequently, Niebuhr needed some courage to position himself distinctly in this contested issue. But the theologian admired the aspiration for justice of the Old Testament prophets like Amos and saw himself in the same way in a prophetic role if that was necessary, Mollov and Sandler work out in detail. Niebuhr and his personal contacts with important Jewish personalities like Abraham Joshua Heschel, Felix Frankfurter, Will Herberg or Hans Morgenthau established a special dimension in Jewish-Christian relations. Niebuhr’s arguments for U. S. participation in World War II brought him prestige as a realist analyst of international relations. Especially Hans Morgenthau, E.H. Carr, and George Kennan saw in Niebuhr their intellectual father (Inboden 2014, pp. 2–3). Niebuhr, the authors conclude, was one of the first writers who enabled a serious study of the nexus “religion and foreign policy” in an otherwise very secular intellectual surrounding. Christoph Rohde reconstructs a less well-known chapter in Reinhold Niebuhr’s versatile life. Niebuhr supported the resistance efforts of German exiles with a socialist background in the U.S. in various ways because he had foreseen the vast danger the Nazis signified for the German political system, for minorities and especially for the Jews. In doing so, he relied on trustworthy people with which he had built close relationships. The contribution starts with a description of Niebuhr’s image of Germany; he wrote articles in which he artfully described what he diagnosed as the German mentality and its roots; in this context he explains the character of Nazism and reasons why such a primitive pagan ideology could gain ground in an otherwise modern nation-state like Germany. What were the reasons for the dysfunctionality of the young German democracy?

Introduction

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Thereafter Rohde shows how Niebuhr met important figures in the German underground from 1935; special emphasis is given to Niebuhr’s relationship with Austrian journalist and socialist activist Karl Borromäus Frank, who worked under the pseudonym Paul Hagen. This gifted and courageous man who had a charismatic and demanding personality, was a controversial figure who with his activism and courage challenged the complacency of well-established German socialists in the U.S. Therefore, time and time again Niebuhr had to defend Hagen against defamations from various quarters. Niebuhr’s role as fundraiser and sponsor for the American Friends of German Freedom (AFGF) and later for the Council for a Democratic Germany (CDG) are relevant insofar, as Niebuhr, Hagen and other prominent figures discussed visions as well as concrete plans for a “new Germany” that would follow the defeated Nazi dictatorship. It becomes evident that a new German state in all cases had to be integrated in a European structure, into whatever constitutional frame. Rohde concludes that, although the CDG did not receive real attention from the State Department—the CDG unfortunately formed a parallel structure to the Office for Strategic Studies— Niebuhr’s commitment helped to refine his overall outlook on the organizational and constitutional problems in the process of the democratization of formerly authoritarian or totalitarian states. Most important, however, is the fact that Hagen and Niebuhr worked closely together to support victims of Nazi persecution to emigrate from Germany and German occupied lands into the United States (Rice 1983, p. 329). In the so-called Zook Commission Niebuhr used the opportunity to bring in his experiences in educational questions he had obtained as a pastor and teacher. The impressions of post-war Germany he had gained in this commission in autumn 1946 made him aware of the organizational shortcomings and moral ambiguities of the U.S. occupation policies which for him expressed the unavoidable selfrighteousness of the victors in history (Niebuhr 1946a, pp. 26–27). He described his feelings of bad conscience in several letters he wrote his wife Ursula during his official stay in Germany (Rohde 2016, pp. 159–160). Part III refers Niebuhr’s Christian Realism to contemporary developments without risking the cloudy views into the crystal balls according to the motto: “What would Niebuhr have said?” Instead, the norms and values Niebuhr advocated are brought into (post-)modern contexts. Michael Plathow describes out of a biblical perspective how democracy and a mature faith can be reconciled. How can his biblical worldview be adjusted to deliver solutions for current political and social issues? The famous German theologian and martyr Bonhoeffer followed Niebuhr in his biblical understanding of sin, justification, and forgiveness, Plathow states. The Heidelberg theologian

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shows that Niebuhr’s Christian Realism connects secular and metaphysical tools of analysis in a fruitful way. By pointing towards the precarious situation of world politics in our days, Plathow makes a case for the ongoing usefulness of a metaphysically inspired school of thought. Furthermore, he shows why Niebuhr’s inclusive approach can deliver ideas that support the development of an ecumenical and tolerant Christianity of today. Ingmar Niemann discusses Niebuhr’s influence in the American international relations community. He shows that his concept of statesmanship represents an important element of his philosophy of the state because Niebuhr knew that despite technical and organizational improvements in the formation of the state, the quality of human leadership would remain a determining factor. Niebuhr’s comparisons of different statesmen from Abraham Lincoln to Richard Nixon shed light on his preferences concerning domestic and diplomatic leadership. Niebuhr took a stand for presidential candidates like Hubert Humphrey who represented policy preferences that corresponded with his own; in these days he perhaps would have supported an Obama style of politics (Holder/Josephson 2012). Niemann confirms the plausible thesis that Niebuhr was a man of action who has accumulated a wealth of valuable experience that he made fruitful for different audiences and with the help of different communication channels. He walked between the worlds of academia and diplomacy, between theology and philosophy, between German heritage and American culture, between secular pragmatism and transcendental hope. And until the end he retained the Courage to Change (Bingham 1973). But the roles of the statesman and the prophet could not be brought logically together, because the former had to bear the responsibilities of decisionmaking while the other could preach ethical absolutes (Niebuhr 1976, p. 7). But a great personality could reconcile these antagonisms with the help of great wisdom and prudence (Niebuhr 1976, p. 150). Niemann uncovers some contradictions in Niebuhr’s application of his own approach and is not uncritical towards his sometimes-apologetic analysis of the Cold War structure. Nevertheless, Niemann concludes, Niebuhr’s power centric worldview is timely as ever. The rise of authoritarian China as global competitor to the United States confirms his assumptions and have influenced the influential school of structural realism that is represented by eminent International Relations scholars like Kenneth Waltz, Steven Walt, John J. Mearsheimer, or Robert Pape. In a concluding chapter Christoph Rohde discusses Niebuhr’s somehow contested attitude towards the race question across the United States. This topic is intensely debated in current Niebuhr interpretations. Was Niebuhr lukewarm towards the suffering of the American blacks in the Southern states? Or was his pragmatic approach towards the legal solution of the structural racial injustices in

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the 1950s justified to avoid violent conflicts? In the end, Niebuhr admitted that he underestimated the deep-seated hate in the South and that he was sometimes inept in his statements towards this highly emotional issue. Nevertheless, his comments on the race issue give more evidence with respect to his understanding of the challenges nation-states face in the light of growing social and cultural inequalities. Identity politics, Rohde concludes, would perhaps not be the appropriate strategy to achieve reconciliation between different ethnic, religious, or social groups. The Christian Realist approach works with the assumption that group egoism and pride are human character traits no individual or group is incrementally innocent of. Maximal moral demands for the own attitude and permanent acts of moral degradation of the other in the political realm are thus unjustified. Humility on all sides is the key to peace, a biblical wisdom that currently has found its way into the modern theory and practice of peace research.

4

Niebuhr and His Role as a Foreign Relations Expert

As this book does not focus explicitly on Niebuhr’s role as a foreign policy expert at this point only some key points in the respect may be mentioned: Reinhold Niebuhr won major influence as a commentator on foreign policy after he had developed powerful lines of argumentation for a U.S. intervention in the war not only against Japan but also against Germany. This position constituted a thorough rebuttal of a sentimental and simplistic pacifism in his book Christianity & Power Politics (Niebuhr 1940a) although this book was an anthology that contained previously written articles. He claimed “to prevent the triumph of an intolerable tyranny” as he wrote in an article for the Christian Century (CC) at the end of 1940 (Niebuhr 1940b). Niebuhr founded his own journal Christianity & Crisis (C&C) to be able to deliver frequent messages that would justify the U.S. Intervention against the Axis powers and keep the readers informed about the strategic situation during the war. In the first issue of the journal Niebuhr wrote that as Christian citizens the editors intended to give the fighters for freedom all the support they needed (Niebuhr 1941a, p. 1). He knew that he had to combat influential groups in U.S. society and the church that represented neutralist or isolationist positions what Niebuhr did himself during most of the 1930s. A particularly threatening movement was stimulated by Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh, the so-called “America First” committee.4 This group was constituted 4

It still has to be examined how far Donald Trump’s slogan “America First” was directly “inspired” by this movement. Rauchway 2016.

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by a peculiar synthesis of religious absolutists and “protagonists of national selfinterest in its narrowest sense” (Niebuhr 1941b, p. 3). An eminent driving force for the movement was the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst whose biography shows several striking similarities with U. S. President Donald Trump. From early on during the war, Niebuhr discussed the possibilities of the set-up of a global international peace institution that would not inherit the same weaknesses as the league of nations that had failed so miserably in the 1930s (e. g., Niebuhr 1942, 1943.) Later Niebuhr anticipated the advent of the Cold War because he understood the power shifts in the international system that were caused by the outcome of World War II. “Niebuhr was one of the earliest to spell out in detail the spiritual, political and economic unity of the Atlantic community and the pivotal role that Germany must play if Europe was to be saved from communism “(LaFeber 2008, p. 53). As early as 1946 he warned that the German problem could rapidly become the Russian problem (Bingham 1973, p. 288); in this context Niebuhr’s trip to Germany inside the U. S. Education Mission to Germany (Zook Commission) in spring 1946 is less well known but it was important as groundwork for his evaluation of future developments inside the defeated country (Rohde 2016, pp. 146–156). Shortly after this trip he published his most widely read articles in 1946 and 1948 which established his reputation as an international foreign policy expert. Henry Luce, trustee of Union Theological Seminary (UTS) and publisher of the influential magazines Life, Time and Fortune had asked Niebuhr to write an article about his impressions in Germany. Niebuhr, however, thought, that Luce would not print what he would write; however, the latter did (Bingham 1973, p. 289). The reactions to the article “A fight for Germany” (Niebuhr 1946b) were heavy. Niebuhr was criticized for being too soft on Germany, although he had primarily put his emphasis on the threat the Soviet Union would pose for Western Europe. Despite the moral ambiguity and inherent tragedy of the concept Niebuhr fully supported the U.S. deterrence strategy against the Soviet Union. The theologian was one the most influential proponents of “Cold War liberalism “that Campbell Craig defines as a synthesis of “welfare state domestic policy and ‘realist’ foreign policy” (Craig 1992, p. 687). Crouter summarizes:” Having come of age to witness the rise of Hitler’s terror, followed by Stalinist ideology and nuclear stalemate with the USSR, Niebuhr worked to foster the containment policy of Kennan within state-department circles” (Crouter 2010, p. 83). Niebuhr was one of the influential founders of the Americans for Democratic Action which was an important instrument to reach out to the liberal left to justify this hard-nosed political realism. Historian and Niebuhr friend Arthur Schlesinger. Jr. stated:”[It]

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marks perhaps as much as anything the watershed at which American liberalism began to base itself once again on a solid conception of man and of history” (Schlesinger 1949, p. 166). For example, he supported the development of the hydrogen bomb despite its potential for mass annihilation and he claimed that a strategy for survival and of peaceful coexistence required a stable and credible deterrence (Brown 2002, p. 149). But Niebuhr was critical of extended concepts of containment and criticized the roll-back policy which was articulated by the Eisenhower administration and that raised false hopes for the revolutionaries inside Hungary (Niebuhr 1959c, p. 10). For Campbell Craig, Niebuhr was even more influential as a commentator in the American foreign policy establishment than Hans J. Morgenthau: “… I would say that Niebuhr was more political influential, in that if one removed him from the scene in the immediate postwar period, American foreign policy might have proceeded in a different manner” (Craig 2003, p. 33 FN 8). Niebuhr had more than one voice in a circle of experts in the field of IR; for he was accepted as the leading personality during the important 1954 Rockefeller conference concerning the debate about the constitution of a theory of international relations. Here, Niebuhr defined basic guidelines of political realism in an important speech entitled The Moral Issue in International Relations: “The highest morality possible for nations seems to be, not a sacrifice of its interests, but a prudent self-interest, which knows how to find the point of concurrence between its interests and the more universal interest” (Niebuhr, quoted in Guilhot 2011, p. 270). John Bew, in his well-known treatise Realpolitik, confirms that Niebuhr’s geopolitical approach was reconcilable with ethical standards: “In Niebuhr’s hand, the notion of balancing in international relations took on an ethical dimension, too. The worst excesses of human nature could only be checked by competing assertions of interest—a sort of morally conditioned geopolitics” (Bew 2016, p. 199). Not as early as his colleague and friend Hans J. Morgenthau he had anticipated the disastrous U.S. Vietnam intervention (Mollov 2002, pp. 173–174), but finally he was another important voice against this terrible misjudgment (Niebuhr 1967, p. 11). He especially attacked the spiritual legitimation of this cruel war by churches who supported Nixon unconditionally (Niebuhr 1969b, pp. 211–212). The U.S. stood firm in the Berlin crisis of 1961 as the reliable alliance leader in Western Europe in the containment of the Soviet Union (Niebuhr 1961, p. 18) and had now lost its credibility in Vietnam completely. He wrote in 1967: “The contradiction between our ideal aims of a peace of conciliation and such an imposed peace, which only a defeated enemy would accept, can be understood only in the light of an ironic self-deception—ironic because we are the victims of our

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own ideology. We are a democratic nation whose power has grown to imperial proportions” (Niebuhr 1967, p.11). Elements of Niebuhr’s theoretical assumptions can be found in several versions of political realism that are not exclusively based on a positivistic methodology. His Christian Realism is usually assigned to the school of classical realism (Bell 2009, p. 1). But despite the inherent liberalism in his political outlook, Niebuhr would never have supported any form of democratic imperialism in order to spread this form of governance, because this did not solve the problem of world peace; to the contrary, it would provoke resistance of peoples who would prefer other cultural values and follow less individualistic concepts of social cooperation: Stone summarizes Niebuhr’s position: “Democracy was a historically contingent development in the West that could gain some other adherents, but it was not a universal solution to the problem of government” (Stone 2019, p. xi). Niebuhr was clearly aware of the “vague universalism of liberal democracy” (Niebuhr 1959a, pp. 182 ff.) that would not have the power to end the reality of power politics in the international domain. For him “democracy could not alter seriously the self-regarding motives” (Niebuhr 1959a, p. 197). Niebuhr did change a lot during his lifetime, but one convention remained ceaselessly: “We do need a constant reorganization of social processes and systems, so that society will not aggravate but mitigate the native imperialistic impulses of men” (Niebuhr 1976, p. 90). And this permanent transformation had to be built on a solid foundation: “That is why an adequate political realism will ultimately make for more peace in society than a liberalism which does not read the facts of human nature and human history aright correctly, and which is betrayed by these errors into erroneous historical calculations…” (Niebuhr 1933b, p. 205). In these times of a renaissance of stubborn moral group pride that expresses itself in irreconcilable forms of moral absolutism, it is helpful to take to heart Niebuhr’s invitation to exercise restraint again: “There will be elements of vindictiveness in every historic movement against established injustice. The Christian who fully understands the tragic character of man’s social life will neither refuse to participate in a social struggle because these elements are in it, nor yet will he call evil good” (Niebuhr 1934a, p. 21).

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Some Bibliographical Remarks

At this point it is not necessary to provide an exhaustive overview over the vast body of Niebuhr’s interpretations. It may be sufficient to mention some of the latest works that touch the field of interest of this book. Highly recommendable evaluations concerning the Niebuhr reception are to be found as a well-structured appendix in Charles Brown’s brilliant biography (Brown 2002) and more currently in KCarnahan (2011), who summarizes recent work on Reinhold Niebuhr. Useful biographical works are Bingham (1961), Fox (1985), and Splinter (1998). Certainly, the extensive work of Niebuhr’s former co-worker and friend Ronald Stone (1972, 1992) offer excellent surveys concerning Niebuhr as a thinker and doer. The movie An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story produced by Martin Doblmeier together with the companion book is also a very helpful device providing an overview of the life and work of the prominent theologian. Niebuhr’s daughter Elisabeth Sifton has edited a useful selection of important Niebuhr writings (2015). Recommendable monographs about Niebuhr in the last decade encompass Finstuen (2009), Crouter (2010), Diggins (2010), Lemert (2011), Malotky (2012), Josephson and Holder (2012), Erwin (2013), Rice (2013), Plathow and Schössler (2013), Castellin (2014), Beem (2015), Rohde (2016), Pedro (2017), Bellmann (2018), Stone (2019), Josephson and Holder (2019), and Moore (2020). More recent, theologically oriented works stem from Gilkey (2001), Carnahan (2010), and Hamilton (2013). Important recent anthologies originate from Harries and Platten (2010), in which different authors discuss misreading’s of Niebuhr’s theology as well as contemporary applications of Christian Realism; another important philosophical work was published by Carnahan and True (2020). In this book, several elucidating contributions discuss the potential of Christian Realism for the construction of a virtue ethics that is an important part of the school of communitarianism.5 Niebuhr’s work is compatible with contemporary modes of thought. This becomes evident by the fact that in the last years scholars have drawn comparisons between the theologian and modern thinkers of different backgrounds. Only a few may be mentioned here. Simmons and Karnahan (2019) examine the “Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas”. Ilsup Ahn 5 As a canonical work of communitarism may be count Aladair McIntyre’s book After Virtue. For communitarians, the moral indifference of postmodernism and its lack of moral telos leads to different evaluative concepts and frameworks. This relativistic mentality, in turn, produces the lack of a common moral language, enforces the construction of incompatible worldviews, and subsequently leads to a futile polarization of modern societies.

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(2008) compares Niebuhr’s and Jürgen Habermas’ understanding of responsibility. Edmund N. Santurri represents the thesis that Reinhold Niebuhr’ Christian Realism has the potential to enrich John Rawls’ normative theory The Law of Peoples (1999) by adding some of its realistic premises. He argues that the democratic peace approach that dominates the IR discourse in the Western epistemic community, tends to absolute solutions of political problems and could lead to the fanaticism of the allegedly just actor (Santurri 2005, pp. 806–807).

6

Final Thoughts

It can be assumed that there are not many things Niebuhr would have accepted in the personality of President Donald Trump and his way of doing politics. But that does not mean that he simply would have condemned him as an evil person who had destroyed an otherwise harmonious and working political system. Niebuhr perhaps would have criticized the decay of the political culture in the United States altogether and the self-righteousness and naivité of the liberal elites whom Niebuhr called the Children of Light. The polarization of Western societies is not a conflict between good and evil but the result of the partially unconscious revocation of a pluralistic consensus that had been established painstakingly over the long run. In the U.S. wrote Niebuhr in 1964, it was the Civil War that solved the question about the authority of the national government; but the constitutionally settled individualism did not answer the question of a social equilibrium. This was only achieved under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who succeeded in establishing a post-industrial order that guaranteed relative justice (Sifton 2015, pp. 683–684). What Niebuhr wrote about Barry Goldwater meshes astonishingly with the image commentators draw about Donald Trump today. Niebuhr describes the regressive “Goldwater Revolution” as a movement of pseudo-moralists whose “morality” is as selfish as that of Trump and his motto “America First”. Like Trump, Goldwater blamed the political establishment and Federal Officials as power hungry and as enemies of the ordinary people who distracted politics with unnecessary complexities. He stated: “The trouble with the so-called liberal today is that he doesn’t understand simplicity. The answers to America’s problems are simple” (Goldwater, quoted in Sifton 2015, p. 686). Niebuhr considered the Goldwater movement “… as a recrudescence of the worst features of … liberalism..” that was the product of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. This, in turn, reflected American nativism of the 19the century and its prejudices against Jews and Roman Catholic immigrants (Niebuhr 1964, p. 249).

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For many observers Trump fits into the category of the “Children of Darkness “ (Josephson and Holder 2019, p. xii) that Niebuhr described. Private business interest groups attempt once again to radically get rid of political checks on their power (Josephson and Holder 2019, p. 93). Niebuhr modified his vision of the state from a radical to a more modest version: “Not the socialist goal of a ‘just society’, but the more moderate liberal goal of a ‘dissent society’ was Niebuhr’s non-utopian option” (Halliwell 2005, p. 104). Not concrete proposals concerning the legal or institutional design of a nation-state remain the valuable insights of the theologian but his overall anthropology that expressed the paradoxes of human existence and that results in one of his most quoted allegories: “Man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” and “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible” (Niebuhr 1944, p. ix). Some of Niebuhr’s more intuitive or metaphysically derived insights especially in the field of social psychology that concern group dynamics have recently been scientifically confirmed in behavioral sciences (Beem 2015, pp. 41 ff.). Finally, it does not matter what kind of social organization will prevail in the future of mankind. The question is whether human beings can coordinate their most basic interests in order to survive in the long run; e. g., the prevention of an all-out nuclear war, appropriate ways to sustain the natural environment and resources, the handling of the population development, the management of pandemic incidents and the ethical balanced management of the processes of technical innovations. Hans Morgenthau is right with his words: “While the realist indeed believes that interest is the perennial standard by which political action must be judged and directed, the contemporary connection between interest and the nation state is a product of history” (Morgenthau 1948, p. 4). If the nation-state should continue to prove that it is the best form to satisfy the emotional needs of its people and simultaneously is capable of developing effective multilateral concepts that help to sustain a stable international system that is as peaceful as possible, then it will play an important role in the future. But Niebuhr was not ideologically committed with reference to this question, but he remained pragmatic and sober in his judgements. Hence, his reflections are profound enough in order to equally inspire our current discussions concerning the future of the state in turbulent times. The covid-19 pandemic has put globalization into intensive care. It will lead to a restructuring of global politics; the process of deglobalization that can be witnessed for over a decade will also be reinforced (Walt 2020). What role the nation-state will play in this transformation is an open question. But in history, it has provided the necessary flexibility to cope with different kinds of crisis situations (Bröning 2019). Political Realism has permanently defended the importance

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of the nation-state as the firefighter in difficult circumstances. Niebuhr’s Christian realism can help to develop ideas, how stable liberal democracies can be built, protected, and adjusted to different circumstances. In an article, he had written in 1937, he had asked the question: “Do the State and Nation belong to God or the Devil?” The answer depends on the worldview the observer holds. The essence of Niebuhr’s political thought is that the possibilities a balanced mixture of freedom and security depend on an adequate anthropological understanding. In the words of Caldwell: “The too optimistic faith of our civilization in human nature ignores the fact that the possibility for evil keeps pace with the possibility for good; and having failed to recognize this crucial truth, our culture has not insisted strongly enough on adequate checks for pride and power” (Caldwell 1960, p. 315). As many liberal illusions Niebuhr attacked have not disappeared from the intellectual sphere, it is still useful to take Niebuhr’s sophisticated words to heart again. Furthermore, the difficult times should remind us of our status as creatures: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90; 12).

References Ahn, Ilsup. 2008. Position and Responsibility: Jurgen Habermas, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Co-Reconstruction of the Positional Imperative. Princeton: Princeton Theological Monograph Series. Beem, Christopher. 2015. Democratic Humility – Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience, and America’s Political Crisis. Lanham: Lexington Books. Bell, Duncan ed. 2009. Political Thought and International Relations – Political Thought and International Relations. Oxford: OUP. Bellmann, Tina. 2018. Zwischen Liebesideal und Realismus - Theologische Anthropologie als soziale Ressource bei Reinhold Niebuhr. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. Bew, John 2016. Realpolitik – A History. Oxford: OUP. Bingham, June. 1961. Courage to Change. An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. NYC: Scribner. Brown, Charles Calvin. 2002. Niebuhr and his age. Reinhold Niebuhr’s prophetic role and legacy. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. Bröning, Michael 2019. Lob der Nation. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Caldwell, Gaylon L. 1960. Reinhold Niebuhr and the Crisis of Our Times. Ethics, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 306–315. Carnahan, Kevin/True, David ed. 2020. Paradoxical virtue: Reinhold Niebuhr and the virtue tradition. London: Routledge. Carnahan, Kevin. 2011. Recent Work on Reinhold Niebuhr. Religion Compass 5/8 (2011): pp. 365–375, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00296.x

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Carnahan, Kevin. 2010. Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: idealist and pragmatic Christians on politics, philosophy, religion, and war. Lanham: Lexington Books. Castellin, Luca G. 2014. Reinhold Niebuhr and the Irony of American History in and after the Cold War. Telos 168, pp. 85–105. 10.3817/0914168085 Christensen, Drew. 2017. Politicians Love to Quote Reinhold Niebuhr. James Comey Actually Gets Him. America, November 20. https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/politi cians-love-to-quote-reinhold-niebuhr-james-comey-actually-gets-him Craig, Campbell. 2003. Glimmer of a New Leviathan. Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. NYC: CUP. Craig, Campbell. 1992. The New Meaning of Modern War in the Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 687–701. Crouch, Colin. 2004. Post-democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Crouter, Richard. 2010. Reinhold Niebuhr: On Politics, Religion, and Christian Faith. Oxford: OUP. Diggins, John B. 2010. Why Niebuhr Now? Chicago: UCP. Dorrien, Gary J. 2009. Social ethics in the making – Interpreting an American tradition. Chichester: Blackwell. Erwin, Scott R. 2013. The theological vision of Reinhold Niebuhr’s The irony of American – ‚in the battle and above it‘. Oxford: OUP. Felice, William F. 2010: President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech: Embracing the Ethics of Reinhold Niebuhr. Social Justice, Vol. 37, Nos. 2-3, pp. 47–60. Finstuen, Andrew S. 2009. Original sin and everyday Protestants – The theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in An age of Anxiety. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Fox, Richard. 1985. Reinhold Niebuhr – A Biography. NYC: Pantheon Books. Gallaway, Scott. 2020. The four: die geheime DNA von Amazon, Apple, Facebook und Google. Kulmbach: Plassen Verlag. Gilkey, Langdon. 2001. On Niebuhr: A Theological Study. Chicago: UCP. Guilhot, Nicolas 2011. The invention of international relations theory: realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory. NYC: CUP. Gurri, Martin. 2018. The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. San Francisco; Stripe Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2001. The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays. Cambridge MA: Polity. Halliwell, Martin. 2005. The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr and the Problem of Christian Statecraft. Lanham: R & L. Hamilton, Kenneth. 2013. The doctrine of humanity in the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. Harries, Richard/Platten, Stephen. 2010. Reinhold Niebuhr and contemporary politics: God and power. Oxford: OUP. Holder, R. Ward /Josephson, Peter. 2012. The irony of Barack Obama – Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Inboden, William C. 2014. The Prophetic Conflict. Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism, and World War II. Diplomatic History, Vol. 38. No. 1, pp. 49–82.

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James, Harold. 2020. The Financial Equivalent of a Vaccine. Project Syndicate. December 1. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sdrs-to-buy-up-distressed-sovere ign-debt-by-harold-james-2020-12 Josephson, Peter, and R. W. Holder. 2019. Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice. Christian Realism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham: R & L. Juetersonke, Oliver. 2010. Morgenthau, Law and Realism. Cambridge: CUP. Karnahan, Kevin M. 2011. Recent Work on Reinhold Niebuhr. Religion Compass 5/8, pp. 365– 375. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00296.x Kreitner, Richard. 2020. When Confronting the Coronavirus, Federalism Is Part of the Problem. The Nation, April 1. URL: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/federalismcoronavirus-problem-government/ LaFeber, Walter. 2008. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2006. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Laski, Harold. 2009. The state in theory and practice. New Brunswick: Transaction. Publ. Lebow, Ned. 2003. The tragic vision of politics: ethics, interests, and orders. Cambridge: CUP. Lemert, Charles C. 2011. Why Niebuhr matters. New Haven: Yale University Press. Luce, Henry R. 1941. The American Century. Life, 10, February p. 17. Malotky, David. 2012. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Paradox: Paralysis, Violence, and Pragmatism. Lanham: Lexington Books. Masala, Carlo. 2016. Weltunordnung. München: Beck. McQueen, Allision. 2017. Salutary Fear? Hans Morgenthau and the Politics of Existential Crisis. American Political Thought, vol. 6, pp. 78–105. Mearsheimer, John J. 2014: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Worcester: Norton & Co. Mollov, Benjamin M. 2002. Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience. Lanham: Lexington Books. Moore, Gregory J. 2020. Niebuhrian International Relations: The Ethics of Foreign Policymaking. Oxford: OUP. Morgenthau, Hans. 1985 (1948). Politics among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace. NYC: Scribner. Morgenthau, Hans. 1961. Death in the Nuclear Age. Commentary 32, September 1961, pp. 231–234. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1933. Hitlerism - A Devil’s Brew. World Tomorrow 16, April 19, pp. 369– 370. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934a. Class War and Class Hatred. Rez. Nicholas Berdyaev, Christianity and Class War. World Tomorrow 17, January 6, p. 21. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934b. Shall we seek World Peace of the Peace of America? in: WT 17, no. 6 (March 15), pp. 132–133. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1937. Do the State and Nation belong to God or the Devil? In Faith and Politics. Ed. R. Stone, pp. 84–101. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1940a. Christianity and Power Politics. NYC: Archon Books. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1940b. To Prevent the Triumph of an Intolerable Tyranny. In Love and Justice. Ed. D. B. Robertson, pp. 272–278. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941a. The Crisis. C & C, Vol. I, No. 1, 1. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941b. Pacifism and America First. C & C, Vol. I, No. 10, pp. 2–6. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1942. Common Counsel for United Nations. C & C, Vol. II, No. 16, pp. 1–2.

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Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1943. The United Nations and World Organization. C & C, Vol. II, No. 24, pp. 1–2. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1944. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946a. Fight for Germany, Life, Vol. 23, October 21, pp. 65–72. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946b. Discerning the Signs of the Times. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1948. For Peace, we must risk war, Life, Vol. 25, No. 12, pp. 38–39. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1952. The Irony of American History. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1953. Christian Realism and Political Problems. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1954a. Democracy and the Party Spirit. The New Leader 17, March 15, pp. 3–5. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1954b. Beria and McCarthy. The New Leader, January 4, pp. 3–4. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1956a. The Self and the Dramas of History. London: Faber and Faber. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1956b. The Cause and Cure of the American Psychosis. American Scholar Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 11–20. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1957. Love and Justice. Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Ed. D. B. Robertson. Louisville: WJK. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1959a. The Structure of Nations and Empires. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1959b. Essays in Applied Christianity, ed. D. B. Robertson. NYC: Meridian Books. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1959c. The Eisenhower Doctrine. The New Leader, February 23. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1960 [1932]. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1961. Berlin and Prestige in Europe. The New Republic, September 18. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1964. Protestant Individualism and the Goldwater Movement. C & C, Vol. XXIV., No. 21, pp. 248–250. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1967. Vietnam: Study in Ironies. The New Republic, June 24, pp. 11–12. Online: https://newrepublic.com/article/72178/vietnam-study-ironies Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1969. The King’s Chapel and the King’s Court. C & C, August 4, pp. 211– 212. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1976 (1929). Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. NYC: Da Capo Press. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 2013 (1935). An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. Louisville: WJK. Pedro, Guilherme Marques. 2017. Reinhold Niebuhr’s IR theory: realism beyond Thomas Hobbes. NYC: Routledge. Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. NYC: Penguin Random House. Plathow, Michael, and Schössler, Dietmar ed. 2013. Öffentliche Theologie und Internationale Politik. Zur Aktualität Reinhold Niebuhrs. Wiesbaden: Springer. Rauchway, Eric. 2016. How ‘America First’ Got Its Nationalistic Edge. The Atlantic, May 6. URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/william-randolph-hearstgave-america-first-its-nationalist-edge/481497/ Rice, Daniel. 1983. Felix Frankfurter and Reinhold Niebuhr: 1940-1964, Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 325–426. Rohde, Christoph. 2021. Das Kreuz und der Krieg - Prämissen einer realistischen katholischen Friedensethik. Rückersdorf üb. Nürnberg: Lepanto Verlag. Rohde, Christoph. 2016. Reinhold Niebuhr - Die Geburt des Christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

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Santurri, Edmund M. 2005. Global Justice after the Fall: Christian Realism and the ‘Law of Peoples’. The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 783–814. Scheuerman, William E. 1999. Carl Schmitt – The End of Law. Lanham: R & L. Scheuerman, William E. 2011. The Realist Case for Global Reform. Cambridge: Polity Press. Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. 1949. The Vital Center. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Schwarz, Hans-Peter. 1985. Die gezähmten Deutschen - Von der Machtbesessenheit zur Machtvergessenheit. München: DVA. Siemon-Netto, Uwe. 2007. The fabricated Luther: refuting Nazi propaganda and modern myths. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. Sifton, Elisabeth (ed.) 2015. Reinhold Niebuhr – Major Works on Religion and Politics. NYC: The Library of America. Simmons, Aaron, Karnahan, Kevin 2019. When Liberalism Is Not Enough: Political Theology after Reinhold Niebuhr and Emmanuel Levinas. Religions 2019, 10, p. 439; doi: 10.3390/ rel10070439 Somer, Murat, and J. McCoy. 2018. Déjà Vu? Polarization and Endangered Democracies in the 21st Century. American Behavioral Scientist 62, no. 1, pp. 3–15. Sockness, Brent W. 1992. Luther’s Two Kingdoms Revisited: A Response to Reinhold Niebuhr’s Criticism of Luther. The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 93–110. Splinter, Dieter. 1998. Theologe zwischen den Welten. Reinhold Niebuhr und die „Deutsche Evangelische Synode von Nord-Amerika“ 1892–1928 (Theologische Studien), Aachen: Shaker. Stone, Ronald. 1972. Reinhold Niebuhr – Prophet to Politicians. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Stone, Ronald. 1992. Professor Reinhold Niebuhr – A Prophet to the Twentieth Century. Louisville: WJK. Stone, Ronald. 1998. Against the Third Reich. Paul Tillich’s wartime addresses to Nazi Germany. Louisville: WJK. Vanden Brook, Tom 2020. Trump invokes wartime authority of Defense Production Act to speed coronavirus aid. USA Today, March 18, 2020. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/ news/politics/2020/03/18/coronavirus-what-defense-production-act-trump-has-invoked/ 2865598001/ Walt, Steven. 2020. The Realist’s Guide to the Coronavirus Outbreak. Foreign Policy, March 9. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-economy-globaliza tion-virus-icu-realism/ Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Walzer, Michael 1985. Exodus and Revolution. NYC: Basic Books. Williams, Allison. 2015. The Philosopher, the Chancellor – and Lady Chatterley. Handelsblatt, September 18th . URL: https://www.handelsblatt.com/english/politics/angela-merkel-thephilosopher-the-chancellor-and-lady-chatterley/23506070.html

Part I

The Art of Living Together: The Relationship Between Individual and Society in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Political Thought Luca G. Castellin Abstract

The relationship between individual and society is a crucial aspect in Reinhold Niebuhr’s political thought. The Protestant theologian is usually regarded only for the idea of the existence of a profound and incompatible divergence between the moral and social behavior of both individuals and groups which he conceived in Moral Man and Immoral Society. This chapter argues that this interpretation is very reductive. It argues instead that Niebuhr developed a more complex conception of the political and social coexistence, intrinsically rooted in a Christian view of human nature. Indeed, Christian realism holds that human nature contains self-regarding and social impulses and that the former is stronger than the latter. Although society is less moral than any individual and potentially dominated by collective egoism, he believes that human beings can overcome the latter in order to achieve tolerable forms of justice in each state and to tame anarchy in international system. Through a solid antiutopianist and anti-hubris approach, he has shown that, living always on the edge between fear and hope, human beings and societies display the amazing art of living together. Keywords

Reinhold Niebuhr • Christian Realism • State • Human Beings • Society Politics • Communities

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L. G. Castellin (B) Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_2

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Introduction

In his book Man’s Nature and His Communities (MNC), published in 1965, while he was summarizing and revising previously held opinions, Reinhold Niebuhr remembered that his first venture in political philosophy, was built on the thesis that the “collective self-regard of class, race, and nation is more stubborn and persistent than the egoism of individuals” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 22). This important evidence explained the secular and religious idealists’ failed attempt to change insufficient social and political situations “by beguiling the egoism of individuals, either by adequate education or by pious benevolence” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 22). But, thirty years after the publication of his treatise Moral Man and Immoral Society (MM), he stated that he would attenuate his thesis concerning the individual and collective behavior of man by changing the book title into “The Not So Moral Man in His Less Moral Communities” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 22). Highlighting a political thought that was profoundly theology-rooted, Niebuhr advocated the values of prudence and wisdom in all social and political actions. With help of his Christian realism, he was able to present to the twentieth century American public and cultural scene the contingency of politics and the ambiguity of human nature (Castellin 2014a). Although Niebuhr many times provoked strong opposition from representatives of modern culture, he remained steadfast in pointing out the empirical fact of original sin in social life. A doctrine that asserts “the obvious fact that all men are persistently inclined to regard themselves more highly and are more assiduously concerned with their own interests than any ‘objective’ view of their importance would warrant” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 17). This human inclination to selfishness penetrates political communities as well, and the results of the egoism of social groups are even more problematic than selfish acts of individuals. The relationship between individual and society has been a crucial aspect in Reinhold Niebuhr’s political thought. From the beginning of the 1930s until the end of the 1960s, the topic recurred several times in his works. It can be found, most notably in MM, NDM, CL, CRPP, FH, IAH, and NE, as well as in MNC. But, throughout his life, as will be shown, some significant changes of his perspective emerged. In 1932, Niebuhr wrote his first well received book, MM, in which he embraced the idea of democratic socialism. This work, as he retrospectively noted, “was not uncritically Marxist, but it does reveal a failure to recognize the ultimate similarities, despite immediate differences, between liberal and Marxist utopianism” (Niebuhr 2001, p. 8). However, his knowledge of Marxist theory was neither direct nor thorough, obtained only through the mediation of Harold J. Laski, Max Eastman and Sidney Hook. MM aroused a notable echo in public opinion, showing the abandonment of the Social Gospel in which, he was born,

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and the progressive but relentless rising of his Christian realism. The religious worldview that penetrates this work stated the dialectical relationship between the finite, which mirrors the real world, and the eternal, which manifests itself in the ideal. Niebuhr harshly criticized modern liberalism, both in its religious and secular versions, which had dominated the American intellectual discourse between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Since contemporary culture was still pretty firmly enmeshed in the illusions and sentimentalities of the Enlightenment, the Protestant theologian sought to overcome this impasse, finding “political methods which will offer the most promise of achieving an ethical social goal for society” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. xxiv−xxv). He highlighted the inevitable influence of evil, interest and selfishness in political, economic and social contexts. Moreover, he affirmed the essential—but always from an ethical perspective precarious—role of power and violence both within the state and in the international system. If in CL Niebuhr strongly criticized Marxism and, at the same time, exposed the unsustainable limits of the traditional defense of democracy by liberal political theory, FH and above all NDM are bright witnesses of the intellectual pilgrimage in which he “began to criticize liberal viewpoints from a Marxist perspective in the first instance”, and these books show that he learned “gradually to subject both viewpoints to a Christian criticism” (Niebuhr 2001, pp. 9–10). In these works, it becomes clear that human nature is of necessity the fundamental aspect to comprehend the dynamics of history, as described in IAH, and to give meaning to the repetitive behavior structures of political decision-makers, as they are analyzed in NE. MNC, instead, represents a systematic account of the revisions of Niebuhr’s political thought. Retracing the rough path that leads him to deeply review the Protestant individualism and perfectionism in which he was born, Niebuhr underlined both an increasing sympathy for the two other great traditions of Western culture, the Jewish and Catholic ones, and an increasing enthusiasm towards the virtues of liberalism and of open societies. According to him, the Jewish and the Catholic faith have a greater awareness of the individual and collective expectations of human beings with regard to social issues. This mature awareness allows to overcome the contrast between an ethic of sacrificial love (interior) and an individualistic-economic ethic (external) that characterizes Protestantism. While, on the one hand, the author particularly appreciated the Jewish predisposition to the exercise of civic virtue and social justice, on the other hand, he strongly emphasized the social pragmatism of the catholic tradition (Niebuhr 1965, pp. 15–19). Through the analysis of the dynamics of man’s personal and social existence within the political communities, Niebuhr reflects on the ambiguous role of power

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and on the thorny relationship between order and justice. Therefore, he has been both a staunch opponent of Marxism and a sharp critic of Western liberal and bourgeois culture. Niebuhr (1965, pp. 24–25) strongly believed that “a realistic conception of human nature”, offered by Christian realism, “should be made servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism” which defends “unjust privileges.” The present chapter aims to show the relevance of the relationship between the individual and society in Niebuhr’s political thought. It will start by reconstructing the seminal role that the concept of human nature has in the development of his political theory. Next, it outlines the analysis of human beings and their communities as theorized in Niebuhr works. Third, the essay focuses on the proper origin and the main features of the state. Finally, it delivers the most relevant factors that cause the selfishness and the (im)morality of nations, that characterize the conduct of states in the international system. However, Niebuhr’s hope for a global reform that has the intention to tame the consequences of international anarchy is discussed.

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Human Nature and Political Theory

Niebuhr has always claimed the essential relevance of the concept of human nature in politics. Furthermore, Christian realism has its core in a specific anthropological vision (Gilkey 2001; Paipais 2019). So, his comprehension of human nature is strictly related to the conceptualization of his political theory. The latter represents a ferocious criticism of the contemporary view of politics offered by social sciences. In particular, Niebuhr’s targets were both the too simplistic interpretation of human beings produced by scientific knowledge, and the absence of a true realism in the understanding of men’s political aims and actions. Like Hans J. Morgenthau, he criticized the use of the natural science method in the study of politics (Castellin 2015).1 Many liberal theories, he noted, “derive their defects from the failure to make a sufficiently sharp distinction between the natural and the socio-historical sciences between Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 80). He exactly wanted to unmask the unwarranted demands of the secular ideologies to reach a scientific comprehension of man and politics. “The hope”, Niebuhr (1949a, p. 14) observed in FH,

1

There are different interpretations of the friendship between Niebuhr and Morgenthau. On this topic see Frei (2001), Shinn (2003), Halliwell (2005), and Rice (2008).

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“that everything recalcitrant in human behavior may be brought under the subjection of the inclusive purposes of ‘mind’ by the same technics which gained man mastery over nature is not merely an incidental illusion, prompted by the phenomenal achievements of the natural sciences”, but “it is the culminating error in modern man’s misunderstanding of himself.” This error was especially evident in the United States. In fact, as he noted in IAH, “no national culture has been as assiduous as our own in trying to press the wisdom of the social and political sciences, indeed of all the humanities, into the limits of the natural sciences” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 60). This caused, in the author’s view, a widespread bewilderment of the cognitive ability of social and political sciences to understand the relationship between human beings and their communities. Even if set on making a scientific analysis, modern culture can rarely be valuefree. According to Niebuhr, there is always an original option which determines knowledge. In fact, reason never operates in a vacuum. Its presuppositions make it a servant and not a master of human impulses (Niebuhr 1965, p. 37). At the base of the scientific method there are both the presuppositions of human perfectibility and progress (Niebuhr 1953, pp. 2–4). The realism of many social sciences’ positivist theories, claimed but always roughly denied by history, was only a sign of their helpless irrationalism (Niebuhr 1940, p. 188). In his view, political realism was impossible without a realistic comprehension of human nature, but the latter could only be guaranteed by the intuitions that came from the Christian view of history (Niebuhr 1953, p. 101). Therefore, Niebuhr wanted to suggest a more comprehensive approach to the contradictions of man and the ambiguity of politics. So he analyzed the dichotomy between idealism and realism, refusing to bestow exclusive validity to both. While the former is “characterized by loyalty to moral norms and ideals, rather than to self-interest, whether individual or collective”, the latter “denotes the disposition to take all factors in a social and political situation, which offer resistance to established norms, into account, particularly the factors of self-interest and power” (Niebuhr 1953, pp. 119–120). In either case, there is an incompatible interpretation on the effect of human freedom upon man’s social and political life. Realists “emphasize the disruptive effect of human freedom on the community”; instead, idealists “regard man’s rational freedom primarily in terms of its creative capacity to extend the limits of man’s social sense […] and to give preference to his ‘moral’ or social sense over his self-regard”. Therefore, on the one hand, the former “are inclined to obscure the residual moral and social sense even in the most self-regarding men and nations”; on the other, the latter “are inclined to obscure the residual individual and collective self-regard either in the ‘saved’ or in the rational individual and groups”. But both theories fail “to observe the intricate

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relation between the creative and the disruptive tendencies of human freedom” (Niebuhr 1965, pp. 31–32). Instead, Christian realism “holds that human nature contains both self-regarding and social impulses and that the former is stronger than the latter” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 39). Over the centuries, realism and idealism contribute to the elaboration of many political theories that tend to overestimate a partial aspect of human nature. Rejecting both these positions, Niebuhr believed that their synthesis was necessary. In this perspective, his rediscovery of St. Augustine’s thought is crucial. According to Niebuhr (1953, p. 120), the Bishop of Hippo is “the first great ‘realist’ in western history.” The rediscovery of the Augustinian tradition is important because not all kinds of realism can overcome sentimentalism without falling into nihilism. Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther, for instance, stressed a too cynical conception both of human nature and politics. Their “realistic pessimism” did indeed prompt “an unqualified endorsement of state power”, only because “they were not realistic enough”: both “saw the danger of anarchy in the egotism of the citizens but failed to perceive the dangers of tyranny in the selfishness of the ruler”, and therefore “obscured the consequent necessity of placing checks upon the ruler’s self-will” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 127). Instead, Augustinian realism turns out to be a more reliable guide to the understanding of a crumbling and decaying world. As the protestant theologian stated: “Modern ‘realists’ know the power of collective self-interest as Augustine did; but they do not understand its blindness. Modern pragmatists understood the irrelevance of fixed and detailed norms; but they do not understand that love must take the place as the final norm for these inadequate norms. Modern liberal Christians know that love is the final norm for man; but they fall into sentimentality because they fail to measure the power and persistence of self-love. Thus Augustine, whatever may be the defects of his approach to political reality, and whatever may be the dangers of a too slavish devotion to his insights, nevertheless proves himself a more reliable guide than any known thinker. A generation which finds its communities imperiled and in decay from the smallest and most primordial community, the family, to the largest and most recent, the potential world community, might well take counsel of Augustine in solving its perplexities” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 146). In Augustinian thought he found an actual description of reality and a deep understanding of politics on the basis of which Niebuhr elaborated his Christian realism. A conception of human nature, politics and history that considers both self-regarding and social impulses of man, knowing that the former are stronger than the latter. This tamed realism exceeds cynical realism but does not lead to a sentimental idealism. Contrasting with the classical view of man as well the

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modern one, Niebuhr fashioned his realism on the Christian view of man (Niebuhr 1937). He believed that history had a larger meaning, but that it was hidden from human view. Although he never considered man the master of history, he stated that in ironic situations the inconsistency between aims and consequences results not from a pure coincidence, but from a hidden responsibility of man. Men and states should be conscious of their own responsibilities in creating such inconsistencies, in order to avoid an outbreak. Hence, Niebuhr (1965, p. 169) observed, “the question for a nation, particularly for a very powerful nation, is whether the necessary exercise of its virtue in meeting ruthlessness and the impressive nature of its power will blind it to the ambiguity of all human virtues and competencies; or whether even a nation might have some residual awareness of the larger meanings of the drama of human existence beyond and above the immediate urgencies”. Furthermore, Niebuhr showed a complex and not deterministic view of human nature. As he noted, “man is a child of nature, subject to its vicissitudes, compelled by its necessities, driven by its impulses”, but at the same time “man is a spirit who stands outside of nature, life, himself, his reason and the world” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 3). In other words, man is both image of God and creature. Human beings are both free and bound, both limited and limitless. These two conditions stand in paradoxical juxtaposition to one another. Indeed, the Christian view of human nature is involved “in the paradox of claiming a higher stature for man and of taking a more serious view of his evil than other anthropology” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 18). The reason for this ostensible paradox can be found in the high esteem of human will that the Christian anthropology expresses. In this way, Niebuhr affirmed a realism of freedom. “Good and evil”, he asserted, “are not determined by some fixed structure of human existence.” So, Niebuhr refused a mere pessimistic anthropology, such as that of Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes, stating that “a realism becomes morally cynical or nihilistic when it assumes that the universal characteristic in human behavior must also be regarded as normative” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 130). Christian realism intended to show the infinite but contrasting possibilities of the human condition. As Niebuhr (1941, p. 17) observed in NDM I, “the essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed as freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.” Human evil is not determined by nature. Rather it is a corruption of the essential freedom of man that is caused by his anxious perception of reality. “Anxiety”, he noted, “is the inevitable concomitant of the paradox of freedom and finiteness in which man is involved”; therefore, man is anxious not only because “his life

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is limited and dependent” but also because “he does not know the limits of his possibilities” (Niebuhr 1941, pp. 182–183). The foundations of Niebuhr’s political theory, obviously, become manifest in his interpretation of the relationship between human beings and their communities throughout history. His view of human nature as characterized by sin as well as love leads him to argue that order, security and justice require balanced power, humble prudence and responsible actions.

3

The Individual and the Community

The ambivalent nature of man is projected onto the state. Niebuhr believes that the relationship between man and his community is based on a profound and incompatible divergence between the moral and social behavior of both individuals and groups (political, economic, ethnic). While individuals “may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, occasionally, of preferring the advantages of others to their own”, all these moral achievements “are more difficult, if not impossible”, to realize for human societies. “In every human group”, he observed, “there is less reason to guide and check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. xi−xii). Therefore, as individuals, men believe that “they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other”. As racial, economic and national groups, however, “they take for themselves, whatever their power can command” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 9). “The group”, he noted in NDM I, “is more arrogant, hypocritical, self-centred and more ruthless in the pursuit of its ends than the individual” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 222). Indeed, there is a permanent and irreconcilable conflict between individual morality and social morality. From the perspective of society the highest moral ideal is “justice”, from the individual one it is “unselfishness”. Although the two perspectives “are not mutually exclusive and the contradiction between them is not absolute”, neither are they “easily harmonised” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 257).2 Any attempt to equate the moral standards of groups with individual ethics can only lead to wrong conclusions. So, as he stated in CL, the “confidence” of modern idealists “in the possibility of achieving an easy resolution of the tension and 2

On this topic, see also Niebuhr (1957a, pp. 25–26; 1957b, pp. 27–29).

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conflict between self-interest and the general interest” is a “fundamental error” the bourgeois society is guilty of (Niebuhr 2011, pp. 6–7). An error mainly due to the absence of a mature realism in the understanding of human beings and in the analysis of society. The confidence of modern liberalism in the possibility of an easy resolution of the tension between individuals and communities is derived from a too optimistic view of human nature, which leaves the individual essentially defenseless in its relationship towards society. According to Niebuhr (1952, p. 100), “there is no neat principle which will solve the relation of power to justice and of justice to freedom.” Indeed, the relationship between love and justice is summarized by the author with the paradoxical expression “impossible possibility” (Niebuhr 1935, p. 72), as he believes that a full complementary relationship between these moral goods is only realizable in Christ. Although love is the highest ideal of man, it cannot be a means by which political structures can be organized. Social ethics is dealing with the limits of human nature in the realization of social goals. Therefore, justice is “an approximation of brotherhood under conditions of sin” (Niebuhr 1943, p. 254). If any definition of justice must necessarily assume that sinful decisions are difficult to avoid, an approach of mutual responsibility towards the solution of the social and economic problems of a nation-state can only be guaranteed by a structure of justice that is able to inhibit concentrations of uncontrolled power. “Justice”, as he stated, “is basically dependent upon a balance of power”, which is “something different from, and inferior to, the harmony of love” (Niebuhr 1940, p. 26). Thus, a wise balance of power is necessary, even if built partially on structures of injustice, so that a stable order does not degenerate into one of the two opposite perils, anarchy, and tyranny. Then again, Niebuhr (1960, p. 129) is aware that “[n]o society has ever achieved peace without incorporating injustice into its harmony”. As he added in FH, “the coercive power required to maintain order and unity in a community is never a pure and disinterested power”, but it is exercised “from a particular center and by a particular group in society” (Niebuhr 1949a, p. 220). Echoing James Madison, he observed that “[t]he same power required to establish the unity of a society also becomes the basis of injustice in it because it seeks its own ends, rather than the common weal” (Niebuhr 1949a, p. 221). In a community, therefore, justice requires a careful and discriminate judgement concerning competing rights and interests. His perspective seems to assert the necessary existence of a frank moral dualism, since the conflict between the purest individual morality and an adequate political policy remains. Considering such a constitutive dualism, he does not realistically seek refuge in the individual sphere, nor does he justify privileges and

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injustices on the level of group morality. Rather, Niebuhr emphasizes the importance of moderation and prudence with realism and disenchantment as principles of governance (Cherniss 2016). These are also the principles which he applies to his international theory. “An adequate political morality”, he noted, “must do justice to the insights of both moralists and political realists”: “It will recognise that human society will probably never escape social conflict, even though it extends the areas of social co-operation. It will try to save society from being involved in endless cycles of futile conflict, not by an effort to abolish coercion in the life of collective man, but reducing it to minimum, by counselling the use of such types of coercion as are most compatible with the moral and rational factors in human society and by discriminating between the purposes and ends for which coercion is used” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. 233–234). Niebuhr believes that, in any form of political experience, conflict is inevitable, and coercion is latent. “The conflicts between men”, he observed, “are thus never simple conflicts between competing survival impulses”, they are “conflicts in which each man or group seeks to guard its power and prestige against the peril of competing expressions of power and pride” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 20). Hence, they are conflicts of rival lusts and ambitions. As he noted in MM: “All social co-operation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. While no state can maintain its unity purely by coercion neither can it preserve itself without coercion. Where the factor of mutual consent is strongly developed, and where standardized and approximately fair methods of adjudicating and resolving conflicting interests within an organized group have been established, the coercive factor in social life is frequently covert, and becomes apparent only in moments of crisis and in the group’s policy toward recalcitrant individuals. Yet it is never absent. […] The coercive factor is, in other words, always present in “ (Niebuhr 1960, pp. 3–6).3 It may be possible “to establish just relations between individuals within a group purely by moral and rational suasion and accommodation”, but in intergroup relations “this is practically an impossibility”. In fact, the relations between groups are always predominantly political rather than ethical, that is, “they will be determined by the proportion of power which each group possesses at least as much as by any rational and moral appraisal of the comparative needs and

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In FH, Niebuhr (1949a, pp. 219–220) noted: ‘The internal peace of a community is always partly coercive because men are not good enough to do what should be done for the commonweal on a purely voluntary basis. There are both organic and moral forces of inner cohesion; but they are not sufficient to obviate the necessity of coercion’.

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claims of each group” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. xxii−xxiii).4 In this perspective, he believed that in the field of political relations the coercive factors can never be sharply differentiated, nor defined, by moral and rational ones. It is impossible to estimate exactly how much the solution of a social conflict is influenced by a rational argument or by the threat of force. Obviously, coercion alone cannot guarantee cohesion and stability to a political community. The authority of the state must generate both fear and respect. Political power “is partially derived from the actual possession of physical instruments of coercion, economic or martial”, but it also depends “to a large degree upon its ability to secure unreasoned and unreasonable obedience, respect and reverence” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 237). Ideology, as a tool both for legitimizing domain and constructing symbols, is as important as force is for the stability of every political community. Although the right balance of power and authority is decisive, it will always be intrinsically uncertain and unstable. The awareness of the centrality of that conflict, that exists between coercion and ideology within each political community, does not preclude Niebuhr from expressing a positive vision of the relationship between the individual and the community. In human nature, there are to be found both a destructive and a creative dimension. Although particular interests usually prevail in different conflicts between social, political and economic groups, and that the illegal implementation of these particular interests must be restrained through recourse to coercion, this does not exclude the possibility that individuals may show a close and fruitful bond of solidarity within societies. “The individual”, as he observed in CL, “is related to the community” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 48). The former, he added in IAH, “becomes most completely himself as his life enters organically into the lives of others” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 10). Individuals are related to each other on many levels, so much that the “highest reaches of individual consciousness and awareness are rooted in social experience and find their ultimate meaning in relation to the community” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 50). But there are additional factors that play a role in the interplay between the individual and the community. In fact, even if 4

According to Niebuhr (1960, pp. 171–172), the assumption that violence and revolution are intrinsically immoral rests upon two errors: ‘The one error is the belief that violence is a natural and inevitable expression of ill-will, and non-violence of good-will, and that violence is therefore intrinsically evil and non-violence intrinsically good. While such a proposition has a certain measure of validity, or at last of plausibility, it is certainly not universally valid. […] The second error […] is due to an uncritical identification of traditionalized instrumental values with intrinsic moral values. Only goodwill is intrinsically good. But as soon as goodwill expresses itself in specific actions, it must be determined whether the right motive has chosen the right instruments for the attainment of its goal and whether the objective is a defensible one. For reason may err in guiding the righteous will in the choice of either means and ends’.

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the individual “is the product of the whole socio-historical process”, he reaches “a height of uniqueness which seems to transcend his social history completely” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 50). Expressed in his typical style of paradox, the individual “cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community’, but, at the same time, “he also cannot find fulfilment completely within society” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 62). Against all secularist reductionism, Niebuhr thus affirms a religious vision of society that does not intend to violate the neutrality and secularity of the community (Castellin 2014b). The awareness of the transcendent nature of man benefits every political system and therefore must always be enhanced. Niebuhr proposes a different ethos on which a political coexistence between politics and religion could be realized. This is a form of ethos, inspired by the Augustinian tradition, which is very different from paradigms that were developed by different authors in modern secular and contemporary political thought. Moreover, in all of Niebuhr’s work, the theorization of the relationship between man and his community seems a challenge to both liberalism and communism. In this regard, in a rather long but very significant passage of CL, which must be reported in its entirety, he observed: “..the individual whose freedom over natural process makes history possible, and whose freedom over history creates indeterminate new possibilities in it, has a final pinnacle of freedom where he is able to ask questions about the meaning of life which call the meaning of the historical process itself into question. […] he will recognize that his own life is not completely fulfilled by its organic relation to a social process pointing to some ‘ultimate fulfillment beyond his life. These profound questions about life from the perspective of the individual who is able to see the whole history of his nation (and of all nations for that matter) as a flux in time, imply eternity. Only a consciousness which transcends time can define and circumscribe the flux of time. The man who searches after both meaning and fulfillments beyond the ambiguous fulfillments and frustrations of history exists in a height of spirit which no historical process can completely contain. This height is not irrelevant to the life of the community, because new richness and a higher possibility of justice come to the community from this height of awareness. But the height is destroyed by any community which seeks prematurely to cut off this pinnacle of individuality in the interest of the community’s peace and order. The problem of the individual and the community cannot be solved at all if the height is not achieved where the sovereign source and end of both individual and communal existence are discerned, and where the limits are set against the idolatrous self-worship of both individuals and communities (Niebuhr 2011, pp. 84–85).

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In their living together, man and his community try to correspond, through contingent and relative political achievements, to an ideal of justice that is compatible with the indispensable need for a stable social order. According to Niebuhr, the individual cannot truly realize himself in isolation, nor can he find his fulfillment within his familial bonds. Human beings are able to transcend their natural relationships. Thus, their radical freedom pushes them to open up to others and makes increasingly larger social units possible and necessary. In the construction of society, they pursue a politics based on both order and justice. Indeed, as he stated in CL, “order precedes justice in the strategy of government”, but “only an order which implicates justice can achieve a stable peace”, because an “unjust order quickly invites the resentment and rebellion which lead to its undoing” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 181). For Niebuhr, the yearning for justice within a political order leads to the pursuit of equality. The latter is “a higher social goal than peace”, since it is “the most rational ultimate objective for society” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. 234–235).5 Indeed, equality is the decisive value able to offer to any political community the best combination between individual and group moralities, between love and justice. Throughout history, every pattern of justice has always been at odds with the highest human aspiration, i.e. love (agape). Because of the persistence of sin, any definition of justice can only include an implicit rationalization of particular and, in itself, conflicting interests. “A free society”, Niebuhr (2011, p. xxxi) wrote, “requires some confidence in the ability of men to reach tentative and tolerable adjustments between their competing interests and to arrive at some common notions of justice which transcend all partial interests.” However, following Saint Augustine, Niebuhr is aware of the transience and contingency of every political achievement. He discerns the intertwining of the two cities, the civitas terrena and the civitas dei, within history, rejecting the idea, that these were in absolute opposition to each other. For the Protestant theologian, therefore, equality becomes a benchmark with which to evaluate existing political systems rather than a real possibility. An ideal, from the perspective of which, “every contemporary peace means only an armistice within the existing disproportions of power”, but that at the same time it stands for “the elimination of the inequalities of power and privilege which are frozen into every contemporary peaceful situation” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 235). The highest goal to which society 5

The ideal of equality, Niebuhr (2011, p. 2) observed in CL, ‘unknown in the democratic life of the Greek city states and derived partly from Christian and partly from Stoic sources’, gave the bourgeois classes ‘a sense of self-respect’ and overcame ‘the aristocratic pretension and condescension of the feudal overlords of medieval society’.

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could aspire would be an uneasy balance of power. Different interests and multiple loyalties determine the political, economic and social existence of individuals and groups within each society, which by its very nature is a polyarchy. For the theologian, man’s social life is ordered in a series of sometimes concentric and other times overlapping and conflicting circles (Niebuhr 1965, p. 120). The relationship between man and his community develops certain characteristics over time that strongly influence the quality of the political order. These structures that develop in contingent historical processes inside individual states constitute permanent and perennial characters that become visible in the form of traditions, rules and norms.

4

Power, Coercion and Ideology: The Structure of States

In NE, Niebuhr noted that long lasting social structures that are built by human beings throughout history were mainly based on two pillars. On the one hand, the “integral community”, whether in the form of city-states or nations, and on the other hand, “the larger structure of community and dominion”, the empire (Niebuhr 1959, p. 256). Both structures possess specific features. Niebuhr distinguishes between organic and artificial factors that constitute human societies. The organic structure contains elements like race, ethnicity, language, customs and traditions, while the latter includes legal and constitutional arrangements. Although, in the modern and contemporary age, the artificial factors have become predominant in the construction of social systems, this does not mean that these rational principles are sufficient to guarantee the stability of political institutions. To underestimate the need for organic factors is a great danger not only for scholars of historical, political and social dynamics, who are called to analyze the phenomena, but above all for statesmen who have to efficiently govern political communities. Trying to explain the origins of government, Niebuhr rejects the classical tradition of contractualism. Niebuhr considers the idea that human beings move from an insecure and violent state of nature to build a civil society through social contract— regardless of whether it is driven by fear or interest—a “pure fiction” and attacks in this context authors such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke (Niebuhr 1949b, p. 381). According to the Protestant theologian, the use of such a fiction is nothing more than a “myth” aimed at obscuring the slow growth and development of civil society (Niebuhr 1965, p. 55). Niebuhr (1959, pp. 55–64)

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believes that the work of David Hume and Edmund Burke,6 rather than Hobbes’ Leviathan or Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, allows us to better understand the process of building political communities. For him, both the “intensity” and the “breadth” of the social cohesion cannot be explained through the idea of a social contract, but “have been historically created” (Niebuhr 2011, p. 65). All human communities “are never purely artifacts of the human mind and will”, they “are subject to ‘organic’ growth” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 142, see also Niebuhr 1955, pp. 163–166). Therefore, the authority of government, as he noted, is not primarily the authority of law nor the authority of force, but the authority of the community itself (Niebuhr 1953, p. 22). However, Niebuhr clearly confirms the role that power and ideology play in the process of state governance. Human communities—from the most original unit, the family, to the largest ones, like nations and empires—are held together on the one hand by some internal force of cohesion and on the other hand by the unifying power of a central authority. Both dimensions of power contribute in different ways to the maintenance of a stable order. Besides the force, it is a specific ideology that establishes the prestige of the leader and strengthens the cohesion of any political community. In an article he published on October 20th , 1961, reflecting on Niebuhr’s influence in American political life and thought, Morgenthau observed that his work NE represented an important contribution concerning the meaning of political ideologies in history. Those who seek power, he argued, “those who are engaged in the business of politics, must make it appear that what they are aiming at is something different than power, something more noble, something more worthy of moral approval than power” (Morgenthau 1962, p. 108). And, in this regard, he added: “Thus, political ideologies, the intellectual concealment and transformation of the political act into something different from what it actually is, is a necessary concomitant of the political act itself, for it is one of the preconditions for political success. And so we find on the highest level of political organization, the level of empires and churches, that the latter take on the aspect of empire by striving for power in order to maintain themselves and to expand, and that the empires, on the other hand, drape themselves in a paraphernalia of religion in order to justify their existence and policies in terms of morality and divine providence rather than of power. Reinhold Niebuhr has shown that this is not a quality which certain political parties or certain nations possess while others are free from them, but rather that this relationship between a concealed political reality and a corrupted ethic is of the very essence of politics; that, in other words, political ideologies 6

Concerning Burke’s influence on Niebuhr see Lacey (2016, pp. 109–155).

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are an inevitable weapon in the struggle for power which all participants must use to a greater or lesser extent (Morgenthau 1962, pp. 108–109). What distinguishes nations and empires is the extension of the dominion, which from parochial unit can become a universal kingdom. If the city-states and nations are organized with a significant preponderance of power of one or more classes (or factions) within their borders, empires begin to grow from the dominion of these classes from a parochial community that takes over others. In fact, the cause of the rise and fall of different human communities, of which Niebuhr traces the trajectory over the centuries, resides in the will to power. With an excessive semantic simplification, Niebuhr often uses the terms state and nation as synonyms. Although he considers them as interchangeable terms, he recognizes both a temporal and a functional precedence of the state with respect to the nation.7 In the definition of the term nation the specific features of the (modern) state appear these contain the elements territory, sovereignty and security. The “modern nation”, as “the most absolute of all human associations”, is “the human group of strongest social cohesion, of most undisputed central authority and of most clearly defined membership” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 83). He also emphasizes other decisive factors—such as language, ethnicity, geography and history—which are a prerequisite for the formation of the nation. A central political authority is a necessary condition, but not sufficient to preserve the unity of the nation. The importance of all these aspects is evident especially when states face each other in the international system. As Niebuhr (1960, p. 96) noted, somehow echoing Carl Schmitt, the nation acquires full consciousness of itself only in a condition of war against a common foreign enemy. “Not infrequently”, he stated in CL, “the source of unity in a national community, the root of its collective selfconsciousness, is provided by the experience of facing a common foe” (Niebuhr 2011, pp. 165–166). The necessity of self-preservation tempts states frequently to pursue imperialist strategies. That means that the legitimate security concerns of nation-states are transformed into the desire to increase their power in relation to their competitors in the international system.8 If “the will to live becomes the will to power” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 18), “nations themselves are witnesses to their proverbial selfishness, and imperialism becomes their horizon.”

7

In this regard, he added, “our interest is in the moral attitudes of nations which have the apparatus of a state at their disposal, and through it are able to consolidate their social power and define their political attitudes and policies” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 84). 8 Here Niebuhr comes close to the school of offensive realism, represented by Mearsheimer (2014).

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The (Im)morality of Nations and the Global Reform

Selfishness, as Niebuhr (1941, pp. 222–227) observed in his masterpiece NDM I, is deeply rooted in different political communities. Collective pride is a more pregnant source of injustice and conflict than purely individual pride. And it is also a major cause of social and historical evils in history. The idolatrous pretensions of states in the form of national myth are instruments to demand unconditional loyalty from their citizens. Therefore, “the nation”, seeking to break all bounds of finiteness, “pretends to be God” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 225). The idolatry of the nation was the result of two aspects. On the one hand, the state’s ability to settle conflicts between different interest groups or conflicting factions can be realized only in the territory in which sovereignty is exercised. Beyond the borders of the state, in the international sphere in which a superior political authority does not exist, groups that dominate their political community claim the enforcement of its partial interests even more aggressively. “The necessity of using force”, Niebuhr (1960, p. 89) writes in MM, “in the establishment of unity in a national community, and the inevitable selfish exploitation of the instruments of coercion by the groups who wield them, adds to the selfishness of nations.” The loyalty of a population towards its own authority can become an instrument of hatred towards other states. The political instruments that allow each political community to live in peace and order within its own borders form the fundamental cause of anarchy that characterizes the international system. As he observed, “man’s devotion to his community always means the expression of a transferred egoism as well as altruism” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 40). Therefore, the “paradox” arises that “patriotism transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism”: the nation is “at one and the same time a check upon, and a final vent for, the expression of individual egoism” (Niebuhr 1960, pp. 91–93). On the assumption of the selfishness of nations Niebuhr comes to conclusions that concern the material position of the nation in the international system the self-awareness of the state of its role in history or, in constructivist terms its identity construction. Concerning the power position of the state in the international system, he observed that, since “nations do not have direct contact with other national communities, with which they must form some kind of international community”, they know “the problems of other peoples only indirectly and at second band”. Because both sympathy and justice “depend to a large degree upon the perception of need, which makes sympathy flow, and upon the understanding of competing interests, which must be resolved”, it is obvious that “human communities have greater difficulty than individuals in achieving ethical relationship” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 85). The increased interdependence, that developed within the

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international system in the twentieth century, aggravates the destabilizing effects of states that are still trapped in conflicts that contain identity questions. In a world increasingly connected by economic, technological and communicative factors, the pursuit of immediate and selfish advantages represents a danger not only to the stability of the global order, but also to the essential interests of each nation as the development of the United States under President Trump’s maxim ‘America First’ has sufficiently proven. Although it is possible that in certain cases the national interests can be made compatible for the achievement of justice and peace like in the case of the process of the European integration, it is a very uncommon phenomenon in history. Niebuhr believes that “the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy” as a secular form of self-deification (Niebuhr 1960, p. 95). It is a common behaviour that nations tend to affirm narrow national goals as universal values (Niebuhr 1940, pp. 52–53). Over the centuries, most of the states have practiced forms or imperialism, justifying it as an act of defense or, in attitudes of moral pride as acts that are intended to spread civilization and culture. The hypocrisy of nations as the supreme form of self-deception is a dangerous phenomenon that is universally existent. In IAH, he stated in a mood of disillusionment: “We cannot expect even the wisest of nations to escape every peril of moral and spiritual complacency; for nations have always been constitutionally selfrighteous. But it will make a difference whether the culture in which the policies of nations are formed is only as deep and as high as the nation’s highest’s ideals; or whether there is a dimension in the culture from the standpoint of which the element of vanity in all human ambitions and achievements is discerned” (Niebuhr 1952, pp. 149–150). The false pretenses of innocence and disinterest of each nation can be grasped “only by faith; for everything that is related in terms of simple rational coherence with the ideals of a culture or a nation will prove in the end to be a simple justification of its most cherished values” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 150). In an international system of nations that are “too selfish and morally obtuse and self-righteous” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 110), the protestant theologian is not ready to share liberal illusions concerning the development of world events. Therefore, he is aware of the psychological resistance that Christian realism can encounter not only among scholars, but also among statesmen. Perhaps, as he observed, “the best that can be expected of nations is that they should justify their hypocrisies by a slight measure of real international achievement and learn how to do justice to wider interests than their own, while they pursue their own” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 108). Moreover, the egoistic character of human groups must be regarded as an inevitability, regardless of the form of their political regime. For Niebuhr the character

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trait of egoism closely linked to the finitude of man. All forms of political organization—totalitarianisms, authoritarianism, or democracies are all equally exposed to egoism. Nevertheless, states differ widely with reference to their political and moral qualities. As he observed in NDM I, “while all modern nations, and indeed all nations of history, have been involved in the sin of pride, one must realize, in this as in other estimates of human sinfulness, that it is just as important to recognize differences in the degree of pride and self-will expressed by men and nations” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 233). Democracy disposes of the greatest resources in order to restrain the selfishness and the will to power of individuals as well as of groups. Although Niebuhr lived in an epoch in which, as he noted in IAH, “the paradise of our domestic security is suspended in a hell of global insecurity” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 7), he has always hoped that the global system could be reformed so that the precarious anarchy that prevailed in the international system could be overcome (Craig 2003; Scheuerman 2011). Although the constant tension between individual and community is also reflected in the legally and morally quite unrestrained international system, Niebuhr strongly believed in the possibility to avoid war. In his view, the “modern nation’s self-regard and power impulse has not eliminated the residual capacity of peoples and nations for loyalty to values, cultures, and civilizations of wider and higher scope than the interests of the nations” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 71). For this reason, he added, “[t]he importance of establishing this residual creative freedom in collective man lies not in the possibility of subordination the lower to the higher of wider interests—but in the possibility that even a residual loyalty to values, transcending national existence, may change radically the nation’s conception of the breadth and quality of its ‘national interest’” (Niebuhr 1965, pp. 76–77). Like other realist scholars, he aspired to a global political reform that would lead to a lasting peace, reliable global security structures and the guarantee of human survival under the conditions of the thermonuclear revolution.

6

Conclusion:‘through a Glass Darkly’

In this chapter, I discussed the centrality of the relationship between individual and community in Niebuhr’s political thought. I argue that, since Christian realism recognizes the inextricable ambiguity of human nature, it takes into consideration both the moral and historical contingencies in politics. According to Niebuhr, there exist no easy political choices in this world. As he noted in NE, “all historic responsibilities must be borne without the certainty that meeting them will

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lead to any ultimate solution of the problem, but with only the certainty that there are immediate dangers which may be avoided and immediate injustices which may be eliminated.” For this reason, he summarized that “[o]ur best hope, both of a tolerable political harmony and of an inner peace, rests upon our ability to observe the limits of human freedom even while we responsibly exploit its creative possibilities” (Niebuhr 1959, pp. 298–299). The protestant theologian outlined an approach in which the problematic relationship between ideals and fulfilments was brought back into the discourse of international relations. Principles like justice, humility, prudence, moderation, and irony are the keywords that define Niebuhr’s political theory. He constantly reflected on the just balance between order and justice in politics, believing that “there is no purely moral solution for the ultimate moral issues of life; but neither is there a viable solution which disregards the moral factors” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 40). In this regard, he added: “Men and nations must use their power with the purpose of making it an instrument of justice and a servant of interests broader than their own. Yet they must be ready to use it though they become aware that the power of a particular nation or individual, even when under strong religious and social sanctions, is never so used that there is a perfect coincidence between the value which justifies it and the interests of the wielder of it” (Niebuhr 1952, pp. 40–41). The moral ambiguity of politics did not lead Niebuhr to relativism but represented for him a challenge of and for politics. In other words, a challenge to which politics must provisionally respond by taking ethics, values and interests into account. But this human effort is undertaken without any certainty of success, since men see their present and will peer their future ‘through a glass darkly that they would make no claim of seeing at all’ (Niebuhr 1946, p. 152). It is precisely in this situation, always on the edge between fear and hope, that human beings and societies show the amazing art of living together.

References Castellin, Luca G. 2014a. Il realista delle distanze. Reinhold Niebuhr e la politica internazionale. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Castellin, Luca G. 2014b. Una possibile necessità. Metodo ed ethos della democrazia nel pensiero politico di Reinhold Niebuhr. Storia del pensiero politico 2: pp. 265–284. Castellin, Luca G. 2015. Il coraggio del realismo: Hans J. Morgenthau e Reinhold Niebuhr. Rivista di Politica 6: pp. 29–45. Cherniss, Joshua L. 2016. A Tempered Liberalism: Political Ethics and Ethos in Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought. The Review of Politics 1: pp. 59–90.

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Craig, Campbell. 2003. Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. NY: CUP. Frei, Christoph. 2001. Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Gilkey, Langdon. 2001. On Niebuhr: A Theological Study. Chicago: CUP. Halliwell, Martin. 2005. The Constant Dialogue: Reinhold Niebuhr and American Intellectual Culture. Lanham: R & L. Lacey, Robert J. 2016. Pragmatic Conservatism: Edmund Burke and His American Heirs. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. NYC: Norton & Company. Morgenthau, Hans Joachim. 1962. The Influence of Reinhold Niebuhr In American Political Life and Thought, In Reinhold Niebuhr: A Prophetic Voice in Our Time, Ed. Harold R. Landon, pp. 97–109. Greenwich: The Seabury Press. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1935. An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. New York: Harper & Brothers. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1937. Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1940. Christianity and Power Politics. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941–1943. The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946. Discerning the Signs of the Time: Sermons for Today and Tomorrow. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1949a. Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1949b. The Illusion of World Government. Foreign Affairs 27: pp. 379– 388. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1952. The Irony of American History. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1953. Christian Realism and Political Problems. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1957a. The Spirit of Justice, In Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings. Ed. D.B. Robertson, pp. 25–26. Cleveland-New York: The World Publishing Company. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1957b. Justice and Love, In Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings. Ed. D.B. Robertson, pp. 27–29. Cleveland-New York: The World Publishing Company. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1959. Nations and Empires: Recurring Patterns in Political Order. London: Faber and Faber. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1960 [1932]. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1965. Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence cs. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 2001 [1956]. Intellectual Autobiography. In Reinhold Niebuhr. His Religious, Social, and Political Thought, Ed. Charles W. Kegley, pp. 3–23. West Broadway: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 2011 [1944]. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and A Critic of Its Traditional Defense. Chicago: UCP. Paipais, Vassilios. 2019. First image revisited: human nature, original sin and international relations. Journal of International Relations and Development 22: pp. 364–388.

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Rice, Daniel. 2008. Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau: A Friendship with Contrasting Shades of Realism. Journal of American Studies 42: pp. 255–291. Scheuerman, William E. 2011. The Realist Case for a Global Reform. Cambridge: Polity Press. Shinn, Roger L. 2003. Christian Realism in a Pluralistic Society: Interactions between Niebuhr and Morgenthau, Kennan, and Schlesinger. In The Christian Realists: Reassessing the Contributions of Niebuhr and his Contemporaries, ed. E. Patterson, pp. 177–198. New York: University Press of America.

How Niebuhr’s Interpretation of Martin Luther, Karl Barth and Calvinism Influenced His Understanding of the State Christoph Rohde Abstract

Reinhold Niebuhr was more a social ethicist than a theologian. For him, theology had to offer guidelines to develop a more just and peaceful world. The analysis of his intellectual disputes with the historical figure Martin Luther and his prominent contemporary colleague from Switzerland, Karl Barth, leads to a better understanding of Niebuhr’s social ethics. Although his interpretations of Luther’s and Barth’s writings were sometimes selective and even unfair, Niebuhr’s social ethics is conspicuously revealed in this confrontation. Niebuhr’s understanding of the state, derived from his theological and political reflections, culminates in a liberal democratic form of governance that is supplemented by interventionist elements. Keywords

Martin Luther • Teaching of the Two Kingdoms • Karl Barth • Christian Realism

1

Introduction

Mostly “progressive” forms of political realism are basically focused on ideas that see in the abandonment of the classical nation-state the prerequisite for moral progress while state centric forms of realism such as structural realism are deemed C. Rohde (B) München, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_3

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reactionary. In this paper I will make an attempt to show that this extreme hermeneutics is unjustified. By drawing on theological resources I make the case that Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism allows the constitution of a liberal and interventionist state that incorporates divergent cultures and ethnic groups while protecting basic human rights in form of a thick morality. While finishing this book, the emergence of the “black swan“, the pandemic crisis caused by the virus Covin-19, turns the world upside down. And the nation-state is rediscovered as is often the case in situations in which peoples feel existentially threatened by unpredictable events. It will be interesting to observe whether this global crisis leads to a constructive reform of the nation-state or to an increasing excavation of democratic freedoms inside nation-states. Globalization in general and the pandemic of the year 2020 demand a new, innovative social ethics (Slim 2020). Niebuhr’s reflections concerning the interventionist state can be helpful in discussing this topic that contains national, international, and global dimensions. In this chapter, I present the hypothesis that Niebuhr’s dispute about the political role of Martin Luther and with the Swiss theologian Karl Barth influenced his overall outlook on the institution of the state in general and the efficiency of norms in the political realm in particular. Niebuhr developed a theological approach that occupied middle ground between a very liberal approach and a biblical fundamentalist understanding. The result of his work was a non-essentialist, moderate constructivist outlook on communities that can provide non-utopian elements for a democratic reformist political agenda. As a public theologian Niebuhr received major attention in both the domestic and foreign policy branch of the U.S. He elaborated on the thesis that the human being is of necessity a “religious being”, a being, that is simultaneously a mortal child of nature and “a spirit that stands outside of nature, life, himself, his reason and the world” (Niebuhr 1964, p. 3). With the help of this anthropological assumption, Niebuhr was able to import theological insights into the secular and political realm that transcended simple ideological propositions.

2

Political Realism and the Accusations of the Representation of a Dualistic Ethic

The permanent debate about political realism concerns the question whether this school of thought contains resources for the formulation of moral standards in the conduct of foreign policy. One group of scholars interpreted and still interprets realism as a purely power political realm in which morality, if at all, only serves strategic purposes (e. g., Mearsheimer 2014); the other group has recently shown

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in thorough re-interpretations of classical realist thinkers that these thinkers pursued deeply moral intentions and were intellectually basically abused by power hungry governments for apologetic purposes because they sometimes wrote in a polemical style that could be consciously misunderstood (Scheuerman 2011). For these latter interpreters’ classical realists were liberal thinkers. The former group that predominantly represents the approach called Structural Realism does not deny the importance of morality for political affairs per se but it tries to explain the most important factors that are supposed to determine the behavior of actors in the international realm. Niebuhr s thinking about the behavior of states as international actor and as a domestic regulatory force did reconcile these liberal and realistic interpretations. I am going to show that Reinhold Niebuhr used his critique of German theology and philosophy in order justify the image of an activist state that had to promote a realistic social ethics without engaging ideological aims in the form of social engineering. But Niebuhr’s image of the state remained limited to elements of justice that he permanently redefined, dependent on the concrete societal challenges he was confronted with. His Christian realism does not represent a dualistic ethics but nevertheless claims that moral absolutes cannot be realized in the political realm. However, that does not mean that moral aspects do not play any role in politics. To the contrary, we have here much more complex moral reflections to take into account. My assumption is that an updated version of the often-misunderstood teaching of the two kingdoms can help to understand the complex connections between religious and secular morality when referred to the political domain. It is no coincidence that the doyens of political realism, Hans J. Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr, quoted several statesmen who made the point that they acted differently as political decision-makers and as private citizens. Niebuhr himself claimed the famous dichotomy of Moral Man and Immoral Society (Thompson 1960, p. 159). Thompson quotes the Italian statesman Benso di Cavour who said: “If we would have done for ourselves for what we did for the state, what scoundrels we would have been. “Even Woodrow Wilson and other “idealistic” statesmen claimed this dichotomy. Niebuhr cites the German historian Friedrich Meinecke, who himself referred to the Prussian king and military leader Frederick the Great in his famous book Die Idee der Staatsräson. Frederick confessed: “I hope… that posterity will distinguish the philosopher from the monarch in me and the decent man from the politician. I must admit that when drawn into the vortex of European politics it is difficult to preserve decency and integrity” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 209). But does this mean that there was a realm of private morality that was totally different from that of a social morality? This is exactly what Niebuhr imputed to Luther’s approach and what, paradoxically, critics of realism impute to the

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realists themselves. In fact, Niebuhr is clear about the difference between the maximalistic ethic of the sermon on the mount and the realistic ethics that can be realized inside collectives in the form of structures of justice (Dorrien 2009, pp. 675–677).

3

The Importance of the Two-Kingdoms Doctrine (TKD)

Luther’s TKD was not a theory that Luther himself intentionally conceptualized. The name was introduced not until 1922 by Swiss theologian Karl Barth. As this intellectual construction was either badly distracted or even consciously abused, it is important to clear some of these (mis-)interpretations. Here publications in the German language are more sophisticated because the interest in Martin Luther is certainly more intense than in other parts of the world. The TKD implies hardly contested issues as the relationship of private and public morality as well as the relationship of church and state and is a time-bound answer to questions concerning the source of morality in social affairs that was later generalized. The history of the TKD originates from Augustine’s dichotomic understanding of the two kingdoms (Duchrow 2017, p. 320).

3.1

A Sketch of the TKD

The TKD is of interest with reference to a faith-based understanding of the state because it has potential to analyze the possibilities and limits of the implementation of ethics in social systems. We can only generate some basic principles that characterize the TKD because (1) Luther’s application of the TKD is a specific answer to a practical historical challenge, (2) Luther’s TKD was abused for autocratic purposes and (3) there is no broad consensus about the political implications of this doctrine until these days. In order to understand Niebuhr’s and others accusations against Luther’s supposedly discernable political attitude, it is necessary to grasp the basic ideal of the TKD. Wright states: “ …it is my contention that the existence of God’s two kingdoms was a Christian reality for Luther. The concept represents Luther’s Reformation worldview or Weltanschauung. When it is understood as such, it proves to be essential for clarifying all of Luther’s views” (Wright 2010, p. 15). But it does not represent a theory of the state but a theology of the state. The most important element of the TDK comprises the separation of spiritual and secular powers. Luther did not produce an explicit system of thought but his

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writings that were reactions to concrete challenges offer nevertheless something like a coherent approach. His most important work Temporal Authority, To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523) contains important thought that later built the pillars of the TKD. For Luther, there existed two different regiments; one for Christians, for loving, peaceful and spirit-guided people; the second regiment was for this world where evildoers needed to be punished and good people to be protected; unfortunately, most people belonged to the second regiment. It reflects the eternal battle between God and the devil which Luther metaphorically describes in his De servo arbitrio. This negative anthropology is similar to Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature. Nevertheless, the worldly regiment fulfils God’s purposes as well (Nieden 2017, p. 39) and it is good if Christians take over positions in this regiment, because on earth they have to live in both worlds. But Luther perceived the radical difference between the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and the structure of the orders of this world. While the spiritual realm was infinite, the worldly realm was finite and had to be managed by the sword which symbolizes secular authority in general, not necessarily violent intervention by the state; Luther mentions a whole bunch of administrative means that belong to this realm. Siemon-Netto states: “Although it is a sinful realm, the secular law is intended as a bastion against sin” (Siemon-Netto 2007, p. 73). Both realms serve each other but have to be kept separate. A mixture of these realms for Luther was for the devil. Secular leaders falsely claimed to speak in the name of God, while the (catholic) church striving for worldly power would become satanic (Luther, quoted in Siemon-Netto 2007, pp. 74–75). This teaching is only comprehensible in the context of the existence of new territorial states with their new grown authority and its competition with the Catholic church. It is important to note that Luther interpreted authority more in a personal than in a structural understanding (Nieden 2017, p. 47). But he demanded of the Christians to abstain from their right to an outward worldly justice because they were already justified in God’s internal realm. The suffering of the flesh would not do harm to the saved soul (Nieden 2017, pp. 49–51). Luther’s harsh claim to obey authorities unconditionally is only understandable in the context of his remarks in On the Freedom of a Christian (1520). But why did Luther dismiss resistance against authorities in such a radical way? This behavior depends on the practical constraints under which the reformer had to act. Luther needed the magistrates and local authorities in order to realize the institutionalization of his reformation project. This compromise came at a high price during the times of the Peasants’ wars, where Luther agitated against the peasants in an unnecessarily radical way. But it is not justified to

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derive a whole theory on obedience from Luther’s worrisome behavior. SiemonNetto shows that Luther’s reputation as Fürstenknecht, a lackey of princes, stems from his reformation antagonist Thomas Münzer (Siemon-Netto 2007, p. 43), who was the rebel leader who wanted to execute the reformation with revolutionary and violent means and who sacrificed nearly unarmed peasants against professional armed forces. Especially after World War II, as many historians and social scientists searched for the spiritual causes of fascism inside Germany. Several Luther critics, following the Luther exegesis of Ernst Troeltsch, represented the monocausal thesis that the reformation freed the states from the constraints the universal church had put onto them. Thereby the route was at least indirectly paved for the imperialism and fascism that developed in Prussia and later in the young German nation-state. One example is McGovern: “To the student of the fascist tradition Luther is of importance largely because his doctrine led to the freeing of the state from all ecclesiastical control. Prior to Luther the state was generally considered as subordinate to the church…” (McGovern 1973, p. 31).

3.2

Luther as a Driver of Liberal and Social Forces

How controversial the figure Martin Luther is interpreted depends on the historical path observers argue from. Especially representatives of Scandinavian national churches gave emphasis to the point that Luther’s work could also be read as a blueprint for resistance. Norway’s bishop Eivind Berggrav, for instance, claimed that Luther helped to free Norway from Nazi rule (Heling 1992). Niebuhr referred to Berggrav in articles concerning the lack of fairness of the U. S. reeducation policy (Niebuhr 1949, pp. 148–149). Other Luther defenders make the argument that Luther attacked the early capitalist synthesis between the Fuggers and the Catholic church not only out of theological but also out of socioeconomic reasoning (Prien 2012). Luther was not indifferent towards the things of this world at all, to the contrary. He encouraged the use of the spiritual gifts for political and social purposes. (coram hominibus). For Lazareth, it was Gustaf Toernwall in his book Geistliches und Weltliches Regiment bei Luther (Spiritual and Temporal Rule in Luther) who pointed to the church’s task to hold worldly leaders accountable: “… it is precisely the church’s public responsibility to proclaim and to demonstrate to Ceasar that he is not autonomous, but morally accountable under the law of God” (Lazareth 1995, p. 15). Although theologians had warned not to equate the TKD with a separation of church and state, this interpretation represents a misreading of Luther disseminated in the American intellectual sphere (Roeber 2017, p. 350). It is the result of the

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enormous impact the Niebuhr brothers Richard and Reinhold, both reformed theologians, had on the Luther interpretation in the U. S. (Roeber 2017, p. 357). It was the merit of two other theologians to have analyzed the TKD in a more thorough way. Breslau born theologian George Forell (1919−2011) and William Lazareth who taught at UTS are the American scholars who most thoroughly revised the Niebuhrian hegemonial understanding of the TKD in the US. These theologians, amongst others, deliver thorough critiques of Reinhold Niebuhr’s attack on Martin Luther.

4

Niebuhr’s Luther Interpretation

In the meantime, it represents a scientifically accepted position that Reinhold Niebuhr’s interpretation of Martin Luther’s theological framework was selective, if not considerably one-sided. In the following section I will describe Niebuhr’s most comprehensive remarks concerning Luther’s understanding of the relationship of state and religion and its ethical implications. The most important passages in this respect are to be found in his Magnum Opus NDM. Niebuhr’s arguments against Luther are based less on genuinely theological premises but concern the political and ethical implications of the teachings of the reformer. The American theologian starts his remarks by praising Luther’s profound understanding of the meaning of agape which the reformer would have grasped as fully unselfish quality (Niebuhr 1943, p. 187). And it becomes obvious that NDM is strongly influenced by the reformation theology “which has made it difficult for Niebuhr to communicate his convictions about perfectionism or about law and grace to Christian liberals in this country “ (John C. Bennett, quoted in Lange 1964, p. 81). Benne thinks that Niebuhr and others were quite ambivalent on Luther: “Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Wilhelm Pauck were powerful intellectuals who had something of a love-hate relationship with Lutheranism.” (Benne 1995, p. 108–109). In his explicit interpretation Niebuhr vehemently shoots against Luther’s allegedly quietism and defeatism concerning questions of social justice. Niebuhr’s arguments remind us of the first Catholic rebuttals of Luther’s theology and draw on the same false inferences (Sockness 1992, p. 102). Niebuhr states: “‘Without works’ degenerates into ‘without action’ in some of his stricture against the ‘righteousness of works’” (Niebuhr 1943, b, pp. 187–88). Niebuhr falsely equates the passivity of the believer coram deo, concerning the acceptance of God’s grace with an alleged passivity of the coram hominibus. But as several of Luther’s writings make clear, e. g. On The Freedom of a Christian (1520) and Two Kinds of

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Righteousness (1519), the result of a conversion to Christ is first and foremost the grateful doing of good deeds for others. For Niebuhr Luther’s accentuation of grace leads to a dangerous excavation of the role of law in the worldly realm and therefore to a moral indifference concerning political and social problems. The flight into transcendence would lead to a moral relativism in the immanence. A longer quote may be allowed: “Luther’s vision of the ‘love, joy and peace’ which the redeemed soul has in Christ, is of an ecstatic transcendence over all the contradictions of history, including the inner contradictions of the “ought,” the sense of moral obligation. Agape, as the fulfillment of the law, results in a complete disappearance of the sense of obligation to the law, and in a consequent elimination of all the careful discriminations of justice which belong to ‘law’ in the broadest sense.” (Niebuhr 1943, b, p. 189). Benne believes that Niebuhr uncritically follows German liberal theologian Ernst Troeltsch in the evaluation that “Lutheranism docilely adapted to any political system. Its tendency to bow objectively to any political establishment gave it little chance to contribute constructively to social change” (Benne 1995, p. 61). Sockness makes the point, that for Niebuhr the emphasis on grace leads to an “easy conscience” that would rob the people of the motivation to improve the conditions in this world. For Niebuhr the “bad conscience” of people was a double-edged sword: on the one hand it was the driving force that motivated people to transform the social order in a more just way (Niebuhr 1943, b, p. 192); but on the other hand it led the Germans to a mentality of a specific realism and cynicism that produced evil fruits (Niebuhr 1936, p. 476).

5

Criticism Concerning Niebuhr’s Luther Interpretation

It is important to mention from the beginning that Niebuhr’s critique of Luther is less based on Niebuhr’s readings of the original Martin Luther. Instead, it is derived from conventional forms of interpretations in the U.S. that were dominated by Ernst Troeltsch. Additionally, he based his arguments extensively on arguments formulated by the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner (Sockness 1992, p. 18 fn1.). Luther was blamed for fatal political developments inside Germany from different angles: Lazareth summarizes that attacks upon Luther’s ethics stemmed from “Ernst Troeltsch (Conservativism), Karl Barth (quietism), Johannes Heckel (dualism) and Reinhold Niebuhr (defeatism), along with many of their academic followers” (Lazareth 2001, p. 2). Paradoxically, some of these criticisms have later been turned against Luther critics like Niebuhr themselves. And Niebuhr turned heavily against Karl Barth as will be shown below.

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1. Niebuhr attacked Niebuhr’s social ethics as it would be a coherent idea although Luther himself never intended to conceptualize such a framework (Lange 1964, p. 51) Hence, Luther is burdened with an expectation he could not fulfil. Furthermore, Niebuhr does not take into account some important of Luther’s writings on social topics, especially his critic of the practice of usury that was to be found in early capitalism.1 2. Niebuhr criticizes Lutheranism, the (mis-)application of Luther by the German Lutheran churches and its nationalistic ideology. Here he was deeply and onesidedly influenced by the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch whose book The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches received major attention in the U.S which led to the already mentioned hegemonic interpretation of Luther in the United States. Lazareth draws the following conclusion: “The uncritical acceptance of Troeltsch’s views on Luther in the United States may be traced in no small measure to the historical fact that Troeltsch’s work was translated into English during the early crucial debates of the rise of the Anglo-Saxon Social Gospel movement..” (Lazareth 2001, p. 7) while books of Luther apologists like Karl Holl were not. This led with necessity to a hermeneutical imbalance. 3. Lazareth concludes that only in later reactionary German Lutheranism the false dichotomy of works-righteousness and social quietism was developed as a distracted application of Luther writings (Lazareth 2001, p. 16). Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon moralistic liberalism paved the way for a rather uncritical acceptance of Ernst Troeltsch’s critical evaluation of Luther’s social and political ethics. Rasmussen confirms that point: “(Niebuhr) retained many fundamental elements of German theological, and American religious and secular liberalism. With Ernst Troeltsch, who influenced Niebuhr far more than is commonly acknowledged, Niebuhr’s theological starting point was that of Protestant liberalism: human needs, powers, and responsibilities” (Rasmussen 1991, p. 25). 4. Niebuhr focuses on selective writings of the reformer that do not consider the historical surroundings in which Luther acted and wrote. Luther’s admittedly inglorious role in the Peasants’ wars is not disputed but cannot be used as the foundation to judge his general outlook on authority. It was an answer towards attempts of Thomas Müntzer and his disciples to use the reformation process to start a violent revolution in order to bring the paradise on earth. 5. Luther’s major concern was the salvation of as many people as possible. His soteriological perspective is not really taken into consideration in Niebuhr’s 1

Martin Luther, On Commerce and Usury (1524), ed. Philipp Robinson Rössner (New York: Anthem Press, 2015).

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kind of criticism. If you neglect this Heilsgeschichte aspect, you distract the basic intention of Luther’s work at all. Siemon-Netto shows that Dietrich Bonhoeffer missed Christology in the U.S. generally where Christianity would be reduced to ethics (Siemon-Netto 2007, pp. 56–57). 6. Luther questioned the power of “human wisdom“. For Niebuhr this led to a fatalism and a renunciation of rational solutions concerning worldly affairs. But for Luther, Sockness maintains, reason was an ally of the law and subsequently helped to build a relatively harmonious society (Sockness 1992, p. 105). However, Luther’s criticism was rather intended as an admonishion against attitudes of human omnipotence as it is expressed by the apostle Paul (1. Corinthians 3; 19–20). Sockness summarizes: “Niebuhr’s criticism of Luther in The Nature and Destiny of Man is representative of widespread discontent with Luther’s argument, but Niebuhr misses the soteriological point of Luther’s distinction between the two kingdoms and the significance of salvation for life in society” (Sockness 1992, p. 93).

6

Niebuhr’s Long-Lasting Dispute with Swiss Theologian Karl Barth

The disagreements between Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr at the 1948 World Council of Churches Inaugural at Amsterdam show important differences in their respective understanding of the role of the state in the world. Niebuhr’s work gave emphasis to the participation of the church in the task of controlling political power structures and striving for social justice, while Barth’s theology gives witness of a church that testifies that Christ’s resurrection was a historical fact with meaning for the here and now. Several articles show that Niebuhr had criticized Barth and his followers for nearly 20 years. In an essay he wrote in 1934 under the title “Barthianism and Political Reaction”, he accused the Swiss theologian of representing political quietism and a self-destructive otherworldliness although he praised his private courage in his work against the Nazis (Niebuhr 1959, p. 156). It is interesting that despite their differences in the U.S. both were often counted to the Protestant “neo-orthodox” school. For Barth, this was because both shared the same critique of the moralistic reformism that was to be found in the documents of the Amsterdam conference (Dorrien 1999, p. 135). In this passage only the basic differences can be depicted that are visible in the contributions of the “super-theologians” (van Dusen 1952) at Amsterdam. The

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title of Karl Barth’s speech “no Christian Marshall Plan” already points towards his anti-interventionist stance: “It is written, we should first seek God’s Kingdom and his righteousness, so that all we need in relation to the world’s disorder may be added unto us” (Barth 1948, p. 330). Barth feared a virtually idolatrous human perfectionism that was the expression of an anxiety that, in turn, was the root cause of the disorders of the world when human beings attempted to actively reform the social order: “…we ought to give up, even on this first day of our deliberations, every thought that the care of the church, the care of the world, is our care” (Barth 1948, p. 331). Here the axiomatic distinction between Christ’s lordship over history and the acting human community that characterizes the dialectical theology (Bellmann 2018, pp. 137–141), becomes clearly visible. It was interpreted as a theology of crisis (Brunner 1929) and a as revolt against the excesses of modernity and a renaissance of authentic biblical faith. Niebuhr answered in his Amsterdam speech “The Christian Witness in the Social and National Order”: “… we do have responsibility for proximate victories. Christian life without a high sense of responsibility for the health of our communities, our nations and our cultures degenerates into an intolerable other-worldliness” (Niebuhr 1953, p. 116). This otherworldliness, however, would usually lead to the effect that the churches would become natural allies of the established social forces. While Barth has confidence in the love motivation of the Christians living and working in society, for Niebuhr, Christ’s love commandment primarily takes the shape of a benchmark to judge the conditio humana, that is characterized by human pride and selfishness. This explanatory function of the fallen self, thereby, performs only the function of an abstract principle; Christ’s love stands above earthly affairs and remains without concrete meaning. Niebuhr believed that in dialectical theology “religious absolutism which begins by making the conscience sensitive to all human weaknesses ends in complacency towards social justice (Niebuhr 1959, p. 154). Hunsinger summarizes: “Niebuhr exemplifies the kind of theology which thinks in terms of the real and the ideal. Niebuhr thought of love, for example as representing an unattainable ideal” (Hunsinger 1991, p. 38). Barth, however, represented a theocentric approach. God was the one who determined what was real. For both Barth and Niebuhr was the realization of Jesus’ love ideal in this world an “impossible possibility,” but they drew diametrically opposite conclusions concerning the consequences of this paradox. While Barth focused on the moral autonomy of the newborn Christian that would be motivated to influence the world in God’s loving ways (without being able to transform the overall political and social structures), Niebuhr gave emphasis to the unavoidable sinfulness of

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man that had to be kept in check with the help of realistic balance-of-power configurations (Niebuhr 1952. p. 136). This means that Niebuhr’s own social ethics is constructed fully independent of an objective Christology; exactly this assumed lacuna was criticized by some of his fellows (e. g., Kroner 1956). Theologians like the prominent American Stanley Hauerwas combat the kind of liberal interpretation of Christianity and consequentialist ethics Niebuhr seemed to represent (Carlson 2013, p. 58). Gary Dorrien admits that Niebuhr as well as Paul Tillich were wrong in charging Barth for his alleged disregard of political and social questions (Dorrien 1999, p. 142). A modern Barth critique assumes that his attacks on the liberal theology simulteanously discredited the theologians that supported the young German Weimar Republic such as von Harnack and Ernst Troeltsch. (Rasmussen 2007, pp. 156–157) and subsequently endangered the philosophical legitimacy of liberal democracy altogether. Niebuhr attacked the “Barthians “ and their neo-orthodoxy harshly: “ … on the whole the doctrine works out completely to the advantage of political and economic reaction… All the epigones of Barthianism are using that doctrine to justify the efforts to establish a state absolutism in Germany after Hitler” (Niebuhr 1959, p. 155). This kind of a purely transcendent approach would exclude the constructive role of the biblical prophets and the possibility that God could work in this world (Niebuhr 1959, pp. 157–158). Niebuhr especially admired the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos (Stone 2005, p. 61). They helped him to interpret Heilsgeschichte as a synthesis of the Old and the New Testament (Splinter 1998, p. 73). While in the U.S. Heilsgeschichte and empirical history were closely connected, the German theology opted for a quite strict separation of these two domains what supported the tendencies towards a mentality of otherworldliness Niebuhr complained about. As is well known, even the German Confessing Church was not capable of developing direct political resistance against the Nazi regime, but only an ecclesial and theological form of resistance. According to Barth, the church is for the world, but the world is not identified with such contingent phenomena like nation-states (Rasmussen 2007, p. 162) -2 - Barth later was sympathetic towards socialism and even defended the problematic and inhuman development in the Soviet orbit after World War II. In his confrontation with Barth, in which Niebuhr was sometimes more polemical than factual, Niebuhr refined his understanding of the role of the state in complex industrial societies by giving emphasis to the necessary social interventionist role 2

4 See Barth, Ethics, ed. Dietrich Braun, New York 1981, pp. 191–196 (this is his ethics lectures from 1928/1929 and 1930/1931). He develops the same theme at much greater length in Church Dogmatics 111:4, Edinburgh 1961, p. 285.

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of that entity. Later, in the year 1949, Niebuhr criticized that Barth in his political naiveté was not able to distinguish between Communism and the so-called democratic world, because from his transcendental standpoint this distinction was nearly meaningless (Niebuhr 1959, p. 176; Plathow 2021). But with respect to the legitimacy of a Jewish state Barth and Niebuhr had clear convictions. That Niebuhr defended a Jewish state with secular arguments— he was very critical of the religious right in Israel and had an exaggerated fear that these fundamentalists could take over the state’s democratic institutions (Feldman 1984, p. 301, FN 40)—is well known (Niebuhr 1942a/b). Barth, however, made a spiritual argument to defend Zionism: “For Barth, opposition to the Jewish people in the form of anti-Semitism is derived from hatred of the unconditional election of Israel. This hatred exists because Israel’s election reminds other nations that no nation can survive the vagaries of history by its own strength, and that nations are utterly reliant on God for their survival” (Moseley 2013, p. 204). Barth and Niebuhr came close when it came to the legitimacy and substance of the state. Both theologians condemn the idolatrous glorification of the state. And both were Christian socialists who were highly critical of the exploitative capitalist system. In this respect Niebuhr’s earlier and more secular interpretation of Marxism was modificated under the influence of his friend Paul Tillich, whose 1932 book Religious situation had made impression on him (Merkley 1975, p. 79). Both theologians worked together in their work to support the German resistance groups as well (Stone 1998). That Niebuhr had a deep understanding of the psychological shortcomings becomes obvious in this remarkable wording: “… the Marxist theory has the advantage of satisfying a deep instinct in the human heart. It places the blame for an unfortunate situation entirely on others” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 117).

6.1

Karl Barth’s Understanding of the State

For Karl Barth the concept of nationhood is to be found in God’s plan. Nations constitute the environment in which salvation is enacted (Moseley 2013, p. 190). The covenant is introduced with the story of Noah, and then the history of nations is told in Genesis 10 and 11 (Moseley 2013, p. 189). Nevertheless, nations are not „orders of creation “in an essentialist understanding. For Barth nations are not static but transform themselves in time; the idea of statehood, however, has timeless existence. There is an interesting definition of the state that is hidden in Barth’s work. It is the idea of the “just state.” “True religion—true Christianity—for Barth involves the belief that the just state is the state which witnesses to the Kingdom of God by

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allowing for the reconciliation between nations and resisting nationalist ideology “ (Moseley 2013, p. 205). Barth was so sensitive concerning nationalism because his teachers supported Germany’s war efforts in the 1st world war (Moseley 2013, p. 31). For Barth the theological legitimation of nationalism and contributed to the outbreak of World War I. (Rasmussen 2007, p. 163). Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber’s friend interpreted the nation-state as a capitalist system that constituted core of modernity and saw in nationalism even a moral force. (Rasmussen 2007, p. 164). Barth was not indifferent towards the modern state, to the contrary. He spoke out for a modern liberal or social democratic state. His critique of the real existing nation-state stemmed from his socialist convictions. The concept of nationhood is neglected in Western theology and is often discredited as populist and essentialist, as nationalist or ethnicist. But in Barth’s interpretation it can have liberalizing effects. Barth’s theological understanding of the state can be found in two of his most complete treatments of the subject: in the essay “Church and State” (1938) and his article “The Christian Community and the Civil Community” (1946). It cannot be present here.3 But it should have become evident that Protestant theology implies resources to enrich the discussion of the quality and the future of nation-states. It suffices here to conclude that both Niebuhr and Barth have their strengths and weakness. Barth is a clear and careful in his theological arguments, while he lacks some political insights. Niebuhr, however, has his strength in the political application of the message of the gospel.

7

Niebuhr’s Activist Understanding of the State

There are several influences that brought Niebuhr to the conviction that a state in an industrial society has to be an interventionist one. The most important impressions that shaped Niebuhr’s life-long outlook on the state were biographical-empirical ones. These consisted of his father’s preference for the social gospel movement, the example of his teacher Samuel Press, his experiences as pastor in the Detroit perish Bethel and with the self-righteous „industrial autocrat Henry Ford Jr. (Josephson and Holder 2019, pp. 7–15), his disillusionment with the middle class Protestant church concerning its ability to transform the society4 (in this conviction he was influenced by Max Weber’s famous study Die 3

For a comprehensive treatment and the text see Haddorf (2004). In this conviction he was influenced by Max Weber’s famous study Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus that was published already in 1905 and translated into

4

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Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus that was published already in 1905). Weber on his part was a close friend of Ernst Troeltsch, whose study Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt not accidentally comes very close to Weber and who himself influenced Niebuhr’s thinking in several respects) that drove him into the arms of Norman Thomas’ socialist party in 1929. Niebuhr’s partially radical stance can be summarized in his following precept: “… equality is a higher social goal than peace” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 235). But he never openly called for violent action because he knew that in history seemingly noble ends never justify inhuman means to attain seemingly just goals (Niebuhr 1960, p. 235). During this time Niebuhr wrote a series of interesting articles concerning the relationship between the relationship of liberal economic structures and the state, in which he questioned the ability of the parsimonious U. S. state to cope with the socio-economic injustices in America: “Whether in questions of income and inheritance, of natural resources, labor disputes, unemployment, or any of the other problems clustered about the conduct of industry and the welfare of industrial populations, wise action by the state is hampered by individualistic traditions and laissez faire political theories which the social and political facts render increasingly anachronistic…” (Niebuhr 1929, p. 491). Finally, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s pragmatic approach towards the Great Depression in the 1930s persuaded Niebuhr that it was the best way to improve the situation of the workers in times of crisis step by step than to risk revolutionary measures with uncertain results. In a letter to his friend Norman Thomas from September 8, 1944 he stated: “Since the American people, in the immediate years ahead, must not return to the mad Republican cycle of doom and depression, and since they will not advance to a socialist Commonwealth, the realistic choice is a continuation of the present Administration in office, with the determination to push it forward along the path of domestic reform and genuine international organization” (Niebuhr, quoted in Seidler 1961, p. 113). At the end of the 1940s, Niebuhr had found his understanding of a state that could realize at least a modicum of justice. It consisted of a mixed economy support by social interventionist elements. Niebuhr’s theoretical convictions concerning the structure of a stable and desirable state stem from a wide range of sources.

English only in 1930 and by Ernst Troeltsch whose book Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus für die Entstehung der modernen Welt (1911) held similar implications than Weber’s. Weber on his part was a close friend of Ernst Troeltsch, whose study Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen was published in English as two volume book The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches in 1931 and gained enormous influence in the U.S.

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(1) Niebuhr witnessed the failure of international institutions that should mark the way towards a truly globalist society; his skepticism concerning the possibility was born in the turbulent 20 s; (2) The theologian, who started as a staunch Marxist, could from early on identify the ideological dangers of this approach. He recognized that internationalist claims disguised hard nationalist and oligopolistic interests (Niebuhr 1934, p. 24). (3) Niebuhr was deeply influenced by a “pragmatic conservativism” in British sense (Lacey 2016, pp. 118–119) that led to the fact that he saw “organic elements of society“ as important for the stability of communities. (4) This directly led to his conclusion that exclusively “socially constructed” societies would not be sustainable (Holder and Josephson 2012, p. 84). Abstract rights were corrupted by the interpretations of the prevailing groups, that means that they were functionally dependent on the power structures. (2) Niebuhr’s theoretical understanding of the state grew from the hope of a Marxist classless society that would overcome state structures. He recognized that traditions, ethnic and psychological factors could explain the permanence of the state under modern conditions. Therefore, he successively supported a liberal democratic system and developed an idiosyncratic justification of democracy that came out of several disputes with allegedly liberal utopians like John Dewey that are to be found in his important book The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (See Castellin’s contribution in this book). In the dispute with the liberal philosopher (Niebuhr 1964, pp. 212– 215; Niebuhr 1947, pp. 1–2), he successfully establishes a power-based plea for a democratic system of checks and balances. Later he would discuss the conditions that could sustain a mature democratic system and the dangers democratic systems would be exposed to from the inside and outside. In his late work Man’s Nature and His Communities Niebuhr clearly argued that democratic systems could not tolerate the development of tribal structures or additional legal systems that could compete with the state monopoly on the use of force (Niebuhr 1965, pp. 91–93). Niebuhr claims a “patriotism of dissent” conducted by a mature citizenship (Tjalve 2008, pp. 2–8), an ability to withstand the human tendency towards conformism that allows critical judgements inside the legal system of the state. His prophetic realism is the product of his religious, philosophical, and political convictions. (3) Niebuhr’s reflections can help to determine the fields in which the state should intervene and in which an interventionism would lead to suboptimal results. Niebuhr’s Madisonian version of liberalism that took the sinfulness of man into consideration avoided extremist attitudes in both directions. Neither laissez-faire liberalism nor social engineering progressivism would allow

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adequate solutions for societies that were permanently in a state of dynamic transformation (Josephson and Holder 2019, p. 194).

7.1

Niebuhr’s Stance Against Social Engineering

In a more modest way than Barth, Niebuhr also spoke out against attempts to realize heaven on earth. He criticized concepts of social engineering that tended to become totalitarian as well and to imperil the free will of human beings (Niebuhr 1956, p. 148). But nevertheless, for all his life he pleaded for an active social engagement and he remained a product of the American social gospel movement (Dorrien 1999, p. 135); but as was shown beforehand, the criteria for this engagement need to be permanently renegotiated according of the needs of the era. This means, the formulation and attempted execution of universal norms in different contexts would necessarily lead to illiberal practices. The human tendency towards conformist thinking and behavior would require the existence of “prophets” not only in the religious realm but also in political systems. Niebuhr did not know the surveillance opportunities of the digital age, but he warned against all forms of technical forms of artificial attempts to tame the free will of the people in order to make them more virtues. Humility and modesty are the important elements of a political ethics for Niebuhr. And it becomes obvious that this ethics has to be practical, not ideological. This difference cannot be overestimated. For one of his most important missions, that were the result of his personal experiences, was the struggle against the ideological crusades of all sides. It is important to bring prominent theological thinkers like Karl Barth, Ernst Troeltsch or Paul Tillich into the social scientific discourse on the state. They had important things to say about the legitimization of concrete states in the tension between rational organizing principles and transcendental ideas. It is no coincidence that Barth and Tillich were highly engaged in the struggle against the Third Reich (Stone 1998). Like Niebuhr these theologians recognized and lived the necessity of a spirit of resistance in inhuman times in order to secure a human society. Religion and politics are closely connected, in the realm of international politics (Troy 2013) as well as in domestic politics.

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Summary: Niebuhr’s Misreadings as Productive Force

Niebuhr’s false understanding of Luther’s led to the unintended consequence that he was strengthened in his conviction that under special circumstances disobedience towards unjust authority would be not only necessary but legitimate as well. Besides his socialization in a “social gospel surrounding”, his experiences as preacher of a Detroit parish where he witnessed the misery of the exploited workers and his contact and his experiences as an organizing supporter of resistance movements against the Nazi regime Niebuhr developed a theory immanent understanding of the importance of resistance inside every political system, democratic systems included (Niebuhr 1956, p. 192). Niebuhr followed the evaluation of Lord Vansittard, Shirer, Wiener and other who blamed Luther’s thinking and German Romanticism for the development of German history (Niebuhr 1964, pp. 90–92); on the other hand, he made arguments against German collective guilt (Niebuhr 1946). This inherent contradiction in his attitude towards Germany is understandable. While he appreciated the courage and intelligence of specific German individuals like Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Niebuhr 1945) and Adam von Trott zu Solz (Malone 1985, p. 181), he simultaneously condemned the German tendency to follow blindly irrational, romantic or naturalistic ideas (Niebuhr 1941, p. 90–91). Niebuhr who was well-read in many disciplines judged and German theology from a perspective of an immanent ethics but with a biased perspective that he modified slightly in his late work (Crouter 2013, p. 469). He drew heavily on German theological liberalism that itself was not innocent with respect to Germany’s entry into the First World War. Modern protestant liberalism helped form the modern nation-state. Rasmussen claims that from the nineteenth century German history disguises a close relationship between liberal Protestantism and German nationalism from Schleiermacher on (Rasmussen 2007, p. 165). But the nation and nationalism slowly became more important than the state. “The type of theology and sociology Troeltsch and other liberal theologians represented not only positively legitimated German nationalism and militarism, it also actively subverted any forms of theology and church practice that would have made resistance intelligible and possible” (Rasmussen 2007, p. 165). Troeltsch and other liberal theologians like Paul Tillich were not innocent concerning nationalist temptations, but they—like Niebuhr—had the courage to learn their lessons and to change. The late Niebuhr developed a more sympathetic attitude towards the idea of a social contract which however differed substantially from the contractualism of Thomas Hobbes or Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

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Calvinism is the Preferred Religion for Political Reasons

For Niebuhr the Calvinist religion was able to provide the decisive resources to substantiate democratic structures. Not Calvin himself, who for Niebuhr came close to Luther’s submission to worldly authorities (Niebuhr 1943, b, p. 189), but the Calvinist tradition bore the necessary emancipatory potential for these theologians while Lutheranism behaved either apolitical or apologetic for the status quo. Although Niebuhr was skeptical towards a purely rationally design contractualism that only reflected the interests of the business classes (Castellin 2021, p.), he was open for a complex form of social contract that took the developed historical and organic relationships or a society into consideration (Niebuhr 1956, p. 181). What was required was the principle of reciprocity and a mechanism that allowed resistance in case of violations: “The right of resistance to unjust government was affirmed by the simple expedient of asserting that the rule of a prince assumed a ‘covenant’ between the ruler and the ruled which was violated by injustice” (Niebuhr 1956, p. 190). Niebuhr praises Calvinist constitutionalists like Samuel Rutherford and John Knox who were capable of balancing human potentialities and human imperfectibilities by connecting organic and rationalistic factors in a political system: “The contradiction between an excessive reverence for authority and an excessive voluntarism, which imagined each generation to have the power to create order and justice in the community by a fiat of its own will, was most successfully overcome in the Calvinism of the seventeenth century” (Niebuhr 1956, p. 190). This later Calvinism could stop the negative influence Roman 13 had on the political thought of continental protestantism (Niebuhr 1956, pp. 190–191). “…one of the great achievements of democracy was certainly to have incorporated resistance to a particular government into the very structure of government itself” (Niebuhr 1956, p. 192)—here was room for his form of prophetic realism. Again, he chose a viamedia between extreme interpretations of governing systems; neither theocratic nor purely institutional solutions would be sufficient to build a stable nation-state with a widely accepted concept of legitimacy. Calvinism paved the way for a realistic system of checks and balances.

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Niebuhr’s Intellectual Hegemony Concerning the U. S. Luther Interpretation

The whole analysis should have made clear that there did and still do exist fundamentally diverse discourses in the European and American theological departments concerning the historical role of Martin Luther. Bailton summarizes in a simplified form: “When a comparison is made between the political consequences of Lutheranism and Calvinism, the common generalization is that Lutheranism made for totalitarianism and Calvinism for democracy” Bailton, quoted in Lazareth 2001, p. 2). The reformist approach “won” the battle in the U. S. because here the historically discredited Lutheranism was unseriously blended with Luther’s work out of the sixteenth century. Niebuhr interpreted Luther’s TKD in a way that assumed a clear separation between a transcendental moral realm and a worldly sphere in which the end (retention of the power of the ruler) would justify any means (the application of all kinds of force). In this contribution I attempted to argue that theology can contribute to understand problems of the (post)modern state and its complex relationship of religion and state. Despite his one-sided Luther interpretation, Niebuhr successfully converted his early Augustinian pessimism and received a higher estimation of “civil righteousness” people could develop without neglecting the enduring factor of human sin (Benne 1995, p. 154). But Niebuhr’s approach remains a what Benne calls a “paradoxical vision” and a story full of ironies and human fallacies (Niebuhr 1952, pp. vii−xxiv). In the historical realm without any clear-cut truth his “Christian pragmatism” that he accepted from the 1950s on (Stone 1972, p. 145) should be the recipe for avoiding bitter ideological contests that would lead to more violence than sober conflicts of interests that could be mitigated because it avoid all kinds of religious absolutes. Simple moral differentiations into guilty and innocent groups could be avoided with help of his theological pragmatism. Christian Realism does not divide states and groups of all sorts into categories of evildoers and victims. All groups tend towards self-glorification, sin, and imperialism. An “identity politics”, built on strategies of victimization, would not correspond his worldview that took for granted that no individual or group was fully innocent. For Niebuhr, the imperfectability of man could only be mediated but not be healed. Therefore, religions would have to fulfil a janus-faced task: “True religion must at once quiet and disquiet the conscience of men” (Niebuhr 1926, p. 221). The assumption that a social or public ethics cannot be as concrete as private moral standard does not lead to a moral nihilism in the public sphere that Niebuhr diagnosed in Luther’s theology. To the contrary, Niebuhr himself helped to formulate anti-ideological guidelines for a social ethics that implied both

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deontological and consequentialist elements and that avoided dilemmas that were produced by the strict adherence to deontological theories that in many cases led to the opposite of their intent (Haas 1999, pp. 635–636). In spite of some misunderstandings, Niebuhr’s partially bitter fight against Barth and Luther led him to a more mature outlook on the problems of morality in (inter-)national politics. Realists know that norms have to be interpreted and that language cannot be objective but is a function of the power relationships and mostly instruments of the governing elites. For Niebuhr, governance by abstract secular norms, especially if disguised in “human rights” terminology, would lead to totalitarian systems if they were not supported by transcendental values. And these could only be delivered by a transcendental norm: “Moral action which lacks some reference to an absolute standard and some ultrarational dynamic inevitably falls short even of satisfying the social necessities” (Niebuhr 1927, pp. 142–143). And in his polemical work MM, written in 1932, he confirmed his thesis: “Any justice which is only justice soon degenerates into something less than justice. It must be saved by something which is more than justice.” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 258). Concrete values and norms for Niebuhr were represented more by loving, serving and responsible individuals like St. Francis of Assisi (Niebuhr 1923, p. 231) than by rationally constructed institutional designs. Albert Schweitzer was another example for a responsible and activist Christian Niebuhr was attracted to (Bellmann 2018, p. 252). In the political realm it was Abraham Lincoln who successfully converted Christian values into concrete action and who inspired Niebuhr from as early as 1937 on (Erwin 2013, p. 19). Vice-President Hubert Humphrey honored Niebuhr with the following words: “Like Lincoln and Mark Twain, Dr. Niebuhr brought a mixture of profundity and practicality. Like Lincoln, who I think has always been his favorite statesman, Dr. Niebuhr showed how to combine decisive action with a sensitive knowledge of the complexity of life, including politics.”5 Donald Trump is not the only American President who did not stand Niebuhr’s test of statesmanship but perhaps the most extreme personality that did repudiate the patience and prudence for grand promises and an easy conscience (Josephson and Holder 2019, p. 174). But these character traits Niebuhr admired were not directly derived from a Christological perspective. This evaluation was not only expressed by Karl Barth who had confidence in the motifs of the followers of Christ but by Martin Luther King in an early work on Niebuhr where he states. “… there is one weakness in Niebuhr’s ethical position which runs the whole gamut of his writings. This 5

Transcript of Remarks of Vice President Hubert Humphrey to the CHRISTIANITY AND CRISIS 25th Anniversary Banquet, New York City, February 25, 1966, p. 3.

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weakness lies in (the) inability of his system to deal adequately with the relative perfection which is the fact of Christian life” (King 1952, p. 150). Niebuhr would have neglected the question how personalities could develop spiritually and how agape would be concretely practiced by individuals in this world. The sources of the categories he developed to evaluate the quality of statesmanship were derived more out of historical sources (Thompson 1960). Nevertheless, King undoubtedly was influenced by Niebuhr as his daughter Elisabeth Sifton (Sifton 2003, pp. 336– 337) and many other observers have proven convingly (see e. g., Halliwell 2005). Luther King’s early evaluation does not take into account Niebuhr’s deep admiration for the Hebraic prophets. Later he discovered Niebuhr’s preference especially for the prophet Amos. The prophets incorporated character traits and a message that rulers, tainted by the unavoidable will-to-power, would urgently have to listen to. A political system is mature that allows the voice of these prophets: “…there is a genuine difference between nations which do not officially destroy the religiousprophetic judgement against the nation and those do (Niebuhr 1941, p. 219). In other words: “This self-limitation of the state in approaching the conscience of the individual has come to be one of the chief marks of distinction between an open society and a totalitarian one” (Niebuhr 1956, p. 246). His Christian Realism provides a benchmark to permanently evaluate whether the balance between the totalitarian and anarchistic temptations can be maintained in a nation-state. Especially in times of crisis like the current pandemic crisis, it requires wisdom and prudence to find the appropriate measure that reconcile safety concerns with the protection of civil liberties. On the theological front, Niebuhr was permanently attacked out of different directions. While more biblical fundamentalist theologians like Stanley Hauerwas accused him of being more a philosopher in the pragmatist spirit of William James (Hauerwas 2001), liberal theologians like Gary Dorrien (Dorrien 2009, pp. 675– 677) or Robert Lovin believe that Niebuhr was too strongly attached to the status quo. They attempt to reformulate Niebuhr’s Christian realism that it becomes a kind of “hopeful realism” that allows to find more immediate solutions for urgent problems in this world (e. g. Lovin 2007). In this contribution it was argued that Niebuhr usually discovered a viamedia between a too pessimistic, nearly fatalistic path and a utopianism that was vulnerable to become ideological and therefore lacked practical guidance as well. But the highest value that allowed morally responsible decision was man’s freedom: “The ideal implicit in human character is that of ethical freedom; and awakened personalities will seek to realize that ideal” (Niebuhr 1927, p. 239). This freedom should not too strongly be forced into the Procrustean bed of sociological blueprints. His voluntarism could be summarized in the wonderful aphorism of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado: “Wanderer,

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your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road—Only wakes upon the sea”.

References Barth, Karl. 1948. No Christian Marshall Plan, Christian Century (Dec 1948), pp. 1330–1333. Benne, Robert. 1995. The Paradoxical Vision. A public theology for the twenty-first century. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Bellmann, Tina. 2018. Zwischen Liebesideal und Realismus. Theologische Anthropologie als soziale Ressource bei Reinhold Niebuhr. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. Brunner, Emil. 1929. The Theology of Crisis. NYC: Scribner. Carnahan, Kevin M. 2011. Recent Work on Reinhold Niebuhr.Religion Compass 5/8, 365-375. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00296.x Carlson, John D. 2013. What is Christian about Christian Realism? in: Religion and the Realist Tradition. Ed. Jodok Troy, pp. 37–61. NYC: Routledge. Crouter, Richard 2013. Reinhold Niebuhr as Christian Apologist. More than a Footnote to Schleiermacher. Geist und Buchstabe - Interpretations- und Transformationsprozesse innerhalb des Christentums. Festschrift für Günter Meckenstock zum 65. Geburtstag. Eds. M. Pietsch, and D. Schmid, pp. 455–478. Oldenbourg. De Gruyter. Dorrien, Gary J. 1999. The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Dorrien, Gary J. 2009. Social ethics in the making – Interpreting an American tradition. Chichester: Blackwell. Duchrow, Ulrich. Diskussionen um die Lehre von Zwei Reichen und Regimenten und die Konsequenzen. In: Angewandtes Luthertum. Eds. J. Kampmann, and H. Otte, pp. 313–335. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Erwin, Scott. 2013. The Theological Vision of Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History: “In the Battle and Above It”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feldman, Egal. 1984. Reinhold Niebuhr and the Jews. Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3/4, pp. 293−302. Josephson, Peter/R. W. Holder. 2019. Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice. Christian Realism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham: R & L. Haas, Mark L. 1999. Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Christian Pragmatism”: A Principled Alternative to Consequentialism. The Review of politics 61 (4), pp. 605−636, Halliwell, Martin. 2005. The constant dialogue: Reinhold Niebuhr and American intellectual culture. Lanham: R & L. Hauerwas, Stanley. 2001. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press. Haddorf, Richard. 2004. Community, State, and Church: Three Essays by Karl Barth. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. Heling, Arnd. 1992. Die Theologie Eivind Berggravs im norwegischen Kirchenkampf. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Theologie im Luthertum. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

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Holder, R. Ward /Josephson, Peter. 2012. The irony of Barack Obama – Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing. Hunsinger, George. 1991. How to read Karl Barth: the shape of this theology. NYC: OUPKing, Martin Luther. 1952. Essay “Reinhold Niebuhr’s Ethical Dualism“ for DeWolfs Seminar in Systematic Theology, May 9th. Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, Kroner, Richard. 1956. The Historical Roots of Niebuhr’s Thought. In Reinhold Niebuhr - His religious, social and political Thought. Eds. C. Kegley, and R. W. Bretall, pp. 177−192. NYC: MacMillan. Lacey, Robert J. 2016. Pragmatic Conservativism. Edmund Burke and his American Heirs. London: Palgrave. Lange, Dietz. 1964. Christlicher Glaube und soziale Probleme – eine Darstellung der Theologie Reinhold Niebuhrs. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann. Lazareth, William 2001. Christians in Society. Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Lovin, Robin W. 2007. Reinhold Niebuhr. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Lovin, Robin W. 2008. Christian realism and the new realities. Cambridge: CUP. Malone, Henry O. 1985. Adam von Trott zu Solz – Werdegang eines Verschwörers. Berlin McGovern, William Montgomery 1973. From Luther to Hitler – The History of Fascist-Nazi Political Philosophy. NYC: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1. ed. 1941. Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. NYC: Norton & Company. Merkley, Paul. 1975. Reinhold Niebuhr – a political Account. London: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press. Moseley, Carys. 2013. Nations and nationalism in the theology of Karl Barth. Oxford: OUP. Munsinger, George. 1991. How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology. Oxford: OUP. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1923. The Paradox of Institutions. The World Tomorrow, Vol. 6, No. 8, pp. 231−232. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1926. Does Religion quiet or disquiet? World Tomorrow, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 220–221. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1927. Does Civilization need Religion? NYC: Macmillan. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1929. Political Action and Social Change. World Tomorrow 12, no. 12, pp. 491−493. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934. Reflections upon the End of an Era. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1936. English and German Mentality – A Study in National Traits. Christendom (Spring), pp. 465–476. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941. The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation. Part I. Human Nature. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1942a. Jews After the War. The Nation, February 21, pp. 214–216. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1942b. Jews After the War. The Nation, February 28, pp. 253–255. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1943. The Nature and Destiny of Man. Vol. 2. Human Destiny. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1945. The Death of a Martyr. Christianity and Crisis, Vol. 5, June 25, p. 6. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946. Discerning the Signs of the Times. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1947. Democracy as Religion. Christianity & Crisis, Vol. 7, August 4, pp. 1–2.

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The State and Prophetic Religion David True

Abstract

Niebuhr’s account of prophetic religion illumines the struggle of interests within a contested political order and thus exposes the naivety of a simple politics of love. In its suspicion of powerful interests, genuine prophetic religion shares much with Marx. His prophetic stance supports a multiplicity of powers, in sharp contrast with champions of strong state sovereignty such as Hobbes and Schmitt on the one side and libertarians on the other. For Niebuhr, then, politics is an ongoing struggle for justice that requires the development of a political agency that is both bold and wise. Keywords

Prophetic religion • Marx • Political agency • Carl Schmitt

1

Introduction

We are living through what one might call the revenge of sovereignty—in which the sovereign nation-state has re-emerged from the shadows of modern political history to challenge the liberal global order. In states like the United States, Hungary, and India the sovereign has promised to restore the fortunes of the nation by overcoming the timidity of the law. As a result, the state as an institution is increasingly called into question—both from the Right and the Left. It is crucial D. True (B) Wilson College, Chambersburg, USA © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_4

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then that we reassess the modern state as well as the concept of sovereignty. It may strike some as odd to turn to a theologian for assistance in rethinking the modern state. After all, religion is often enlisted in the service of legitimizing the new nationalisms. Reinhold Niebuhr, however, was a consistent critic of nationalism. Early in his career he prodded the United States to resist Nazi aggression. Following the war, he was critical of both the Soviet Union and the United States (Fox 1985). The interest of this essay, however, is not with Niebuhr’s historical struggles per se but with the conceptuality that emerged out of those struggles. Niebuhr’s criticism of various forms of nationalism and imperialism was rooted in his theology, informed as it was by what he understood as prophetic religion. The essay takes up the political implications of Niebuhr’s vision of God, specifically, how Niebuhr’s interpretation of prophetic religion informs his understanding of political sovereignty of the modern state and in turn political agency.

2

Divine Sovereignty and Human Agency

Before turning to politics, however, we need first to turn not to human sovereignty but divine sovereignty. According to Niebuhr, divine sovereignty is paradoxical. It both transcends history and is crushed to the earth within history. The kingdom of God, far from being triumphant here and now, is delayed. These are hallmarks of Niebuhr’s view of divine sovereignty. So “hidden” is God’s reign, that Niebuhr was fond of claiming that history’s meaning is shrouded in “mystery,” discernible only to the eyes of faith (Niebuhr and McAfee Brown 2009). Still, one might wonder if perhaps divine sovereignty, though hidden, remains firmly in control of history. Niebuhr rejects such views, and, instead, offers a radical revision of classical notions of God’s sovereignty. While he retains the concept of God’s “general providence” that provides for an order of existence, he jettisons any idea of a special providence that would exempt the faithful from the dramas of history (Niebuhr 1964). Moreover, even general providence is not a set of rigid laws or implacable mechanisms of divine control. Though the paradox of divine power is most fully evident in Niebuhr’s view of the crucifixion, paradox also characterizes Niebuhr’s account of divine action in general. Divine providence is expressed in two facts: (1) the fact that we live in the context of a fragile balancing or ordering of powers, a circumstance that makes it possible for us to act and to build communities with varying degrees of confidence, and (2) the fact that human beings are genuinely free with respect to that balance. Our freedom, in turn, is two-fold: we are free both to follow the law of love, thus transcending the requirements of self-defense and the balance of power, and we

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are free to make tragic choices, thus upsetting and distorting the balance. Indeed, at times, tragedy befalls human life, just as the grace of new possibilities does. Paradoxically, God’s sovereignty maintains not a stable order but a dynamic contradiction: we are indebted to an existing order, and we are free to transform and also to destroy it. As we will see, this dynamic contradiction yields not only the insistent possibility of striving after greater justice in the community: it also yields the perpetual two-fold menace of order becoming tyranny, on the one hand, and freedom degenerating into anarchy, on the other. This note of tragedy and grace befalling or acting upon human beings speaks to another aspect of the paradox that is embedded in Niebuhr’s claim that human freedom exists alongside human finitude. We inhabit a world of structures, forces, and dynamics that provide for human society but also impose conditions that guide as well as limit choices. Later, we will see that our location in history requires, politically, that we engage in practices of discernment and develop strategies that are suited to historical conditions, and that we reject rigid ideologies and utopian programs that treat human freedom as an escape hatch from historical realities rather than as a power to struggle for justice within them. Here, it needs to be emphasized that Niebuhr’s account of divine sovereignty as the maintenance of a dynamic contradiction yields a somewhat radical view of the world and of history in which no single hegemon, no coherent regime of domination, can prevail indefinitely. It might be said, following Niebuhr’s line of thought, that neither God nor human beings are strictly sovereign. We humans exist in a world of radical multiplicity that both provides for and threatens our existence. One of Niebuhr’s well-known points of emphasis is that human beings are responsible and, as he was keen to add, that responsibility involves being attentive to limits as well as possibilities. On the one hand, we can transcend our preconceived notions of what is possible. On the other, we remain finite, limited, and mortal. Holding these two notions together is key to exercising responsibility wisely—both individually and collectively (Niebuhr 1964, p. 16). The polarity of free and finite goes a long way in explaining Niebuhr’s range of positions, as does the human tendency to stray to one side of the polarity or the other. Niebuhr argues that such an imbalance is driven by our anxious grasping after security, whether as individuals or as a group. This is the crux of his interpretation of sin in which anxiety intensifies the agent’s inordinate selflove. In fearing for its security, a powerful group, such as a nation, is tempted to operate imperialistically or to retreat from its responsibilities in a troubled world. This latter form of sin figures highly in Niebuhr’s arguments against American isolationism prior to the Second World War. Where isolationists stress the limits of American intervention, Niebuhr holds out the possibilities of American support

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for the Allies. In a public debate on how to respond to Japan’s invasion of China, for example, his brother H. Richard Niebuhr argues that American involvement is likely to lead to an intensification of violence. In contrast, Reinhold stresses the responsibility of the United States to do what it can to stop Japan, urging American sanctions (Miller 1992). In the post-war period, Niebuhr continued to call for American involvement, advocating its leadership in rebuilding war-torn countries as well as opposing Soviet efforts to extend its influence in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. In these cases, however, we often find Niebuhr stressing the limits of American power against more ambitious perspectives, such as an America First policy (Niebuhr 1960). In economics, Niebuhr argues for a similar point, against those “liberals” or “libertarians” who champion the “free market,” as if individuals are free without limits. In sum, then, Niebuhr’s theological anthropology provides us with a paradoxical conception of human agency. Moreover, Niebuhr projects this conception of agency onto collectives, especially politics, which brings us to Niebuhr’s view of political sovereignty.

3

Divine Sovereignty and Political Sovereignty

Of Niebuhr’s many writings that touch on political sovereignty, his most systematic treatment is found in Chapter 9 of his second volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man. The chapter’s title, “The Kingdom of God and the Struggle for Justice,” suggests that Niebuhr would have us approach politics by first asking how the transcendent relates to the struggle for social justice. In other words, politics is not merely an end but a means to something greater, in light of which politics is judged. For Niebuhr, the higher values are owing to “biblical wisdom.” Thus, the positive law is judged by what is often termed higher law or what Niebuhr calls a transcendent ideal. Such a norm is critical to “prophetic religion,” by which Niebuhr primarily means religion in a critical vein or capable of directing transcendent criticism at the powers of its community or nation (Niebuhr 1964, p. 180). The grounding for such criticism is prophetic religion’s loyalty to a higher sovereign than that of the political sovereign, the ultimate sovereign. Earlier, we mentioned that God’s sovereignty is judged or crucified by political power. Now we can add that God’s sovereignty is also paradoxically the ultimate source of judgment in politics and on political sovereignty specifically. Niebuhr’s vast collection can be understood as the work of a practical or political theologian seeking to draw on and reignite prophetic religion. This is often

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overlooked, perhaps because of Niebuhr’s unrelenting criticism of moral idealists. The point of such criticisms, however, was not to dismiss ethical concerns, but rather to heighten the moral tension by juxtaposing the transcendent with historical processes of power. In other words, he sought to engage the legacy of prophetic religion by exposing the gap between the status quo and agape. We should not be surprised then that when Niebuhr turns to politics, he asks about the existing law and political structures. Inevitably, he finds that both are morally ambivalent, serving as both approximations and contradictions of justice. In other words, both the law and political structures offer moral resources but also demand scrutiny, even suspicion. His worry is that both law and political arrangements may be made to serve powerful interests. Niebuhr notes his agreement with Marx on this point. He insists, “Marxist cynicism in regard to the pretended moral purity of all laws and rules of justice is justified. Marxism is right, furthermore, in regarding them as primarily rationalizations of the interests of the dominant elements of society” (Niebuhr 1964, pp. 252–253).” In fact, Niebuhr’s critique of Marxism isn’t its suspicion of power, but that it isn’t sufficiently suspicious. Niebuhr stresses that all concentrations of power, even those that arise from the organization of the downtrodden, have an impulse to dominate, that left unchecked, tends toward tyranny. Despite his frequent disavowals and criticisms, Niebuhr’s views of history and the state, line up with those of classical Marxism. For Marx and Engels, history as we know it commences with the formation of social contradictions arising out of the diverse interests of contending classes (warrior chieftains vs. agriculturalists, urban aristocracy vs. rural peasantry, etc.). Thus, history is a history of class struggles. The state arose with these social contradictions as a means to manage them. In other words, the state, where it has arisen, has always been an apparatus that ensures the cohesiveness of the community where its scale and complexity have required the division of labor and hence, the existence of contradictory interests. Unlike anarchistic traditions, Marxism has held that the state is not the institution that produces or is of a piece with social divisions or “hierarchies,” but is rather their product, a tool that the dominant classes need to preserve order and protect their power. In Augustinian terms, it is often difficult to distinguish the state from a band of robbers (Engels 2011). Niebuhr’s view shares classical Marxism’s realism about the state, a realism that cuts in two directions: against naive trust in the state to function in the best interests of its citizens, and against an equally naive belief that the state can simply be abolished, or that its abolition would result in the restoration of some kind of primitive justice. Where he differs, famously, is in his refusal to accept the view, originally appearing in Marx but developed by Lenin in The State and

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Revolution (1978), that the state “withers” in the wake of a proletarian revolution, which supposedly eliminates social contradictions by emancipating the working class from the domination of capital. Indeed, the farcical face of that “withering” in the growth of Stalinist domination and bureaucratization during the time when Niebuhr’s political thought was maturing, suggested to him that something was fundamentally wrong, not just with the edifice of Marxism as it appeared through the prism of the Russian Revolution, but with its foundation. The historical contradictions of Stalinism and its claim to represent the fate of Marx obscured how similar in many respects Niebuhr’s view of the state was to Marx’s (Fox 1985). Even earlier, however, Niebuhr’s view was clearly and decisively distinguishable from classical Marxism in some respects. Like Paul Tillich and other Religious Socialists writing in close proximity to the (successful) Russian Revolution and the (failed) German revolution, Niebuhr held in the 1930s and beyond that the social contradictions identified with such vividness by the Marxist tradition were, in fact, interminable and were not going to be removed by a revolution (Niebuhr 1964). That is not to say that revolutions would be pointless or impossible, but that they would, like all historical transformations, be finally indecisive from the standpoint of universal justice. There would always be social contradictions, and thus injustices, exploitation, and oppression. Niebuhr’s more pessimistic realism, rooted in an Augustinian notion of original sin, required a more prophetic distance from any social or political achievement, no matter how impressive or how necessary in order to avoid the worst outcomes. It also required a greater humility and openness that history might require new and different transformations.

4

Niebuhr’s Context and Today’s American Context

Throughout much of his book The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (Niebuhr 2011), Niebuhr espouses the view that the United States had progressed beyond the days of plutocracy. He appreciates American democracy for balancing or limiting power not simply constitutionally but with the help of free society or “the equilibrium of powers”—and equally significant—by limiting or checking government with the separation of powers. Simultaneously, these branches check and regulate the balance of powers, which, if unregulated, might otherwise dissolve into anarchy. It is a system in which power checks power to prevent both anarchy and tyranny. In the post-war period, Niebuhr continued to believe that the United States had achieved a relatively just economic order that warranted legitimacy as well as

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continued criticism and reform. While at that time, he thought that the labor movement had helped establish distributive justice, it is important to remember that he claims that justice is always being negotiated. Anarchy and tyranny remain perennial threats. This fundamental claim raises questions about the current struggle for justice. Ironically, today we are in key respects much closer to the economic situation that Niebuhr faced in the 30 s than those of the 50 s and 60 s. Niebuhr, the critic of the myth of progress, would very much appreciate this point. Today, powerful corporate interests appear to have captured outright the levers of government. Free of oversight, these behemoths astride the globe in an anarchic competition for dominance. As the collapse of 2008 made clear, the situation is never far and perhaps even borders on anarchy. At the same time, these corporations also exercise a degree of power beyond that of many states. They have mastered the control of their workers’ time and their customers’ desires, so much so that they might be said to exercise tyranny. As corporate “persons” have grown in power, the U.S. federal government has increasingly concentrated its powers in the military and intelligence agencies. American politics have, at least since the September 11 attacks, have been dominated by the allure of a strong sovereign (and the reaction against it). Much of the American electorate has come to long for a charismatic leader who acts without restraint to protect us from foreign threats, real and imagined. This version of the American President stands above even the law in the name of keeping us safe.

5

Niebuhr and Schmitt

Such a political vision recalls the work of German jurist, Carl Schmitt. Schmitt’s idea of the political sovereign, you may recall, is that of an executive superior to the law, as the one who decides the exception to the law. For comparative purposes, it is helpful to think more broadly about Schmitt as a political realist in the traditional sense of Thomas Hobbes, whose work greatly influenced him. Both Schmitt and Hobbes viewed threats to the constitutional order with the utmost concern. Schmitt’s notion of politics as a contest between enemies and friends suggests the conflictual nature of modern politics, rife as it is with powerful interests seeking to maximize profits and exploit resources. In Schmitt, we see the lengths one might go to to protect the constitutional order. How does Niebuhr’s conception of political sovereignty compare with this Schmittian version? Niebuhr shares something of Schmitt’s sense of politics as

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conflictual. In this sense, they are both realists. However, their response to multiple powers sets them apart. Where Niebuhr recognizes that societies are riven by conflicting interests and that political agency must therefore be a matter of contending with multiple centers of power, Schmitt argues for the need for a single dominant power in a centralized state. Closely related to this is Niebuhr’s attention to justice. Writing in the late 20 s and early 30 s at roughly the same time as Schmitt was writing Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, Niebuhr expresses a radically different form of realism. Where Schmitt seeks to protect a vulnerable republic, Niebuhr hopes for a class revolt against what he thinks is a corrupt and dying economic system. Throughout much of the 1930s, he held that revolution would follow on the heels of the collapse of the capitalist order and usher in a new equalitarian order. In MM, he weighs three possibilities for remaking the capitalist system: political revolution, electoral politics, and a campaign of nonviolent resistance. His point is that one way or another, the era of the dominance of capital over the interests of workers must come to an end. With the rise of the Nazis, Niebuhr’s attention turned to questions of foreign policy. Following the war, however, he returned to economic issues and discovered a changed economic order, as mentioned earlier. In this context, it becomes clear that where Schmitt turns to a central power to combat opposing forces, Niebuhr turns to the multiplicity of powers, both governmental and non-governmental, to balance power and pursue justice. His is a very different model of sovereignty than Schmitt’s. The organizing power is needed to resist anarchy, while the balance of competing and contradictory powers is needed to undermine the prospect of tyranny in a one-party dictatorship. Two modes of collective power exist in a mutually dependent relationship. One mode, the state, is centralized. The second mode or form of power, free society, orbits the central power in a struggle of interests and aims. For Niebuhr, the virtue of this rather conflictual arrangement is that it avoids the twin perils of anarchy and tyranny while continually opening the social and political order to an ongoing struggle for justice. Niebuhr’s idea of checking power with power has caused some to classify Niebuhr as a proceduralist who seeks to manage conflict. However, Niebuhr aims to engage power in the struggle for justice, and he understands government to have a uniquely important role in organizing the other powers for the pursuit of justice. Moreover, from a Niebuhrian perspective, conflict cannot be managed away. It must be engaged in the struggle for justice. Niebuhr’s critical appreciation of power also distinguishes him from those who single out civility or dialogue, arguing for virtues and rules of conversation, or those who reduce political engagement to the demand that we acknowledge

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and respect difference. A Niebuhrian approach to political sovereignty would be skeptical of such appeals and programs. It is not that such an approach is opposed to civility or the principle of dialogue, or that he has no regard for difference. Indeed, Niebuhr consistently praises toleration, even enshrining it as a central political virtue. The problem is when such calls ignore or even conceal the contradictory interests that are embedded in differences. A Niebuhrian informed politics would have us attend to the laws, structures, and institutional arrangements that too often are used by the dominant powers to control the conversation or make conversation superfluous. We may think, today, for example, about how media conglomerates, largely controlled by corporate interests supporting state projects that are conducive to particular modes of capital accumulation (like military buildup and dissemination of military-grade weaponry to police departments across the country) frame the debate and thus “manufacture consent” (in Noam Chomsky’s famous phrase) about U.S. foreign policy and community policing. For Niebuhr, there is a crucial distinction to be made between the alleged virtues of conversation, which always tend to cover or obscure contradictory interests under the veneer of rationality or consensus-building, and negotiation, which proceeds on the basis of a much more vivid awareness of social contradictions. Indeed, even for anything like a serious discussion of real issues to take place, conversation partners must gain a seat at the negotiating table, and gaining a seat is in itself the fruit of sometimes bitter struggle. It is only here, in places of struggle and conflict, that justice can be advanced. The Niebuhrian vision of engaging power to pursue justice may appear to line up with the strategies of radical democrats, anarchists, and radical trade unionists, who clearly share Niebuhr’s suspicion of concentrations of power. However, unlike these approaches, Niebuhr preserves a role for the centralized power of the state. As we have mentioned earlier, there are two modes of collective power that are each required for historical achievements of greater justice: balancing power and the relatively centralized organization of power. This latter mode, it now needs to be stressed, is required by the nature of communities as cohesive wholes. Without the centralized power, cohesion falls apart, and the anarchy (in the Hobbesian sense Niebuhr always intends by the term) that prevails means the unraveling of justice as powerful interests trample the weak. Niebuhr, the theologian, is a democratic realist who understands democracy not as a fait accompli but as an agonistic struggle for power and justice that never ends or rests. The task of prophetic religion, for Niebuhr, is therefore not to inject moral idealism into politics, but to highlight how power falls short of justice and to open communities and agents who act within them to new possibilities and an indeterminate future.

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References Engels, Friedrich. 2011. Essential Writings of Friedrich Engels: Classics of Marxism and Socialism. St. Petersburg, FL: Red and Black Publishers. Fox, Richard Wightman. 1987. Reinhold Niebuhr: a Biography. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Lenin, Vladimir Il ich. 1978. State and Revolution: Marxist Teaching about the Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Miller, Richard Brian. 1992. War in the Twentieth Century: Sources in Theological Ethics. Louisville: WJKP. Niebuhr, Reinhold, and Robert McAfee Brown. 2009. “Mystery and Meaning.” Essay. In The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses, pp. 237–249. New Haven: YUP. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1964. The Nature and Destiny of Man: Vol 1 Human Nature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 2011. Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. Chicago: UCP.

Part II

Reinhold Niebuhr and the State of Israel: A Study in the Foreign Policy of a Christian Realist Ben Mollov and Shmuel Sandler

Abstract

This chapter will assess Reinhold Niebuhr’s views on the reborn State of Israel as emanating from his attitudes towards Judaism and the Jewish People. These views were related to his philosophy of international politics in general and American foreign policy in particular. Our analysis will be based on tools from the disciplines of political science and international relations. More importantly, we shall suggest that Niebuhr’s views on these subjects which were very close to his mind and heart, mirror his general approaches to politics from the standpoint of Christian Realism which he so frequently articulated. At the core of this approach is the Biblical prophetic heritage which he so enthusiastically embraced and sought to apply to the complexities of the establishment of the State of Israel in the heart of the Middle East. While he emphasized pragmatic justification for establishment of the State of Israel his support was not devoid of Biblical overtones while rejecting the eschatological thinking/orientations of many contemporary evangelicals. Finally we believe that the theme of this essay can also serve as a contribution to the developing subfield of religion and international politics.

B. Mollov (B) · S. Sandler Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel E-Mail: [email protected] S. Sandler E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_5

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Keywords

Reinhold Niebuhr • Israel • International Relations • Religion

1

Introduction

This chapter will assess Reinhold Niebuhr’s views on the reborn state of Israel as emanating from his attitudes towards Judaism and the Jewish People. While these views have been well-articulated we shall assert that these views were related to his philosophy of international politics in general and American foreign policy in particular. Our analysis will be based on tools from the disciplines of political science and international relations. More importantly, we shall suggest that Niebuhr’s views on these subjects which were very close to his mind and heart, mirror his general approaches to politics from the standpoint of Christian Realism which he so frequently voiced. Niebuhr stated his views in support of the State of Israel at a time in the US when it was not in vogue to support the Jewish state as it is today. While the Truman administration recognized the Jewish state 11 min after Israel’s declaration of independence the American foreign policy bureaucracy as well as the social elites opposed a clear pro-Israel Washington stance. Thus, for instance, two major figures in the Truman administration Secretary of State George C. Marshall and George F. Kennan’ father of the Containment Doctrine towards the Soviet Union and considered a major figure in advancing political realism in American foreign policy, were not in favor of US support for the establishment of a Jewish state. Nor did the Protestant Church lead support for Israel. In general, American foreign policy during the first two decades of the history of the State of Israel can be regarded as balanced between support for Israel and courting the Arab world. Hence understanding Niebuhr’s unequivocal support for the Jewish state must be explored in his relationship with Judaism, American Jewry as well as his unique religious and ethical understanding of Jews and their destiny history and values. Hence our study goes beyond Niebuhr himself. It reveals a very important chapter in the evolving American-Jewish-Israel relationship. Equally important, it will reflect a special dimension in Jewish-Christian relations, prior to current eschatological trends, and thus provide a contribution to the evolving “religion and foreign policy” field of study. As a starting point, as we shall see, it is relevant to recall the contours of Niebuhr’s general approach to politics with reference to his Christianity and other

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political influences. Subsequently, the essay will refer to his personal background including his interactions with important Jewish personalities and the mutual influences which he derived from them, and his specific views on Judaism, the Jewish people, and the State of Israel as the result of this assessment.

2

The Evolution of Niebuhr’s Political Thought

The evolution of Niebuhr’s political and theological thought has been abundantly documented; from 1916 when the German Evangelical mission board sent him to serve at Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan a working-class congregation, -through his long and distinguished career as Professor of Christian Ethics from 1928 till his death in 1971 at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York. Although deeply committed to the Christian faith and its promulgation he did not initially draw upon these classical sources as a basis for the approaches which, as we shall discuss, he pursued in his social and political activism. (Bingham 1961). While in depression struck Detroit he pursued a commitment to social justice and activism but he based it upon a socialist and liberal creed. He did however identify as well with “liberal Christianity and its utopian attempts to establish a perfect social order (Naveh 1990, p. 184). Concurrently, early in his career, and in the wake of World War I he also supported pacifism. Starting in the 1930’s Niebuhr underwent a degree of transformation. As evidenced by landmark books which he authored such as Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) and The Children of Light and Children of Darkness (1944) Niebuhr retracted his belief in human and social perfectibility solely by human effort in the here and now (Bingham 1961). Instead, he advocated a return to a deep appreciation of the classical Christian doctrine of “original sin”. While this new orientation did not make him despair of all human progress to achieve a more just and peaceful social and political order, he emphasized the formidable obstacles to such progress. Thus, while he criticized the “foolish children of light” for their belief in too easy harmony, he recognized and lauded their goodness as an impetus for all social progress (Niebuhr 1944). However, he strongly believed that the Children’s of light’s goodness and commitment to the good of the whole must be tempered by the worldly wisdom of the Children of Darkness that despite their being considered evil and selfish were well aware of the need to use power to achieve political objectives, along with the conflictual basis of social existence. In such an imperfect world he advocated advancing the ideals of the Children of

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Light while utilizing the wisdom of the Children of Darkness to be effective in the political arena (Niebuhr 1944). It is based on this duality of thought that Niebuhr could be considered as a “liberal realist”1 (insofar as he affirmed liberal ideals while maintaining the need to recognize the corruptibility of human nature which severely limits man’s ability to bring about the realization of these ideals in the here and now). Indeed, Niebuhr looked to classical Christian beliefs and the need for other worldly divine assistance, to achieve a full realization of transcendent goals particularly for the ideal of creating an elusive but necessary world community (Niebuhr 1944).And in terms of a clearer Christian version of liberal realism, Niebuhr (1952) powerfully articulated his philosophy of “Christian realism” which emphasized the reality of “original sin” but still maintained the hope for man’s ultimate redemption. It was against this background that Niebuhr advanced a comprehensive political philosophy of international relations and foreign policy. While hailed by many as political realism the more accurate term would be Christian realism. In concrete political terms, it is pertinent to mention that he co-founded in 1941 the Union for Democratic Action, which was the precursor of the Americans for Democratic Action. Just prior to World War II he renounced his pacifism, and during the Cold War he strongly opposed Soviet expansionism. At the same time, though, he opposed the War in Vietnam.

3

Niebuhr and Realism

The transformation of American foreign policy from idealism to realism that occurred during the late 1930s resulted ultimately on the practical level in the entrance of the US into the 2nd W.W. On the intellectual level this culmination had a major impact on the theory of International relations. Political Realism became the leading paradigm of international politics for many decades to come. Main luminaries of the Realist school in IR such as, E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan saw in Niebuhr their intellectual father. (Inboden 2013, pp. 2–3) In retrospect, Niebuhr provided an additional feature in that paradigmatic change, the interaction between religion and foreign policy. He instilled theology into a paradigm that was otherwise totally secular. By doing so he also inserted moral values into the struggle against totalitarian regimes such as Fascism/Nazism in the 1930s and international Communism and Soviet expansionism 1

This term was introduced by M.Ben Mollov and appears in Mollov (2002) p. 8. Robert W. Tucker also referred to this term in hand written letter to Ben Mollov, dated May 12, 1994.

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during the Cold War. When Kenneth Waltz during the mid-1950s strongly impacted on the IR discipline, in his prominent book Man, the State and War (1959), with the proposition that three images were responsible for international conflict, Niebuhr’s position was clear; the individual and the state were the most prominent variables in explaining international conflict. The balance of power was the main mechanism that regulated and stabilized international politics. But human nature and the ideology of the nation-state were the main causes responsible for international conflict. How do we explain the courage of a clergy man to stand up against American scholars of IR and presage an understanding of the world scene in an era that was still predominated by the influence of the idealism paradigm that had emerged in the wake of W.W.I? The answer seems to be, as Robin Lovin put it, was the tradition of the Hebrew prophets that induced Niebuhr to stand up against the propositions that guided American foreign policy and intellectual circles in the democratic countries. It was as early as 1930, in the wake of his visit to Germany that he voiced the alarm concerning the threat to Jews and Christians in that country (Inboden 2013, p. 10). It was the prophetic tradition that prompted him to warn against both present and future threats to the Western civilization. Moreover, it was Niebuhr’s internal convictions accompanied by his intellectual capabilities that played a role in the conversion of policy makers such as Roosevelt on the political level and E.H. Carr on the academic level, to abandon predominant assumptions in favor of a realist paradigm.

4

Niebuhr and the Jewish People

It is against this background that we turn to Niebuhr’s renowned philo-Semitism, which he expressed abundantly during his pastorship in Detroit. To be sure, Niebuhr was raised in a household in which his father, also a pastor, educated his children in the Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew language. Undeniably, early on in his career Niebuhr supported efforts to convert Jews to Christianity but quickly changed his position, believing that “.Judaism was a source of genuine theological insight” (Goldman, 2017, p. 436). However, it was in Detroit that Niebuhr for the first time intensively came into contact with Jews through his involvement in social action. So impressed he was with the idealism tempered by hard headed realism, displayed by his Jewish acquaintances that he allegedly said that in the “entire city of Detroit he knew only two real Christians and one of them was

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a Jew.”2 Niebuhr was also wont to express his perception of the Jewish people as possessing a more refined sense of justice than most people (Goldman 2017, p. 436; Moseley 2009, p. 4). He also attributed this striving for social justice in part to the fact that the Jews believe the Messiah had not yet come, and thus their striving for justice was more pronounced (Goldman 2017, p. 436). As pointed out above, Niebuhr’s deep relationship with the Jewish people must be traced back to the early 1930’s when he witnessed the growing strength of Nazism. His sharp public warnings antedated American public opinion. Possibly because of his German roots and commitment to the Protestant Church he started demanding forceful opposition to Hitler’s treatment of German Jewry. In a series of articles in the leading Protestant Magazine “The Christian Century” he urged the German Churches to stand up against Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws. Horrified for the future of German Jewry he went even further and challenged Christians throughout the civilized world to stand up in favor of the Jews. His fight against Nazism went beyond his liberal standings. The fight against Nazi Germany was not only a struggle between democracy and totalitarianism: he perceived Nazism as a modern incarnation of paganism and hence he may be seen as a modern prophet warning society from deteriorating into a pagan age. This perception was another link between Niebuhr and the Jewish people from where the role of the prophet had emerged (Inboden 2013, pp. 10–11). Indeed, Niebuhr’s admiration of the Old Testament prophets was an important element in his special relations with the Jewish people. The fulfillment of his prophecies during W.W.II regarding the danger of ignoring evil forces such as Nazi Germany and the tragic results of this policy brought him even closer to the Jewish Community. It was during those years that the realist Niebuhr emerged. Realizing that the threat of Nazism went beyond a menace to the Jews he turned from an opponent of rearmament to supporting armed preparedness and the comprehension that the use of force was unavoidable against Hitler. But the Jewish dimension nevertheless persisted. As William Inboden (2013) described Niebuhr’s evolving perception: Niebuhr’s concern about Germany’s expansion was not just the disturbance it presented to European order, but the singular virulence of Nazi ideology and its threat to the prophetic role of the Jewish people and the order of civilization itself (Inboden 2013, p. 22). As stated above, this self-proclaimed image of a Hebraic prophet gave Niebuhr the strength to break away from his previous beliefs in Socialism and Idealism. Slowly but surely, he came closer to recommending US intervention in favor of 2

Conveyed to Ben Mollov in discussion with Kenneth W. Thompson, summer 1991 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Britain and its allies against Nazi Germany and its allies. His most drastic step was his rupture with his former allies in the journal Christian Century whom he accused of condoning neutrality, against a tyranny that seeks to extinguish Christianity and “threatens the Jews of Europe with complete annihilation” (Niebuhr 1940, quoted in Inboden 2013, p. 26). Hence it was not coincidental that Roosevelt adopted some of Niebuhr’s religious language and described in January 1940 the Axis ideology as” fascist idolatry of the state” (Inboden 2013, p. 29). On another level it is highly relevant to recall Niebuhr’s numerous Jewish associations particularly after coming to New York and the UTS in 1928. Of particular note were his close friendships with Jewish luminaries such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Will Herberg, and Hans J. Morgenthau. Ursula Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr’s widow wrote movingly of her husband’s deep friendship with the renowned Jewish philosopher and social activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who was based at the Jewish Theological Seminary in close proximity to UTS. She assessed that Heschel was Niebuhr’s closest friend for the last 12–14 years of his life. She recalled that their exceptional friendship began in earnest in roughly the mid1950’s following Niebuhr’s delivering a paper, at the annual joint meeting of the faculties of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary, entitled: “The Relations of Jews and Christians in Western Civilization,” In it he “analyzed the differences between the two traditions on themes such as “universalism and particularism; law and grace; and messianism.” He also “repeated his long-held conviction that Christians should not evangelize their Jewish brethren”; and spoke with “hope and gratitude for the State of Israel” (Niebuhr 2017). This paper was well received, and according to Ursula Niebuhr it may have accelerated the friendship between him and Heschel. Through Heschel, both Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr as well developed an appreciation and understanding of the Jewish Shabbat. Furthermore, Ursula Niebuhr (2017) also reflected that: “..[it] was no wonder to me that these two friends found each other so congenial, not only in this shared universe of discourse, but also in their dependence upon and reference to the Hebrew prophets. Reinhold always emphasized that it was the prophetic vision of the transcendent righteousness of God that gave both the standard and the dynamic for ethical action.” It was the eighth and sixth century prophets who inspired my husband’s thought and work in the field of social ethics. Both Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr agreed that Heschel’s “great book on the prophets, should be required reading for every minister and teacher” (Niebuhr 2017). Niebuhr refers to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book. Meaningfully, Heschel, at his funeral offered a powerful accolade in summing up Niebuhr’s attitude towards the Jewish people, Judaism, and the State of Israel,

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declaring that Niebuhr was a ‘“lover of Zion and Jerusalem, imbued with the spirit of the Hebrew Bible…a staunch friend of the Jewish people and the State of Israel”’ (Goldman 2017, p. 450). Although less well known today than during the peak of his scholarly and teaching career, theologian and social philosopher Will Herberg (1901–1977) was a highly innovative and creative Jewish scholar who wrote such classics as Judaism and Modern Man (1951) and Protestant, Catholic and Jew (1955) which positively impacted on the Jewish community and indeed America’s thinking about itself as a whole. Of note though for the present essay, is that Herberg, essentially began his life as a highly assimilated Jew and began a long and creative journey back to Judaism in large part due to Niebuhr’s influence upon him. A strong social activist, beginning in the 1920’s, who was identified with the moderate wing of the American Communist Party, Herberg eventually became disenchanted with the movement and was drawn to the works of Niebuhr such as MM (1932). Indeed, Herberg sought Niebuhr out at UTS and at one point expressed his wish to become a Christian. Niebuhr however suggested that before considering his request that Herberg become acquainted with his own Jewish heritage at the Jewish Theological Seminary several blocks away from UTS. In the wake of his studies, Niebuhr was most gratified when Herberg made the decision to abandon becoming a Christian and instead embraced a serious commitment to Conservative Judaism. This included a commitment to a Jewish lifestyle and its observances such as Shabbat and Kashrut (Dalin 1988). Furthermore, influenced by Niebuhr’s writings, such as the Nature and Destiny of Man (1949), Herberg constructed a reinterpretation of traditional Judaism. Indeed in Judaism and Modern Man are found some parallel Jewish themes to those articulated by Niebuhr, however in some cases Herberg delved deeply into traditional Judaism to find the themes that were uniquely Jewish such as “teshuva” (repentance).3 While the story of Heschel indicates Niebuhr’s readiness to absorb insights about Judaism from a Jewish rabbi the case of Will Herberg demonstrates an additional dimension. For, besides rejecting the idea of Christian attempts to convert Jews, Niebuhr actively sought to encourage Jews to identify with their own heritage particularly in a situation of estrangement, such as that of Will Herberg. The next case study will complement the two cases discussed above.

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For more details on Niebuhr’s influence on Herberg see Mollov 2002, p. 12, FN. 93.

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Niebuhr and Morgenthau

Although coming from an entirely different sphere than Abraham Heschel and Will Herberg, seminal international relations theorist Hans J. Morgenthau (1904– 1980) also maintained an extremely close friendship with Niebuhr. Morgenthau was effectively the most prominent international relations scholar in the United States and was credited by Henry Kissinger into making the study of international relations into a major discipline (Russel 1990), primarily through his landmark textbook Politics Among Nations. Its first edition appeared in 1948. Equally important is the fact that Morgenthau was considered the central thinker of the school of realism in the discipline of international relations, which emphasized the conflictual nature of social relations and the centrality of power for the conduct of effective and responsible foreign policy. Less well known though is the fact that, Morgenthau a German-Jewish emigre’ to the United States in 1937, in the wake of Nazism, was strongly affected by the German Jewish experience which he also expressed through his activism in Jewish causes, including that of Israel and Soviet Jewry (Mollov 2002). Morgenthau also maintained significant relations with the U.S. foreign policy elite, although he became somewhat controversial in the wake of his early and vociferous opposition to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. The recognition of Niebuhr’s contribution to Realism coming from the theoretician considered as the forefather of the Realist school in IR is very significant especially because of the religious dimension in that relationship. Indeed, not all political scientists in the U.S. appreciated Niebuhr’s deep insights and contributions to political thought, as many did not hold Niebuhr’s background as a pastor and Christian theologian in high esteem.4 In contrast, Morgenthau vigorously believed that Niebuhr’s observations concerning politics as deriving from a religious foundation were most pertinent. In one of his lectures, he observed to his students that “a theologian like Reinhold Niebuhr has made the greatest contemporary contribution to the understanding of basic political problems “rather than a professor of political theory.”5 Furthermore Morgenthau attested to the deep respect which he had for Niebuhr and the mutual influences which each had on the other as he wrote to Ursula Niebuhr, following Niebuhr’s 4

In an interview and discussion with Kenneth W. Thompson in Charlottesville, Virginia in summer 1991, he recalled that some of Morgenthau’s colleagues at the University of Chicago, referred to Niebuhr as”just one more preacher”. He stressed that Morgenthau would never have “spoken that way about Niebuhr”. 5 TM in file: Lecturers/Texts 1970, Political Science U719, September 18, 1970, 24 (Collection of Morgenthau Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) Box 173.

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death; in which he paid tribute to the “man whose mind and soul I owe so much”6 (Mollov, p. 49, fn. 93). This interaction though seemed to include a Jewish aspect as well. While Morgenthau experienced the searing anti-Semitism of Nazism, appeared to be influenced by the German Jewish cultural tradition of Bildung,7 and took a leading role in the Jewish causes cited above including his chairmanship of the prestigious Academic Committee for Soviet Jewry during the last decade of his life (Mollov 2002), he did not have a Judaic mentor per se. Circumstantial evidence, however, substantially indicates that Niebuhr, as a political philosopher and theologian who as we indicated above strongly espoused the Biblical Prophetic tradition, seemed to have played an equivalent role in Morgenthau’s own life and thought. Indeed, in his classroom lectures and most prominently in his championship of the cause of Soviet Jewry, Morgenthau emphasized Biblical Prophetic Hebraic themes in pointing to the ideological underpinnings of the Soviet Jewish struggle. He stressed the idea of a “higher law of international relations” founded on the legacy of the Hebrew prophets and powerfully expressed this idea in terms such as these: “Judaism in particular, presents a challenge to any totalitarian regime, for the prophetic tradition of Judaism has made it its business, since the time of the prophets of the Old Testament, to subject the rulers of Israel to the moral standards of the other world. It has endeavored, in the Biblical phrase ‘to speak truth to power,’ and thereby remind the powers- that- be of a higher law to which they are subject. A regime for which truth is a mere by-product of its own power cannot fail to recognize in this Judaic claim an element of subversion. That uneasy relationship between a totalitarian regime and Judaism is aggravated by the existence of Israel, upon which the spiritual aspirations of many Soviet Jews are naturally founded.”8

This is not to say however that Morgenthau directly inherited these ideas solely from Niebuhr. Given that Morgenthau had at least some background in Judaic ideas it is possible to say that Niebuhr acted as a conduit for originally Hebraic Biblical ideas to stimulate and reinforce such dispositions in Morgenthau’s thought (Mollov 2002, pp. 109–110).

6

TL dated June 8, 1971 (Collection of Morgenthau Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). 7 For a comprehensive discussion of Bildung, see George Mosse 1985.German Jews beyond Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 8 TM, “Highlights of Address to Brussels International Conference on Soviet Jewry”, February 1971, pp. 1–2 (Collection of Morgenthau Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C).

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The Hebraic Foundations of Christianity

Important to stress as well, is that not only did Niebuhr deeply respect the Jewish people but he believed that a Christian “return” to its Hebraic sources was essential for its own vitality. Indeed, in his work The Self and Dramas of History Niebuhr wrote that “while Christianity is commonly believed to be a joint product of Hebraic and Hellenic cultures…. that when it is true to itself, it is Hebraic rather than Hellenic.” (Niebuhr 1955, pp. 77–78). Niebuhr also wrote in his introduction to Waldo Frank’s The Jew in Our Day (1944) “I have as a Christian theologian sought to strengthen the Hebraicprophetic content of the Christian tradition.” (Frank 1944). Furthermore, Niebuhr biographer June Bingham, wrote that he had criticized the Church for “its desertion of the healthy Hebraic tradition in the direction of the ascetic Hellenic tradition [which is] very different from the Hebraic assumption that the self was a unity of body, mind and spirit.” (Bingham 1961, p. 147). Bingham also documented Niebuhr’s conviction “that there was no need for Christians to try and convert the Jews” as “the two forms of biblical religion are essentially so close that there is no need for Jews to move from their ancestral faith.” She also referred to “Niebuhr’s own view of Judaism [which]follows that of Franz Rosenzweig who defined the relationship of Christianity and Judaism as being that of two religions with one center, with Christianity serving the purpose of carrying the prophetic message to the Gentile world.” (Bingham 1961, p. 147). Also interesting is Niebuhr’s appreciation of the Jewish prophetic heritage which sought to advance a vision of social and collective salvation as opposed to the emphasis of Christianity on individual salvation; or in Niebuhr’s own words Judaism’s conception of the “millennium in this worldly terms (cited in Goldman 2017, p. 440). Niebuhr affirmed the prophetic call to the Jewish people to “improve itself so that it might act collectively as a model for the other nations.” (Goldman 2017, p. 441).

7

Niebuhr’s Commitment to Zionism and the State of Israel

Niebuhr’s deep affinity for the Jewish people and Judaism as evidenced by his close relationship with important Jewish thinkers unavoidably formed an important element in his attitudes and positions towards the State of Israel. But for a more comprehensive understating of his attitudes, we must relate Niebuhr’s views on foreign policy and the State of Israel, to “Christian Realism” which

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he espoused, analyzed above, and to Liberal Realism that provides the political secular interpretation or equivalent of his views purported in this chapter. Indeed, the philosophy of “Christian Realism” quite likely offered another anchor for his sympathy for Judaism and the Jewish people. As a point of departure, it is worthwhile to refer to Niebhur’s early views on the Zionist project and interestingly his sympathy for Judah Magnes’ (and other Jewish intellectuals’) position favoring the establishment of Jewish–Arab binational state, as opposed to a sovereign Jewish state (Naveh 1990, p. 190). This was deemed by its proponents as a means of assuaging Arab enmity. Niebuhr’s position in this regard adopted in the late 1920’s might well parallel and reflect his more liberal and even pacifistic views prior to his realist stage. However, with his transformation to a Realist, Niebuhr rapidly came around to supporting the Zionist goal of establishing an independent Jewish homeland. He in fact declared that ‘“the ideal of a political homeland for the Jews is so intriguing that I am almost willing to sacrifice my convictions for the sake of it” (Naveh 1990, p. 191). Niebuhr began to enthusiastically support the Zionist endeavor from the late 1920’s onward. He put forth a number of justifications for this support. Perhaps most well-known was Niebuhr’s strong conviction that the Jewish people both needed and deserved a secure sovereign homeland. However according to most interpreters of Niebuhr’s thought a clear Biblical Hebraic pathos was also evident in his support for the Zionist project which went beyond the solely pragmatic need for a Jewish homeland (Goldman 2017). Nevertheless, by all accounts Niebuhr rejected eschatology of the type which is prevalent among Protestant Evangelist creeds today. Thus Niebuhr held a “non-eschatological but strongly religious—and even biblical justification for political Zionism”, apparently rooted in the “Hebraic” aspect of his thought (Goldman 2017, p. 434) Indeed he believed that the establishment of Israel was a “”miracle’ worthy of Christian admiration and support. In addition, Niebuhr believed that Jewish nationhood “was one of the oldest and most legitimate in history and was conferred in a “’religious covenant experience (cited in Moseley 2009, p. 18). Interestingly though, Niebuhr viewed the Hebrew prophets not solely as moral teachers but as “political realists who also understood the necessity for coercion in order to achieve social change.” (Goldman 2017, p. 438). Thus, it seemed to Niebuhr that the Hebrew prophets themselves while articulating a moral message, were also keenly aware of the need to possess even coercive power if necessary. This interpretation seems to squarely dovetail with his:” Christian Realism” and its secular parallel of liberal realism which this chapter has been proposing. Another example of Niebuhr’s hardheaded realism along with the moral shades of his thought, is evident in his analysis of the Arab Israeli conflict. While Niebuhr

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viewed the clash between Arab and Jew in Palestine and later the entire Middle East, which occurred as a result of Arab opposition to the Zionist project as tragic he hoped for eventual reconciliation between the two peoples. However, he did not shy away from far reaching proposals for the resolution of the conflict between the two national movements. From at least the 1940’s Niebuhr advocated the non-coercive transfer of the Arabs in Palestinian to adjacent and abundant Arab lands (Goldman 2017, p. 445). According to sources cited by Moseley (Moseley 2009, p. 9) Rabbi Stephen Wise a venerable American Zionist leader “privately thanked Niebuhr for publicly supporting the idea of Arab transfer [as] Jews could not articulate this view publicly for fear of reprisals…” He understood that such a plan would entail injustice to the Arab population in Palestine, however, given the tragic reality of a clash of two rights he judged that the relative justice of the Zionist cause outweighed that of the justice found on the Arab side. Indeed, in 1942 he had declared that the plight of the Jewish people and their need for a homeland was one of the most important issues facing the post-World War II world (Niebuhr 1976, p. 142). He embellished this view, in the context of supporting the 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, by reflecting that the “’right’ of the Jews to Palestine is established partly by the urgency of the problem of their collective survival [following the events in Europe] “and partly by ancient claims…The right of the Arabs is quite simply …the right of holding what one has and has had for over a thousand years” (cited in Moseley 2009, p. 8). The understanding that a tragic clash of two rights can exist in the world of politics, also reflects Niebuhr’s realism. At the same time, it also expressed his inclusion of moralism in his value system. The needs of a nation that had nowhere to go namely the Jews, overweighed that of the Palestine Arabs who had the vast hinterland of the Arab states (Moseley 2009, p. 7). At the same time, to ameliorate somewhat the plight of the Arab refugees, from the 1947–1949 War, he advocated a far-reaching aid program, integrating the Arab states into this plan and compensating the Arabs from Palestine for lost property (Goldman 2017, p. 445). And as noted he hoped for eventual Jewish–Arab reconciliation, which is of course a liberal value. He lauded Israel’s military prowess, first tested in its victory over the attack of its Arab neighbors, following its declaration of independence. However, despite his acknowledgement of the need for Israel to employ force to protect its newfound independence in the harsh geo-political environment of the Middle East he did not lose sight of the complexity of right and wrong. He reflected that: “One cannot speak of this victory as a morally unambiguous one. No political victory can be so described” (cited in Moseley 2009, p. 8). Egypt’s leader Abdul Nasser’s threats against Israel in the mid-1950’s also met with Niebuhr’s disapprobation. He believed that Israel still faced the threat

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of annihilation from its Arab neighbors particularly Egypt. He judged that this opposition was rooted among other factors in the Arab states refusal to resettle the Arab refugees, coupled with the knowledge that Israel could not resettle these refugees without compromising its security as these “refugees were intrinsically hostile”. He did however point to another explanation for Arab hostility as rooted in Israel’s technical efficiency and democratic character which posed a threat to the “moribund feudal or pastoral economics and monarchical political forms of the Islamic world [and its] rich overlords of desperately poor peasants of the Middle East” (cited in Moseley 2009, p. 8). The culmination of this phase of Egyptian hostility towards Israel, and the latter’s victory in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, also met with Niebuhr’s understanding. He defended Israel’s right to hold onto the Sinai desert until it was offered clear guarantees for its security by the United Nations and the major powers. He also criticized the United States for its lack of willingness to supply the Jewish state with weapons while the Soviet Union was abundantly supplying such weapons to Egypt (Feldman 1984, p. 297). Furthermore, in deeply eloquent terms, in the aftermath of the War, Niebuhr judged that the new state of Israel is a “glorious spiritual and political achievement” and urged that the United States “not allow any nation so conceived and so dedicated to perish from the earth” (cited in Naveh 1990, p. 194). The May/June 1967 crisis in which the Jewish State was confronted by Nasser’s threat of annihilation also found Niebuhr strongly supporting Israel’s struggle for survival. Niebuhr lauded Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War comparing it to the Biblical victory of “David over Goliath” (Moseley 2009, p. 10). Even more resoundingly Niebuhr expressed his elation at Israel’s victory as he wrote: “Thank God for the little nation, which mixes historic faith with superiority in the art of war” (cited in Naveh 1990, p. 196). In the aftermath of the Six-Day War the power orientation of the Christian Realism which Niebuhr espoused continued to be expressed in relation to Israel’s need to defend itself. However also, in the context of his Christian Realism, it is relevant to note Niebuhr’s strong endorsement of Israel’s annexation of the Old City of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Six Day War; for here we see spiritual sensitivities on the part of Niebuhr as he emphasized that “’Judaism has at its center an indissoluble bond between the people and the Land of Israel’”. He further admonished Christians to respect this link and that the “preservation of the Jewish tradition on its own terms was essential to the practice of politically responsible Christianity” (cited in Goldman 2017. p. 450). Spiritual Threats to Jewish Survival Significantly Niebuhr not only sought to champion the need for Jewish physical survival particularly as it concerned the aftermath of the Holocaust and the viability

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of the State of Israel; but also directed his attention to the importance of Jewish spiritual survival. While he did not deny the right of individual Jews to assimilate into the countries of their residence made possible by the tolerance of liberal pluralistic democracy; he opposed such a wholesale solution for the Jewish people in the Diaspora. He expressed his opposition in these terms: “Assimilation alone would be ethically unacceptable as this would bring about the disappearance of the Jews as a nationality. Nationality, not religion, represented that which is unique in Jewish life” (cited in Moseley 2009, p. 6). Moreover, he even went as far as criticizing the Jews in this regard: “Jews render no service either to democracy or to their people by seeking to deny this ethnic foundation of their life, or by giving themselves the illusion that they might dispel all prejudice if only they could prove that they are a purely cultural or religious community” (Niebuhr 1976, p. 135). Furthermore, as a clear advocate of the pluralistic social model, Niebuhr was critical of ethnic and religious homogeneity as well as the American assimilationist and melting pot models, and therefore easily empathized with Jewish collectivist ideals (Feldman 1984, p. 296). In this spirit he strongly identified with and supported Justice Louis Brandeis’ vision and message to his fellow Jews (Niebuhr 1976, p. 138). This included the promotion of a specifically Jewish contribution to the American fabric of life along with the commitment to a Jewish homeland, as a responsibility for all Jews. As mentioned above particularly impressive was Niebuhr’s strong opposition to Christian attempts to proselytize among the Jews, which for one was based on his assertion that the “Jewish people have long ago found their authentic way to God”. (Feldman 1984, p. 298, top paragraph fn. 55). Second, particularly after the Holocaust, this would constitute a form of spiritual annihilation of the Jewish people. Furthermore, he asserted that: ‘” Since the ethical impulses of the Christian faith are inherited from the Jewish faith, with its sense of justice, with its love of law, with its emphasis on historic responsibility, it is not our business to convert Jews to Christianity’” (cited in Feldman 1984, p. 298).

8

Conclusion

Niebuhr’s positive views on Judaism and the Jewish people were renowned among students of his theology and adherents in public life. In this chapter, we proposed a new dimension to this outlook coming from a Protestant minister and theologian. We set out to ascertain the contours of the manner in which Niebuhr’s Christian Realism found expression particularly in his support of Jewish causes, and most notably his strong sympathy for the establishment and survival of the

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State of Israel. In addition, we suggested that his political philosophy which combined a power orientation along with transcendent moral values which we also conceived as liberal realism was an integral part of his distinctive public activity in support of Jewish causes including consistent support of the emerging Jewish State. Most outstanding in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism was the influence of the Hebrew prophets that inspired him to develop a unique approach within Christianity towards Judaism and the Jewish people. It was this prophetic tradition that also gave him the impulse and strength to articulate positions against the predominant paradigm in American foreign policy. A major component in his anti-isolationist impulse was the alarming German treatment of Jews in Germany and henceforth in occupied Europe. Some reference must be given to his Realist approach in International Relations that rendered him the title given by many founders of political realism as the “father of us all.” It was this line of thinking that convinced him to abandon notions like an Arab–Jewish binational state in Palestine and in favor of support for a Jewish sovereign state. It was this realism that also held him back from eschatological interpretations of the Jewish return to their homeland. It was pure survival for a persecuted nation that shared a Biblical ethos about the universe and hence was compatible with his own set of beliefs. Finally, it is pertinent to suggest that this study is in vogue with a new school developing in IR theory namely religion and international politics. (Fox and Sandler 2004). Should this approach develop, it would be another field of study where Reinhold Niebuhr would fulfill the role of a prophet.

References Bingham, J. 1961. Courage to Change: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Reinhold Niebuhr. New York: Scribner. Dalin, D. 1988. Will Herberg in Retrospect. Commentary. July, pp. 38–43. Feldman, E. 1984. Reinhold Niebuhr and the Jews. Jewish Social Studies. Vol. 46. No. 3/4, pp. 293–302. Fox, J. and Sandler, S. 2004. Bringing Religion into International Relations. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Goldman, S. 2017. A Glorious Spiritual and Political Achievement: Reinhold on Zionism, Israel and Realism. American Political Thought. Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 432–454. Inboden, W. L. 2013. The Prophetic Conflict: Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism, and World War II. Diplomatic History Advanced Access Published: May 23: pp. 1–34. Mollov, B. 2002. Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience. NYC: Lexington Books.

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Moseley, C. 2009. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Approach to the State of Israel: The Ethical Promise and the Limits of Christian Realism. Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations. Volume 4: http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/vol4. Mosse, G. 1985. German Jews beyond Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. Naveh, E. 1990. Unconventional “Christian Zionist”: The Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and His Attitude toward the Jewish National Movement. Studies in Zionism, Vol. 11, no. 2., pp. 183–196. Niebuhr, R. 1940. Christianity and Power Politics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr, R. 1944. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. NYC: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr, R. 1955. The Self and Dramas of History. NYC: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr, R. 1976. Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr (edited by D.B. Robertson). Gloucester: Peter Smith. Niebuhr, U. 2017. Notes on a Friendship: Reinhold Niebuhr and Abraham Joshua Heschel. https://onbeing.org/author/ursula-m-niebuhr/. Accessed October 4, 2019. Russel, G. 1990. Hans J. Morgenthau and the Ethics of American Statecraft. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press.

Further Reading Frank, W. 1944. The Jew in Our Day. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Herberg, W. 1951. Judaism and Modern Man. An Interpretation of Jewish Religion. Farrar, Straus and Young, and the Jewish Publication Society of America. Heschel, Joshua Abraham. 1961. The Prophets. NYC: Harper & Row. Morgenthau, H.J. 1948. Politics Among Nations. New York: Alfred Knopf. Niebuhr, R. 1932. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. NYC: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr, R. 1949. The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation. NYC: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Niebuhr. R. 1953. Christian Realism and Political Problems. NYC: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Frank, W. 1944. The Jew in Our Day. NYC: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Waltz, K. 1959. Man, the State and War. NYC: CUP.

Niebuhr’s Complex Relationship with Germany: How Did His Experiences Influence His Image of the State? Christoph Rohde Abstract

Reinhold Niebuhr cultivated an ambivalent relationship towards the land of his ancestors. As a young man he took pains in order to be accepted as an American. He dismissed the German patriotism and was a fervent supporter of the American commitment in the First World War against Germany. Nevertheless, he admired German cultural achievements and was strongly influenced by liberal German theology. His love-hate-relationship with Germany motivated him to support the German anti-Nazi underground that was active in the United States while harshly criticizing the reactionary heritage of German Romanticism. This article reconstructs how Niebuhr’s anti-totalitarian commitment was one important experience that influenced the development of his political realism. Keywords

Christian Realism • Reinhold Niebuhr • American Friends for a Democratic German • Realism and Resistance

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Introduction

Niebuhr’s Christian Realism is skeptical of all forms of government because the fact that sinful men exercise authority over sinful men inevitably leads to different C. Rohde (B) München, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_6

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forms of injustice in history. On the other hand, government was a necessary instrument to tame the worst characteristics of human nature that tend to produce anarchical conditions and brutal historical results. Any social system by necessity was anything but perfect, but it had to allow a legitimate kind of opposition. For Niebuhr effective social systems could not exclusively be based on institutional devices that mirrored a purely rationalistic design. A pure confidence in the enforceable power of law that Kant had in mind was not enough because a sustainable social unit would have to provide emotional bondings, offer members a sense of identity and belonging and would dispose of a historical genealogical that had to deliver the public good of collective identity. Therefore, he was critical of classical contractualists like John Locke or Immanuel Kant and their exaggerated trust in the power of reason of individuals and collectives in the process of the formation of robust states. For the theologian, the Calvinists offered an empirically substantiated form of social contract (Rohde 1996, pp. 23–24), that combined the rational and the emotional elements that were needed to give the state a sustainable constitutional design and that was in conformity with his complex anthropology that he developed in the first chapters of his Magnum Opus NDM part I., Human Nature (Niebuhr 1964a, pp. 4–25). For Niebuhr knew about the probability of the dysfunctionality of political systems. Institutions alone would not suffice in order to avoid excesses of injustice and violent exercise of power; power abuse was a permanent peril. In these cases, in which states degenerated into tyrannies the indispensable role of the prophet comes into play. Niebuhr claimed prophetic qualities not only in the spiritual realm but in politics as well. It is no coincidence that his former co-worker and friend Ronald Stone called Niebuhr Prophet to Politicians. But what was when the calls of the prophets were not picked up by leaders and political responsible people? Then resistance became not only legitimate but also a must. And as is shown in this chapter, Niebuhr lived up to the standard he preached as a theologian and a political commentator. Reinhold Niebuhr was raised in a German cultural background in Illinois. His father Gustav was influenced by liberal German theology, especially by Adolph von Harnack and Friedrich Schleiermacher (Josephson and Holder 2019, p. 4). He was a spiritual man who thought in undogmatic ways and who lived social responsibility as a Christian. His son Reinhold was torn between his German heritage and the American culture (Splinter 1985, pp. 350–351). He got a better understanding of von Harnack’s theology and its implications through his teacher from Eden college, Samuel Press, that had an immense influence on the development of his own prophetic access to religion (Chrystal 1977, p. 29).

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In this account Niebuhr’s extraordinary commitment to support German exiles in the resistance movement is highlighted. In doing so, it will be shown that his anti-totalitarian engagement was the result of his personal and intellectual convictions. The theologian made use of his dense net of personal contacts in church and politics and his organizational talents in order to promote the work of these groups. As Niebuhr’s contacts with important persons in the German church and socialist underground have not been thoroughly discussed in biographical contexts,1 this piece attempts to reconstruct concrete responsibilities in resistance groups like the American Friends for A Germany Friends and the Council for a Democratic Germany as well as important personal correspondence with activists that eventually shaped his overall political perspective in various ways. Niebuhr was an activist who was driven by the deep desire to change a world in crisis but always also himself (Bingham 1961). Thus, his activism was not self-serving (e. g., Pedro 2017, p. 21) but inspired by a heartfelt urgency to act. In these resistance groups spirited discussions concerning the construction of a new German state and a potential European state or federation took place. It is my hypothesis that Niebuhr’s engagement in these groups (also these were not really successful in influencing official U. S. policy) shaped his mature outlook on democratic systems in general and supported (in combination with other experiences that he described in his important, but less perceived work Reflections upon the End of an Era) his conversion from a more or less radical socialist to an apologist of a more moderate, liberal form of social democracy. His role in the U. S. Education mission to Germany (1946) is also less well known. but it was no coincidence that Niebuhr’ s competency in this field was especially appreciated in the U. S. State department. This chapter starts with a description of how Niebuhr gained special insights into the material and intellectual structures as well as the tragic historical configurations that shaped the strange and erratic behavior of the country his ancestors came from. As was the case in his lifetime, due to his unique relationships, he gained special insights that he used to steadily develop his way of thinking. Driven by his biographical background, Niebuhr was busy analyzing the German mentality and its implications for his political development. These rather unknown pieces that are implicitly worked into his major books will be introduced in the beginning of this chapter. Niebuhr would later refine his arguments concerning German intellectualism in his Gifford Lectures that were published as the two-volume book The Nature and Destiny of Man (NDM). Furthermore, his “special relationship” with Austrian journalist and socialist leader in important resistance movements 1

Niebuhr’s friendship with Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an exception in this respect.

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will be analyzed. This is a Niebuhr that is quite unknown, but nevertheless it is an important part of the maturation of his thought.

2

Niebuhr’s Contacts with German Church Leaders

Niebuhr had been a Wilsonian idealist during World War I. He believed in the visions of the American President Woodrow Wilson “to make the world safe for democracy” and supported the “war to end all wars” (Hochschild 2011). He used the war in order to show loyalty to his country and to distance himself from his German heritage. But even on the height of his anti-German feelings he did not accept the sweeping discrimination of people and priests of German origin. (Splinter 1998, p. 97). In his diary Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic he followed the process of the Versailles peace negotiations. He recognized that with Woodrow Wilson he had put his hopes in a person that could not fulfil his expectations. The young man described the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. as a naive person, while he simultaneously criticized the nationalism of French President Raymond Poincaré. Concerning the causes of World War I. he basically represented the idea that immature actors on the international sphere were blundered into this war, whose consequences were not anticipated realistically. “There does not seem to be too much malice in the world. There is simply not enough intelligence to conduct the intricate affairs of a complex civilization. All the chief actors in the war appear now in the light of children who played with dangerous toys.”(Niebuhr 1976, p. 43). This line of argument was confirmed by the British historian Christopher Clark in his famous book The Sleepwalkers (Clark 2013). Ten years after the war he wrote an honest article about his attitude during the war: “When the war began, I was a young man trying to be an optimist without falling into sentimentality. When it ended and the full tragedy of its fratricides had been revealed, I had become a realist trying to save myself from cynicism” (Niebuhr 1928, p. 1161). He regretted that he did not see that the U.S. entry into the was far from purely idealistic, but that it served the interests of American big industry as well. In an early stage of the upcoming Nazi dictatorship, Niebuhr recognized that the German Amtskirchen (official churches) would not have the inner strength to organize systematic and organized resistance against the dictatorship. In the 1920s, the theologian frequently visited continental Europe and participated in important Church conferences. His interest and affection for his European roots were fomented by the fact that Niebuhr took part in two educational journeys (1923/1924) to Germany which were led by his mentor and friend Sherwood Eddy

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(Chrystal 1977, p. 37). On the other hand he became acquainted with important persons of the German Protestant church who visited his Evangelical Synod in Illinois like Otto Dibelius (Rohde 2016, p. 32). In other words, he was well informed about the political, socioeconomic, and psychological situation the young German democratic state found itself in. He knew how torn the defeated country was and how susceptible it could become for extremist tendencies. The church was not immune against these influences: “In Germany, the cradle of more than one vital religious movement, the nation is being torn asunder by a violent communism in conflict with an equally extreme nationalism, and the Church survives only as a more or less despised ally of nationalism” (Niebuhr 1925a, p. 85). In an article written in German, Niebuhr complained that the German churches, especially the Protestant church as an institution, did not have sufficient distance to the state. Many church members could not maturely cope with the breakdown of the German monarchy and did not accept the young Weimar republic. While Niebuhr recognized the increasing instability in Germany, he intensified his relationship with Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ronald Stone has painstakingly analyzed the relationship between Tillich and Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary (UTS), where Niebuhr held his professorship (Stone 2012); despite their substantial theological differences (Gilkey 2001, p. 94) they became co-workers in the CDA, as will be shown later in this article.

3

Reflections on the German Mentality

Already long before the Allies against the 3rd Reich made attempts to analyze the German psyche (Volkscharakter) in order to justify concepts of collective guilt against the defeated nation, Niebuhr made systematic efforts to learn more of the country his father had fled from. He not only knew about the rigid character of the Prussian state from stories that his father had told him; on a visit to Germany during which he met his relatives from Ostwestfalen, he witnessed an intense antisemitism (Niebuhr 1973, p. 15; Sifton 2001, p. 42–43). Against the backdrop of his bi-cultural socialization his interest in the German mentality becomes understandable. In his analysis he went deeply into the heart of the German soul, in other words: he was eager to analyze the German mentality. In several articles, Niebuhr claims the existence of an idiosyncratic German identity. His identity construction is based upon different sources: the impressions he received out of personal and travel experiences, the influence of philosophers

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and historians, German theologians he had studied extensively and the impressions he distilled out of press reports that treated the events in the increasingly unstable young German democracy.

3.1

Germans as Unhappy Philosophers

Niebuhr painted an interesting psychological picture of the mentality of German philosophers. He compared German intellectualism with British pragmatism in political affairs. In two articles of the thirtees, Niebuhr‘s painted the picture of special psychological-anthropological dimensions he believed to have recognized inside the German soul. Although he constructs in these writings a kind of essentialist psychological ideal type, they are nevertheless insightful because here Niebuhr makes his preferences and apprehensions with respect to political values quite explicit. He diagnoses a kind of German philosophical fundamentalism that produces fatal consequences in the field of politics. The Germans would not be able to accept the necessary compromises that real political life would require: “(The German philosophers).. are… particularly inept and unhappy in the game of politics, for the complexities of politics demand improvisation and compromise” (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 409). He attributes the fact that a cultural high standing people like the Germans could fall into the abyss of radical racial nihilism to an idiosyncratic mindset that is the result of a synthesis of an ivory tower idealism and an honesty that crossed the border towards a dangerous cynicism. The Germans would exhibit a philosophical “passion for consistency” (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 409) that would produce radical results in the political realm. This unfortunately has not really changed since the German welcome culture (Willkommenskultur) proclaimed by German chancellor Angela Merkel (Schwarz 2017) the radicalism of the transformation of a highly complex energy system and the almost religious dimension of the climate change debates tend to make the search for rational and realistic solutions unlikely. The desire for absolute solutions would deeply affect their understanding of the state. For Niebuhr two intellectual sources are responsible for the assumed radical German state absolutism. The philosophers made use of Hegel’s philosophy to support the Nazi ideology of Staat and Volk while the theologians rediscovered Luther’s idea of the order of creation (Schöpfungsordnung) in order to justify a purely organic structure of society. Although nationalism penetrated the whole of modern civilization, in Germany it developed a particular fanatic version of state absolutism that exceeded the ordinary nationalism of other states by far (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 409). The fact that Lutheran religion maintained an absolute tension

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between God and the world led to the fatalistic attitude (Niebuhr 1942, pp. 399– 400) that no human achievement in this world would be good enough, resulting in a dangerous relativism that frustrated a responsible moral judgment and led to a misapprehension concerning the biblical message of grace and a disturbed state of mind: “This uneasy religious conscience is the basis of German realism” (Niebuhr 1936, p. 476). It is interesting that Niebuhr used the term „German realism“ that meant a particularly cynical form of self-seeking behavior in the international realm.2 For him Protestantism had inherent shortcomings that led to fatal results in the relationship between church and state. In contrast to catholic universalism that attempted to reconcile faith and reason in Thomas Aquinas synthesis, Lutheranism set faith against reason (Niebuhr 1936, p. 476). To Niebuhr the pronounced German intellect would not be of any help to moderate radical political attitudes but would be a slave to the emotions that were fueled by mass media and influential nationalist pressure groups. Niebuhr writes and intuitively expresses a social psychological mechanism that modern neuroscience confirms in recent research studies (Beem 2015, ch. 3). A personality like Hitler with his weaknesses could only be successful in a particular cultural surrounding. Many other European countries suffered a similar economic decline like Germany without going astray politically to such a degree as the Germans did. Their philosophy of the state did not support a sober technical political cooperation between interest groups but a metaphysically overloaded ideology. This “spiritualized” political order was built on the blood brotherhood of the race, the Volksgemeinschaft (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 411). Niebuhr in a polemic generalization: “Only philosophers like the Germans can work themselves into a state of mind in which they regard race conflict as one of the inevitabilities of a world which must cherish racial solidarity” (Niebuhr 1933a, pp. 412 ff.). For the German demagogues it was an easy thing to manipulate the people because innumerable pedants and their pedantic elaboration of the cult of Volk und Rasse would support them fanatically, without questioning the perverse assumptions of this ideology. For Niebuhr this is another aspect of the German spiritual absolutism. The Germans would justify every social strategy with a complete Weltanschauung or world view that functions like a religion: “The Germans arm the warriors of every political camp in the rest of the world with weapons of the spirit” (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 419). In this context, Niebuhr criticized the German socialists as well. These would have trusted way too much in the stability and workability of the Weimar constitution and its parliamentary process, even when 2

In a more recent study, John Bew has defined a specific German form of Realpolitik that makes some similar arguments. See Bew 2016.

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it became apparent that it was abused by the enemies of the republic (Niebuhr 1933a, p. 414). Fatal intellectualism prevented the Germans from building a political system that allowed a moderating pluralism. In an article from 1936 that builds on the insights of the article of 1933 Niebuhr draws a comparison between this German mentality and the political mindset of the British.

3.2

English Political Pragmatism Versus German Political Absolutism

In another underappreciated but—out of a German perspective—fascinating article Niebuhr drew comparisons between the English and German mentality in which he confirms his assumption that the Germans were unable to come to unavoidable political compromises because they were unconditionally bound to their ideological commitments. In a language that today would be unthinkable he described the English and Germans as “cousins”, because together with the Scandinavians they belonged to the “Teutonic bloc in European culture”. But the “natural” ethnic closeness did not presuppose related political, social or religious developments between the two peoples. That means that Niebuhr did not follow a basically essentialist reasoning but attached higher importance to the historical path and the social construction of social and cultural values. In this piece he characterizes the British as “unintellectually intelligent”. This shows that Niebuhr works with two different understandings of intelligence. The Germans lived out the pure cognitive form of intelligence while the British were masters in a kind of practical intelligence which would be helpful to find feasible solutions in the political domain. While the latter were the “masters of the art and science of politics” and subsequently kept the rule over a vast empire for a long time, the former had failed to deal with their political problems in both its internal and external dimensions (Niebuhr 1936, p. 465).

3.3

German Sonderweg?

Niebuhr refers to Ernst Troeltsch who already in 1922 recognized the “German Sonderweg”, that means the radical disjuncture from the natural law tradition of western Christendom (Niebuhr 1936, p. 474). The infrationalism would be a logical development out of German particularism and Romanticism, the consequence of Germany’s emphasis of its uniqueness. In his masterpiece NDM Niebuhr

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fired harshly at protagonists of German Romanticism like Herder, Fichte (Niebuhr 1964a, p. 83–90) and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher3 with whom he nevertheless shared some important theological principles (Crouter 2013). Even Jasper’s and Heidegger’s forms of existentialism belonged to the Romanticist thought, Niebuhr concluded. He explicitly called the German intellectualism extremist; it would oscillate between a perfectionist rationalism and idealism and a Romantic and naturalistic protest against the hegemony of reason: “…German thought moves from extreme to extreme” (Niebuhr 1936, p. 472). Schopenhauer’s pessimism, Nietzsche’s moral nihilism and Oswald Spengler’s reactionary hopes expressed both deep insights but also a tendency towards madness. Their clear consciousness for the harsh realities of politics that knew no moral law made them cynics while the British managed to combine power politics with some moral pretensions. The Germans, however, relied on their imagination of a special intellectual uniqueness. German Protestantism was less capable of taming the nationalistic furor than the Anglican, more Catholic form of Christianity that whose rational universalism had more in common with the secular and liberal internationalism that shaped the Western nations. The Englishman would not trust in the abstract power of reason but in the specific historical accomplishments of their society that resulted in democracy, constitutionalism, and liberal economics (Niebuhr 1936, p. 466). Niebuhr supported Troeltsch’s Sonderweg hypothesis that was common ground in German left circles and which Helmut Plessner already in 1935 called Germany “the delayed nation”—the subtitle of the book was “The Fate of the German Mind at the End of its Bourgeois Age”. In a 1959 edition of this book the subtitle was changed to “about the political temptations for the Bourgeois spirit.”4 Niebuhr reviewed the book of the pacifist and philosopher Frederick Foerster Western Europe and the German Problem (Niebuhr 1942, p. 399) that supported the thesis of a fatal German (and Italian) Sonderweg. The fact that many Germans were skeptical of the process of reunification was the result of its historic traumas. The former SPD politician Oskar Lafontaine, for instance, stated in 1988: “the German nation (is) so very belated that in its striving for statehood it has become outdated.” (quoted in Brockmann 1999, p. 165). Until this day German politicians, intellectuals and Brussels bureaucrats basically continue to cherish the hope that the nation-state can be overcome by a postnational constellation (Habermas 2001) and can become a European republic (e. 3

Niebuhr criticized Schleiermacher’s cultural nationalism and pride that was susceptible for a kind of antisemitism. Niebuhr 1965, pp. 88–89. 4 Helmut Plessner. 1959. Die verspätete Nation. Über die politische Verführbarkeit bürgerlichen Geistes. Stuttgart. First Zurich 1935 (under the title Das Schicksal deutschen Geistes im Ausgang seiner bürgerlichen Epoche).

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g., Guerot 2016). The German idealism that produces political extremes has not yet been overcome. For Niebuhr, a lot of assumptions would have to be met in order to achieve the transcendence of thinking in national identities: “The importance of establishing this residual creative freedom in collective man lies not in the possibility of subordinating the lower to the higher or wider interest—but in the possibility that even a residual loyalty to values, transcending national existence, may change radically the nation’s conception of the breadth and quality of its ‘national interest’” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 76–77). But collective man was not yet ready to tame his imperialistic impulses in the twenties.

3.4

The Character of Hitlerism

Niebuhr’s interest in German affairs grew steadily after he had visited this country in the years 1923 and 1924. In doing so, he visited the Krupp steel

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company at Essen (Brown 2002, pp. 25–26) and was confronted with the consequences of French occupation of the Ruhr area (Ruhrkampf). The Germans suffered not only under the burdens of the reparations of the Versailles treaty that did not allow the national economy to recover; the country was caught in desperation. The workers were treated brutally by the French occupants. Niebuhr stated. “The Ruhr has cities that are the closest thing to hell I have ever seen” (Niebuhr 1976, p. 46). Already in 1924 Niebuhr drew a comparison between the upcoming Nazi movement in Germany and the American Ku Klux Clan. Niebuhr at this time considered the German version of paganism as the lesser evil, perhaps because he considered the group as a reaction towards the injustices of the hard peace against Germany: “This paganism is an evidence of the ruthless honesty of the German intellect and is certainly very much to be preferred to the orthodox hypocrisies of our own racial bigots, who clothe their prejudices in the phrases of a religion which, in its essential genius, is the very antithesis of their spirit” (Niebuhr 1924, p. 1331). He was aware of the fact that the Khu Klux Klan had Protestant roots: “We fair-minded Protestants cannot deny that it was Protestantism that gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan, one of the worst specific social phenomena which the religious pride and prejudice of peoples has ever developed… We are admonished in scripture to judge men by their fruits, not by their roots; and their fruits are their character, their deeds and accomplishments” (Niebuhr, quoted in Fox 1985, p. 91). But as one of the first Protestant theologians he recognized the danger Nazism posed for the German and European Jews in the early 1930s. Congruously, he criticized the German churches for their silence concerning the evilness that was done to the Jews by the Nazis, and here even more the Protestants than the Catholic church (Niebuhr 1934b, p. 350). Niebuhr had carefully observed the social developments and diagnosed the inability of the interest groups in the Weimar Republic to find a pluralistic consensus to accept basic democratic rules. Instead, the idea of a Socialist ‘stab in the back’ supported the revisionist ambitions of the nationalists to undermine the political structures of the young democracy. The radicalism of the German socialist, however, drove many members of the lower middle classes into the arms of the nationalists (Niebuhr 1925a, pp. 44– 646). The violent Russian revolution in all its facets was a daunting experience for the ordinary German workers as well. Niebuhr praised the Catholic party, the Zentrum, for being less affected by nationalist tendencies and for its democratic spirit, because it was based on internationalist traditions—in contrast to Protestant churches. The German industrialists, however, supported Hitler’s set-up of his private army (Sturmabteilung) and acted in an irresponsible and opportunistic

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way (Niebuhr 1934a, p. 57). He did not forget to accuse U. S. financial institutions as well who had cooperated with exactly these ruthless industrialists (Niebuhr 1933b, p. 532). Furthermore, Hitler was shrewd enough to bring together groups in one party that actually had radically opposite interests: “It is possible to unite the poor and the rich into one political party only if demagogy is raised to a high degree of perfection.” He could work together with the lower middle classes who could identify themselves more with the industrialists and who wanted to distance themselves from the working classes (Niebuhr 1937, p. 148). The basic problem for the success of the primitive Nazi pagan ideology was the general moral decay of a materialistic society. “The tragedy of modern history is that democracies could not meet the challenge at a time when its hollow pretensions could have been unmasked without firing a shot. Even a synthetic barbarism had sufficient advantages over a decadent civilization to have made that impossible” (Niebuhr 1939, p. 369). In this article, Niebuhr pointed to a book of former Nazi official in Poland, Hermann Rauschning, (The Revolution of Nihilismus, 1939), who distanced himself from the regime. Rauschning described the Nazi ideology as purely nihilistic and in no way political or purposeful that was successful because it swept into am atmosphere of hopelessness, disappointment, and moral relativism. Niebuhr had hoped, probably influenced by his European socialist comrades, that in the case of the outbreak of a war, the population would turn against the Nazi rulers and provoke a domestic revolution: “A war will merely put weapons into the hands of the suppressed rebellious multitudes who will welcome the opportunity of turning an international war into a civil conflict” (Niebuhr 1934a, p. 60). Unfortunately, this estimation did not materialize. But for Niebuhr one thing was crystal clear: the dangerous developments inside Germany and in other European countries like Italy were co-constituted by the faulty design of the international system: “The inability of the League of Nations to make any thorough revision of the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles was a perfect proof that a society of nations, at least in the present stage of human development, cannot preserve the peace” (Niebuhr 1934a, p. 247). It would only be a matter of years when a new European war would break out. What he envisaged in 1934 was confirmed in 1939 with the German attack on Poland. For Niebuhr and the U.S. exiles he supported in the resistance movement against the Nazis this horrible event was the starting point to institutionalize their efforts as will be shown in the next section.

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125

Niebuhr as Organizer for Political Resistance Groups Against the Nazis

As has already been mentioned, Reinhold Niebuhr foresaw the danger the Nazis posed not only for the fragile German democracy and the Jews but also for the European peace at an early stage. Therefore, he developed an interest in the German resistance activities as early as in 1935. In that year he came into contact with figures of the European resistance movement with socialist background like the Czech born Charney Vladeck, leader of the Jewish Labor Committee who was part of the revolutionary movement for the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy (Jeshurin 1932), and the Austrian journalist and socialist Karl Borromäus Frank who took on the pseudonym Paul Hagen and who led the Marxist resistance group Neu Beginnen (NB) that was founded as an alternative to the allegedly lukewarm left German parliamentary parties KPD and SPD in the year 1929. Frank managed to tame the ideological radicalism of some of its members and at least temporarily won some moderate social democrats for NB. The development of personal relationships and political strategies in the period between 1935 and 1939 resulted in the foundation of the Friends of German Freedom (FGF)5 whose founding ceremony took place on December 7, 1939.6 The intention of the group was to keep the American public informed about the struggle of the German exiles against the Nazis and for the establishment of a democratic Germany with help the of reliable reports. In the press statement of the newly founded organization Niebuhr challenged the audience to support the mission of the FGF: “It is a good investment… because it enables useful contacts abroad to keep alive the democratic ideals which will be needed to establish a stable government from the chaos which will follow a German defeat.” Niebuhr would use his connections in the U. S. theological and political sphere to raise funds for the group and to win prominent speakers for supporting events. Most of the money he raised were used for the publications that were produced and distributed by the AFGF; Paul Hagen was in charge of developing their intellectual and strategic concepts. Niebuhr supported Hagen, the highly contested charismatic socialist who deserved credit for the foundation of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) that helped save hundreds of lives of Europe’s elite cultural and political emigrés (Rose 2004, p. 125). At a fundraising dinner that took place June 25, 1940, 5

Later American Friends of German Freedom (AFGF). Press information of December 7, 1939 “Friends of German Freedom hear Thomas Mann and others at first public gathering”, p. 1. GP 1/16.

6

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“Reinhold Niebuhr, for the only recorded time in his life, made the appeal for money” (Gold 1980, pp. xi−xii). And without Niebuhr, who had the decisive political influence—e. g. contacts to Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party of America, vice chairman of the New York State Liberal Party, one of the founders of the Union for Democratic Action (UDA), and a member of a three-man advisory committee for President Roosevelt in 1941 (Merkley 1975, p. 156)— Hagen would not have had success in his various activities. Niebuhr helped to defend Hagen’s reputation against efforts to discredit him that were the result of an incredible factionalism inside the German exile groups (Rohde 2016, pp. 119– 124) because Hagens’s rescue efforts were jeopardized seriously by these attacks (Merkley 1975, p. 157). For Niebuhr, Hagen was more than an activist that deserved political support: “…heroic action tied to the realistic, responsible goal of defeating Hitler.” (Fox 1985, p. 201). Despite the fact that Hagen never found a satisfying position inside the American establishment, Niebuhr’s friend succeeded with his book Will Germany Crack? that became one of the most widely circulated publications by any German émigré in the early 40 s. This book was reviewed in the New York Times, the New York Herald-Tribune, The New Republic, and The Nation among others. It was a “realistic” account of the socio-economic conditions within Germany. For a long time, Hagen believed in a revolt inside Germany in a similar way Niebuhr did as was mentioned before. Only in his second book, Germany after Hitler, published in January 1944, did he abandon this idea. The allied strategy of unconditional surrender had undermined all hopes for the opposition in Germany; Niebuhr was accordingly critical of this policy: “A policy of ‘unconditional surrender’ for instance means that the victors make their will and self-restraint the only basis of justice. Such a policy has a kinship with Nazi policy, however great the difference between our self-restraint and that of the Nazis may be” (Niebuhr 1945, p. 2).

4.1

Some Important Principles the AFGF Supported

In order to allow an impression of the resistance work, I will quote essential parts of an unpublished paper at length that Niebuhr had framed for the group, because it perfectly reflects his motivation to support the underground group. The programmatic statement consists of six pages that Niebuhr typewrited on four pages. 1. We share the belief of all democrats in the various nations that Nazism must be destroyed before either Germany or Europe can attain new health. But we

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also belief that German militarism must be destroyed. Its traditions are older, and its power of survival is more stubborn than Nazism. It is not as virulent as Nazism; but it is nevertheless predatory in its conception of life. Any effort of the German military caste to save their prestige either by bargaining with the privileged classes of the Western world or (in certain contingencies) by seeking to come to terms with Russia, must be resisted. The German problem lies rooted in the unbroken power of the feudal-military casts. This caste was broken by the bourgeois revolution in other nations, but not in Germany. This is one of the distinctive marks of German history. 2. We share the belief of most democrats that Germany represents a very special and difficult problem in the reconstruction of Europe and the world. But we challenge all crude inversions of Hitler’s racial theories according to which the German people are racially tainted with predatoriness. These theories are as ridiculous as Hitler’s. Moreover they lead to the most dangerous kind of post-war politics; for they encourage various types of vindictiveness under the guise of “realism”. A careful analysis of Europe’s history fails to substantiate the theory, that Germany has been the sole disturber of the peace. It is as far as German policies have been dangerous during past centuries, the difficulty arises primarily not from any special measure of predatoriness. 1. We share the belief of all democrats in the various nations that Nazism must be destroyed before either Germany or Europe can attain new health. But we also belief that German militarism must be destroyed. Its traditions are older, and its power of survival is more stubborn than Nazism. It is not as virulent as Nazism; but it is nevertheless predatory in its conception of life. Any effort of the German military caste to save their prestige either by bargaining with the privileged classes of the Western world or (in certain contingencies) by seeking to come to terms with Russia, must be resisted. The German problem lies rooted in the unbroken power of the feudal-military casts. This caste was broken by the bourgeois revolution in other nations, but not in Germany. This is one of the distinctive marks of German history. 2. We share the belief of most democrats that Germany represents a very special and difficult problem in the reconstruction of Europe and the world. But we challenge all crude inversions of Hitler’s racial theories according to which the German people are racially tainted with predatoriness. These theories are as ridiculous as Hitler’s. Moreover they lead to the most dangerous kind of post-war politics; for they encourage various types of vindictiveness under the guise of “realism”. A careful analysis of Europe’s history fails to substantiate the theory, that Germany has been the sole disturber of the peace. It is as far as German policies have been dangerous during past centuries, the difficulty

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arises primarily not from any special measure of predatoriness in German character but from the political ineptness and docility of the German people, from their uncritical devotion to the authority of government, from their failure to place democratic checks upon the power of government, and from the consequent rise of irresponsible and tyrannical government. Nazism is a final and most virulent form of tyranny which did not however arise in Germany without reference to and influence from other forms of fascist tyranny developed in other parts of the world…7 3. … It will be important to find our true allies among the German democrats and not to make alliances with either the military or the big industrialist groups who have been the overt and covert allies of the Nazis. It is important to remember that there are millions of Germans who have always maintained a stubborn resistance against Nazism; that they have made sacrifices as great or greater, in the struggle against tyranny, than any made in the democratic world. It is also important to remember that these democratic Germans might have succeeded in their struggle against Hitler had not the democratic world yielded to his pressures, step by step, while his domestic adversaries vainly hoped for some aid from the outside world in their struggles against him. 4. All plans for a supervised education for the German people are only slidely less beside the point than plans for the military suppression of the nation. Democracy is a form of communal life which presupposes a certain degree of social health on the one hand, and a responsible attitude toward government on the other. It is not a nice little formula which is learned from textbooks. Any form of authoritarian education, which destroy the sense of responsibility must fail in its democratic purpose. 5. We do not plead for any special consideration of the German people. The peace plans ought not to be corrupted by either soft or hard sentimentalities. We do warn against vindictiveness, intended to punish the Germans, but which will doom Europe and the world to perpetual conflict. A Europe turned into a vast jail and full of resentful prisoners on the one hand and psychopathic jailers on the other always worried about the possibilities of a jailbreak, would be the worst of all possible solutions of the German question. Germany, Europe and the world require a solution of economic problems which will bring social stability within the limits set by a technical civilization. They

7

R. N. The German Problem as the American Friends of German Freedom See it (internal draft), undated (probably 1940) Goldbloom Papers 2/7, pp. 1–2.

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require a solution of the political problem through which an understanding between the great victorious nations, particularly Russia, Britain and the United States will furnish the general background of international stability. But this authority must express itself in something more creative than mere repression. It must encourage democratic and responsible government in all parts of Europe. The political and economic health of the whole must be the primary basis of a new economic and political health in each of the parts.”8

4.2

The Council for a Democratic Germany

Later Niebuhr supported the Council for a Democratic Germany (CDG) that was led by Paul Tillich and that developed a detailed and sophisticated plan for a restored Germany in a European federation. He thought that this group might gain access to personalities which could not be reached by the AFGF.9 It was founded under the pressure of the foundation of the Nationalkomitees Freies Deutschland in the Soviet Union (Sywottek 1971, p. 195) that was a fundamentalist communist group. Hagen was the research director of the group and developed sophisticated ideas for the creation of a stable and sustainable social democratic Germany. But many émigrés avoided the membership because they feared the influence of communists inside the group. The attempt to win Thomas Mann for the CDG failed because undersecretary of state Adolph Berle advised him not to do so (Stone 2012, p. 287). Niebuhr himself had an ambivalent stance towards Mann, what he expressed in a review in the Nation of 1943 with the title “Mann speaks to Germany” where he accused the poet of being a half-heartedly converted conformist (Niebuhr 1943a, p. 244). The theologian himself came under pressure because he was a member of the CDG. In a statement of the Foreign Activity Correlation Division to Sumner Welles, undersecretary of State Department of 12.1941, it was noted: “(Niebuhr) has been instrumental in giving theological respectability among a large group of younger protestant clergy to his ethical code and that code seems to be Marxist. It appears clear that he is against the Nazi government of Germany and that he is much nearer the Soviet concept of Government. One can but wonder whether in a period of conflict his sympathies would not be closer

8

Ibid., pp. 3–4. Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee” (Protocol of 18.5.1944 by Anna Caples). GP 139 8/11.

9

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to the Soviet principles than those actuating this Government.”10 The theologian who later would vehemently speak out against the communist religion never got rid of the the suspicion to be a communist himself—what an irony! (Stone 2012, p. 281). The German exile groups Niebuhr participated in were not really capable of influencing the official U.S. Foreign policy towards Germany (Krohn 1995, p. 17). The official information gathering took part inside the OSS and its research group around Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer and Herbert Marcuse (Söllner 1982, pp. 19–27). These intelligence experts gathered information but did not get into power positions inside the U.S administration as well. That was the fate of the German emigres in the U. S. in general. Although Niebuhr shared several assumptions about the precarious political and cultural developments inside Germany with personalities who claimed a hard peace against Germany after the Second World War like Sir Robert Vansittard, William L. Shirer (Siemon-Netto 1993, pp. 40/98–100) or Henry Morgenthau Jr. (Morgenthau 1945), he nevertheless vehemently spoke out against the assumption of a collective guilt of all Germans. This was quite a risky business because Niebuhr was accused of playing down the evil deeds of the Germans and Holocaust. These accusations, it has been shown, were basically unjustified, although the unthinkable und absolutely inhumane was not to grasp with help of the Christian Realist categories of human sin and pride (Alford 2014, pp. 21–22). Niebuhr had recognized a German tradition that would be worth defending. He had supported the constructive and democratic forces inside Germany that had opposed the Nazi regime under conditions of mortal danger. Therefore, hc criticized that the fact of an existing resistance inside Germany was intentionally hidden in order not to endanger the demonization of all Germans. Against harsh criticism he defended the existence of the “other Germany” in his work for the AAFG: “If you believe with us that these Germans who lay for years in Dachau and Oranienburg have given proof of their loyalty to the ideas we went to war to defend, you belong with us in support of their attempt to build a free and democratic Germany. If you want peace for our world, we must be prepared to join hands with those who, in the enemy country and at the risk of their lives, made the greatest sacrifices to combat Nazism. You can most effectively help by joining on our efforts to aid them and to acquaint Americans with the record of their historic struggle.”11 Niebuhr accused some commentators who after the 10

Quoted in Peterson, Die Vereinigten Staaten und die deutschen Emigranten, in: LangkauAlex, Was soll aus Deutschland werden? p. 71. 11 Letter R. N. for the AADG, April 1946. NP Box 1.

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war pleaded for a revenge against Germany of being feathers for every wind: “A tragic and ironic note is added to history by the fact that some of the appeasers of yesterday are the proponents today of the idea that there are no democrats in Germany” (Niebuhr 1943a, p. 559). His efforts to work against the punishment of the Germans out of spiritual reasons is most clearly ascertainable in his collection of sermons Discerning the Signs of the Times. Here he warned against the self-righteousness of the victors and predicted the danger of an ongoing cycle of provocation and revenge: “Vengeance is an egoistic corruption of punitive justice" (Niebuhr 1949, p. 90). But Niebuhr and his fellows got under fire for downplaying the cruelties of the Nazis. Nevertheless, for many observers the line of defense that the CDG pursued in order to avoid measures of collective punishment against Germany was not convincing at all. German journalist Tetens, for instance, remarked in harsh words: “Civilized law does not allow dangerous and hardened gangsters to go free merely on their explanation each time that they have been misled by their gang leaders plus assurance that they will reform this time, for sure. How, then, can the United Nations take the responsibility of accepting Germany, according to the demands of Niebuhr, Paul Hagen, Couis Acamic, Thomas Mann and others, ‚as an equal among equals in a free society of nations‘?” (Tetens 1944, p. 108) The theory of the exiles of the “other Germany” was vehemently denied by influential Jews like Emil Ludwig and others (Rohde 2016, pp. 130–133). For these critics it was a lack of sensitivity that the cruelties of the Holocaust were not mentioned in official statements of the CDG (Lamberti 2007, p. 297). Alford thinks that the uniqueness of the Holocaust was so severe that Niebuhr’s Christian Realism could not cope with it (Alford 2014, pp. 21–22), My conclusion is that Niebuhr was a leading organizing, but not intellectual figure inside these groups but he gained valuable insights into political ideas and group dynamics that helped him to become the prominent expert who had earned an international reputation. His understanding of the state was that of grown historical entities that could not easily be substituted by alternative forms of social organization as long as these were not able to provide a convincing identity concept.

5

Niebuhr’r Role in the “Zook Commission”

That Niebuhr was occupied with educational affairs as the basis for a mature church can be recognized in his early publications in the Evangelical Herald, the official publication of the Evangelical Synod of North America, the Evangelical

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and Reformed Church (Splinter 1998, pp. 158–159). For him good education for many citizens was the prerequisite for a stable democracy. The state had to guarantee this quality; Niebuhr was highly critical of the privatization of education. Together with his colleagues in the U.S. Education Mission to Germany (USEM) he attempted to help reforming the hierarchically structured German education system. During this mission that led the group through the American sector, led by George F. Zook, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Higher Education under President Truman, USEM had the task to evaluate the reeducation efforts of the U. S. administration. For Füssl Niebuhr was chosen as a member because he had been a member in the CDG that had developed sophisticated educational concepts (Füssl 1994, p. 192). It was Niebuhr’s ambition to convert the Germans away from the deep ingrained authoritarian mentality (Fox 1985, pp. 10–24). USEM inspected the universities of Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, München and Berlin. “We tried unsuccessfully … to democratize the German universities and to persuade the German educational authorities to make less rigorous distinctions as early as the twelfth year of a child’s life between those who would prepare for the university in a Gymnasium and those who were fated to be the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. The labor groups were insistent on this distinction as the middle classes” (Niebuhr 1973, p. 227). Niebuhr advocated an education philosophy that was egalitarian in a social democratic understanding. He vehemently spoke out against the tripartite Bavarian school system which was kept alive because of the tenacity of Bavarian state officials (Rohde 2016, p. 255). On his mission Niebuhr made contact with important German personalities and learned about the massive threat the Soviet Union soon would pose to Western Europe. It is no coincidence that shortly after this trip Niebuhr published his two most widely read articles in the Life Magazine that treated the communist danger in a systematic fashion: “The Fight for Germany” (Niebuhr 1946a) was a direct publicist output of his experiences in Germany. But he had made impression on German leaders in the domestic field as well. German Bundespräsident Theodor Heuss stated in April 1957: “In the fall of 1946 an American commission consisting of government officials, educators, and scientists toured Germany. (I have a particularly vivid memory of Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian, who was a member of the group.) … I took part in the candid conversations between the Americans and their German opposite numbers, and thought that the talks … served a useful purpose. For the oversimplification of political propaganda had created on both sides misunderstandings which could be at least partly cleared up by personal meetings …” (Heuss, quoted in Bingham 1961, p. 288) Niebuhr the mediator between extremes—Niebuhr lived what he

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proclaimed. During the reception of the Reinhold Niebuhr Award, German chancellor Willy Brandt praised Niebuhr for not having lost faith in the development of a better, a democratic Germany after the war. He was impressed by the integrity of Niebuhr’s words and deeds. “Wherever the representatives of modern social policy and democratic socialism reflect on the moral foundations of their principles, their thoughts are bound to turn to Reinhold Niebuhr” (Brandt, quoted in Bellmann 2018, p. 22).

6

Niebuhr Claims a More Sensitive Occupation Policy

During his stay in Germany, Niebuhr had the privilege to meet not only German officials in the educational sector but also American military leaders. Here he recognized that the victors of a conflict could not resist the temptation to show their superiority. In this respect they did nothing else what the German did when they occupied foreign countries: “Our behavior during the early years of the occupation of Germany should remind us that there is something very ugly in the contrast between absolute power and absolute weakness, between luxury and poverty.” (Niebuhr 1946b, p. 6). In an underrated anthology of sermons, he had given in the end of the war with the title Discerning the Signs of the Times Niebuhr referred to Jesus’ address to the pharisees in Matthew 16; 3, in which he asked these: “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” The less rulers believe in divine judgement the more they would be inclined to take over the rule as an earthly God and therefore necessarily as an unjust judge. Niebuhr was housed in luxury hotels and did not feel good about it, because he knew the situation of the local people next to him. In a letter from Dahlem to Ursula from August 25, 1946 he stated: “This whole place is like a dream land of luxury amidst destruction. The difference between conquerer and conquered does not change through the whole of history” (cited in U. Niebuhr 1991, p. 196). Furthermore, he admitted that most American officials had reservations concerning the displacement of millions of Germans from the Sudetenland as part of a strategy to restructure Eastern Europe that was based on racist criteria. “All American officials feel that this refugee business is the worst injustice we are doing.” (cited in U. Niebuhr 1991, p. 204). Additionally, the enduring debates about the artificial division of Germany framed by the Morgenthau plan gave the Soviets a pretext for their radical dismantlement of German industrial facilities, he believed (Niebuhr 1949, pp. 90–91).

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Belief in Civil Society Activities

As he did not succeed to become an active politician, Niebuhr turned to the field of civil society in order to gain influence. Organizational work in religious and later political associations he had learned from the outset in the (German) Evangelical Synod of North America where he also learned the journalist. Later he would be an important speaker and organizer in international church organizations like the World Council of Churches12 that developed strategies to achieve world peace in dangerous times. He supported the foundation of the liberal Union for Democratic Action (1941) and its predecessor, the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), still existing today. Niebuhr knew that democratic states were susceptible to tendencies of conformism and intellectual monism, too. He witnessed the decay of democratic systems in Europe in the 30 s as well as phenomena like McCarthyism in the U.S. that made clear how an atmosphere of suspicion as well as waves of collective hysteria could endanger the stability of liberal democracy. It was his way to support “patriotic dissent” (Tjalve 2008) with the help of different civil society actors that should mirror the plurality of social interests and ideological positions. His work against totalitarianism gave him a vision how a mature state could look like. The education of responsible citizens was the essence of his realism. Niebuhr intuitively and correctly diagnosed the human tendency for conformism in groups (Beem 2015, pp. 20–21) that would lead to dangerous polarizations even in democratic societies. In his later work The Self and the Dramas of History he summarized how he interpreted the German drama: “If we revert once more to the tragedy of Hitler’s Germany, we would understand it more completely, not merely by reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf, but by tracing the strange confluence of historic forces and tendencies which permitted Hitler to dominate a nation momentarily and to involve it in disaster. The historian would have to explain why in Germany the private virtues of diligence and obedience could be so easily harnessed to collective evil; why the German people have preserved such extraordinary docility towards the pretensions of political power; why the German aristocracy was chiefly preoccupied with military tasks, why it became the unwilling tool of the mad Corporal and was unable or unwilling to extricate itself from his power; why the German middle classes, which in other countries became the bearers of democracy, developed an industrial efficiency surpassing that of any other nation while remaining politically incompetent and impotent” (Niebuhr 1956, pp. 70–71). 12

https://www.oikoumene.org/en/about-us/wcc-history

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In a commendable way Niebuhr supported relief efforts towards the poor and needy people in the devastated country and initiated and coordinated specific measures with help of his periodical Christianity & Crisis (C&C). Niebuhr attempted to help restore the German church after their inglorious role in the Third Reich. He knew how torn many Christians were and that the Christian faith was an important pillar in the attempt to build a stable democratic system in Germany. The Christians inside the divided country were desperate and were inclined to think in eschatological categories. For them an integrated approach to rebuild the country was impossible. “If they were only allowed to rebuild their country—but this is impossible as long as the quadripartite division of their country lasts. Further they are rightly apprehensive that the tension between Russia and the West may not be resolved, in which event they would be the cockpit of another World war” (Niebuhr 1946c, pp. 2–3). Niebuhr kept contact with church members that worked against the Nazis. Another example was Hans Christoph von Hase who had come to UTS in the year 1933 as the German fellow, three years after his cousin Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taken the same fellowship. With von Hase Niebuhr kept written contact during the thirties after von Hase had left New York City; they discussed the nature of Hitlerism and the situation of the church under the conditions of Nazism (U. Niebuhr 1991, p. 328–329). After the war von Hase wrote for C&C and informed about the efforts to restore the German Protestant Church. Later Niebuhr was encouraged about the developments the democracy of the young German Bundesrepublik made: “Nazis left a tabula rasa upon which a free society could be built. For these and other reasons, the new Bundesrepublik of Bonn did not repeat the mistakes of the Weimar Republic” (Niebuhr 1969, p. 58). It was the aim of this chapter to introduce Niebuhr’s activities to support the German exiles in the U. S. This prophetic commitment is an essential part of his understanding of the state that could not be reduced to institutional and legal frameworks; Niebuhr understood the nation-state as an organism constituted of individuals that could make a difference for the good or the bad. It was no coincidence that Niebuhr took over a professorship for Applied Christianity. From this position he could develop best practices that corresponded his Christian, ethical and political convictions. Therefore, his activism was multifaceted. Niebuhr was thinker and doer (Thompson 1974). And he took several roles when it counted to save lives and to search for solutions in times of crisis (Bellmann 2018, pp. 400–401). First and foremost, he was a prophetic voice in his time that was characterized by several global transformations and international crises. His expertise was not limited onto the field of international relations. His wisdom and knowledge in the field of social policy and domestic political issues

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was remarkable. He helped to recognize that everyone is tempted by undemocratic inclinations in the form of pride, confirmation bias, and prejudices that could only be minimized by a developed form of humility; but this humility stands in a permanent battle with the will-to-power which is the necessary quality to gain political influence and power. With Niebuhr it is worth discovering a political theologian that has laid the groundwork for a thinking about politics that was able to transcend the boundaries between national, international, and global politics, between secular and religious domains, between utopian and dystopian ideas, and between pure theoretical reflections and a pure pragmatism. His understanding of the state corresponds to these dichotomic categories. For Niebuhr, the state was a living organism, based on historical and legal traditions, common experiences and mores, but also on an institutional framework that was consciously created and continuously developed.

References Alford, Fred C. 2014. Niebuhr, Evil and the Holocaust. Open Journal of Political Science, January. 16–22. Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2014.41003 Bew, John. 2016. Realpolitik: a history. Oxford: OUP. Bingham, June. 1961. Courage to Change. An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. NYC: Scribner. Brown, Charles Calvin. 2002. Niebuhr and his age. Reinhold Niebuhr’s prophetic role and legacy. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. Chrystal, William (ed.) 1977. Young Reinhold Niebuhr: His Early Writings, 1911–1931. NYC: The Pilgrim Press. Clark, Christopher. 2013. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. NYC: Harper. Der Council for a Democratic Germany. In Was soll aus Deutschland werden? Ed. U. LangkauAlex, 17–48. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Fox, Richard. 1985. Reinhold Niebuhr – A Biography. NYC: Pantheon Books. Füssl, Karl-Heinz. 1994. Die Umerziehung der Deutschen – Jugend und Schule unter den Siegermächten des Zweiten Weltkriegs, 1945–1955. Paderborn: Schöningh. Gold, M. J. 1980. Crossroads Marseille 1940. Garden City: Doubleday. Guerot, Ulrike. 2016. Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss!: eine politische Utopie. Bonn: Dietz Verlag. Habermas, Jürgen. 2001. The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays. Cambridge MA: Polity. Hochschild, Adam. 2011. To end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914 – 1918. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Jeshurin, Ephraim 1932. B.C. Vladeck: Fifty Years of Life and Labor. NYC. Josephson, Peter, and R. W. Holder. 2019. Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice. Christian Realism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham: R & L.

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Lamberti, Majorie. 2007. German Antifascist Refugees in America and the Public Debate on “What Should Be Done with Germany after Hitler” 1941–1945. Central European History, Vol. 40, 279-305. Merkley, Paul 1975. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Account. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP. Morgenthau, Henry Jr. 1945. Germany is our Problem – A Plan for Germany. NYC: Harper. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1924. The German Clan. Christian Century. October 1924, pp. 1330–1331. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1925a. Can Christianity survive? The American Monthly 135, no. 1, pp. 84– 88. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1925b. Germany and Modern Civilization, The Atlantic Monthly, 135, no. 6, pp. 843–848. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1928. What the War did to my Mind. Christian Century 45, no. 39,11611163. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1933a. The Germans: Unhappy Philosophers in Politics. American Scholar Vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 409–419. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1933b. Why German Socialism Crashed, Christian Century (April 5), p. 532. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934a. Reflections upon the End of an Era. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934b. The Churches in Germany, American Scholar, Vol. 3, No. 3 , 344-351. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1934c. German Socialism still Lives. The Nation (August 1), pp. 135–136. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1936. English and German Mentality - A Study in National Traits. Christendom (Spring), pp. 465–476. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1937. Pawns for Fascism - Our Lower Middle Class. American Scholar Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 145–152. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1939. Synthetic Barbarism. The New Statesman and Nation, Vol. XVIII., No. 446, pp. 368–369. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1942. The Germans and the Nazis. The Nation, (April 4), S. 399–400. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1943a. Mann speaks to Germany. The Nation (February 13). p. 244. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1943b. What to do with Germany“- Review of Heinz Pol. Julian Messner: The Hidden Enemy. The Nation, November 13, 1943. p. 559. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1945. The Vengeance of Victors, in: C & C, Vol. V., (November 26). pp. 1–2. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946a. A Fight for Germany, Life Magazine (October 21), pp. 65–72. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946b. A Report on Germany. C & C Vol, VI. (October 14), pp. 6–7. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1946c. Editorial Notes. C & C, Vol. VI. (September 30), pp. 2–3. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1949. Germany: Vengeance or Justice – Review of Freda Utley: The High Cost of Vengeance and James P. Wartburg: Last Call for Common Sense. The Nation (July 19), pp. 90–92. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1965. Man’s Nature and His Communities. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1969. with Paul E. Sigmund: The Democratic Experience: Past and Prospects. London: Pall Mall Press. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1976 (1929). Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. New York: Da Capo Pr. Niebuhr, Ursula (ed.) 1991. Remembering Reinhold Niebuhr. San Francisco: Harper. Pedro, Guilherme Marques. 2017. Reinhold Niebuhr’s IR theory: realism beyond Thomas Hobbes. NYC: Routledge.

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Rohde, Christoph. 2016. Reinhold Niebuhr – die Geburt des Christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Rohde, Christoph. 1996. Das Bild des politisch handelnden Menschen im Christlichen Realismus Reinhold Niebuhrs unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Internationalen Politik. Neuried: Ars Una. Rose, Peter I. 2004. The Dispossessed, An Anatomy of Exile. Amherst: Univ. of Mass. Press. Schwarz, Hans-Peter. 2017. Die neue Völkerwanderung nach Europa: über den Verlust politischer Kontrolle und moralischer Gewissheit. München: DVA. Sifton, Elisabeth. 2001. Das Gelassenheits-Gebet: Erinnerungen an Reinhold Niebuhr. München: Hanser. Söllner, Alfred. 1982. Zur Archäologie der Demokratie in Deutschland – Analyse politischer Emigranten im amerikanischen Geheimdienst. Frankfurt a. M.: Europ. Verl.-Anst. Splinter, Dieter. 1998. Theologe zwischen den Welten. Reinhold Niebuhr und die „Deutsche Evangelische Synode von Nord-Amerika“ 1892–1928 (Theologische Studien), Aachen: Shaker. Stone, Ronald. 2012. Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York. Macon: Mercer University Press. Sywottek, Alfred 1971. Deutsche Volksdemokratie. Studien zur politischen Konzeption der KPD 1935 – 1946. Düsseldorf: Bertelsmann. Tetens, T. H. 1944. Know Your Enemy. NYC: Spett Printing. Thompson, Kenneth. 1974. Niebuhr as Thinker and Doer. Journal of Religion, No. 4, pp. 424– 434. Tjalve, Vibeke Schou. 2008. Realist Strategies of Republican Peace. Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and the Politics of Patriotic Dissent. NYC: Palgrave MacMillan.

Part III

Religion and Democracy in Reinhold Niebuhr‘s Christian Realism Michael Plathow

Abstract

Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism has productively integrated the factor religion into the basically secular social sciences. His approach unites the rational forces that are accessible to science (“coherence”) with the realm of the spiritual that can only be accessed through myths and stories (“incoherence”). With the help of this synthesis, he is able to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of constitutional democracy. His arguments remain plausible in today’s unstable political situation, in which environmental challenges, global terrorism, worldwide migration movements and different forms of extremism shake the global order. Therefore, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at the principles and structures of Niebuhr’s understanding of democracy and state-theory again—half a century after his death.

M. Plathow (B) Heidelberg, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_7

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Keywords

Constitutional democracy • Political theology • Christian Realism • Christian myths

1

Introduction

Nowadays many observers claim that there is not merely a challenge to but also a crisis of democracy. In this respect, they think of the precarious development of parliamentary and constitutional democracy in various Western nation-states. Democracy, the constitutional democratic state in the Western tradition, is based on the presupposition that the dignity, freedom, and equality of men and women are basically guaranteed. This guarantee is grounded in fundamental human rights and civil liberties, including the right to participate in the political process in an active or passive way. These rights are secured and executed by the application of administrative means and, if necessary, the legitimate use of force. The elements of Western style democracy encompass free elections, decision-making by consent, the respect of different forms of political opposition as well as the protection of minorities. Extremely important for the stability of the system is the separation and reciprocal control of power. We have witnessed during the Presidential election process in the United States from November 2020 to January 2021 how fragile these systems can be in times of extremist tendencies. A working democratic system is characterized by plurality, the existence of open discourse and the tolerance of contentious relations, which can be regulated through compromise. The freedom of one group should be restricted by the freedom of other societal actors. Today even in once stable democracies like in the United States and in Europe, creative differences and tensions have developed into destructive ideological divisions, renewed forms of populism and updated forms of nationalism and consciously created versions of cultural isolationism that lead to processes of exclusion. Destructive political actors do not only attack the elites of other states or selected minorities; the whole process leads to a weakening of modern democratic constitutionalism altogether. The strategies to undermine the confidence into democratic institutions contain various means like the targeted distribution of fake news, cyberspace attacks that weaken critical infrastructures and many other strategies. Political and social pluralism along with its complicated processes of democratic decision-making and the complex construction of oftentimes hurtful compromises is rejected; easy answers and conspiracy theories are spread in order

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to offer the alienated citizens political alternatives. All these phenomena demonstrate that liberal democracies show several weaknesses that are the natural result of their openness. The fact that the state does not fully represent its citizens‘ opinions and interests is exploited by its enemies. Ignorant thinking that is spread in states that draw on populist narratives tends to support isolationist behaviour of these nation-states. The Trump administration, Boris Johnson’s Great Britain or Brazil under the rule of Jair Bolsonaro may serve as examples. These statesmen attempt to redesign the international community by giving emphasis to bilateral arrangements; sometimes. Their world is defined in terms of a narrow self-interest. For Niebuhr, such a self-referential thinking does not serve the real interests of these countries in the long run (Rohde 2016, p. 41). The reckless disregard of international treaties can be a costly behaviour especially for the United States because states do not follow their leadership by soft power any more (Nye 2004). In spite of the increasing integration of the world in technological sectors like information technology, economy, trade, or all kinds of scientific endeavors, in spite of the unlimited possibilities of global tourism and consumption, the political integration of the political world has suffered several setbacks. It does not keep pace with these technological developments. The fact that international organizations like the United Nations are more and more weakened in a world that is again characterized by great power competition cannot be overseen. The tensions between the desire to form a multilateral international order and the tendency to pursue selfish ends increase. In the multipolar world, rules are violated, and new claims aggressively promoted; for many observers, the national interest has experienced an unexpected renaissance. Representatives of political realism, however, are less surprised that we witness a new era of power politics and the re-emergence of revisionist powers (e. g., Mearsheimer 2001). The comeback of egoistic behavior takes place in all areas of life. The standards for fair interactions have decreased. Deceit and exaggerated forms of self-expression in the digital age add to the factors that destabilize international and national communities. Elites that proclaim the pursuit of general welfare and global responsibilities more than often are often debunked as hypocrites that do not live up to their own standards. A transcendent dimension and its moral and political relevance for societies is increasingly ridiculed. These developments present sufficient reasons to revisit Reinhold Niebuhr’s social ethics and political theology1 and refer it to his

1

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was as a professor of applied theology and a “public theologian” in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in NewYork and the advisor in several

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understanding of the state. Of course, democracy cannot be and will not be absolutely perfect; criticism, change and reform represent the essence of every working democratic system. Democracy is always a process of shared responsibilities. It was not by chance that the famous British Prime minister and statesman Winston Churchill stated in his smart sense of irony: “Democracy is the worst form of government except of all those others that have been tried from time to time”. In a similar spirit Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” (Niebuhr 1944, p. IX). In this contribution his understanding of the state and the relevance of “christian realism” for a working democratic process are discussed out of a theological perspective.

2

Niebuhr ‘s Polical Realism and His Understanding of Democracy

“Democracy”, Niebuhr writes, “is on the one hand the characteristic fruit of a bourgois civilization; on the other hand it is a perennially valuable form of social organization in which freedom and order are made to support, and not to contradict, each other” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 1). In this book which Niebuhr published in 1944, he introduces a social-political approach that is intended to improve the understanding of democracy and to defend its values. His realistic approach is a diagnosis of the American society and explains its economical, ideological and cultural distortions, that for Niebuhr are at least caused by moralistic and sometimes utopian pretensions. Political extremism would be on the rise in an alarming dimension. These divisions in the economic and political sphere would have to be overcome not only by soft liberal concepts but primarily with help of communal institutions (see Castellin’s contribution in this book). In Niebuhr’s opinion, the institutions that are in close connection to the people and are organized after the principle of subsidiarity, have to secure a stable order. The power of suffrage would solve the problems of injustice in the long run. It is not an original thought that a system of checks and balances was necessary to control the pursuit of self-interest not only of interest groups but also of people, who were in control of the government. Niebuhr, however, deserves credit for a vindication of democracy in terms of realistic power dynamics that does not have to exclusively rely USA administrations before, during and after the II. World War. He was especially a committed activist against Nazism; during the Cold War he warned that global communism was a dangerous ideology which served to hide crude power political interests.

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on rational faculties. Democracy takes into account the limited knowledge and the moral imperfections of humans and is capable of balancing competing interests and forces. The ability to work out political compromises which we miss so dearly in these days was the quality of a working democracy that could tame the will-to-power that was an inescapable driving force of human behavior (Niebuhr 1960, p. xx). He states: “Democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 118) in a pluralistic and open society, which “requires the best possible distribution of power for the sake of justice and the best possible management of the equilibrium for the sake of order” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 118). For Christian Realism, the tentative character of democratic achievements is embedded into a transcendental scheme: “Democracy is not an absolute. On the contrary, it is conceived in the light of the one absolute wherein is revealed the height of man’s freedom, and the corruption of that freedom, which makes democracy both possible and necessary” (Harland 1960, p. 175). Niebuhr’s understanding of democracy is in a way the result of the reflections of thinkers such as the enlightenment protagonists Immanuel Kant, Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke and Thomas Hobbes who represent the contractualist tradition. Additionally, he is influenced by the ideas of statesman like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln who resorted to their experiences as political decision-makers in tragic historical circumstances. Niebuhr brought these intellectual strands to a kind of intellectual synthesis. Additionally, the Niebuhr took seriously the psychological determinants that influence political processes. In this respect, he draws heavily on William James or sociologists like Max Weber or Alfred North Whitehead (Splinter 1998) in order to combine the wisdom of “modernists” or “idealists” and the realism of conservative thinkers and statesmen that represented the concrete experiences of hard decision-making processes and the tragedies of life. This intellectual composition allowed Niebuhr to criticize an excessive idealism on the one hand and a cynical, immoral form of “realism” on the other. Liberalism and communism were ideologies based on an unrealistic anthropology. While American style liberalism led to a high degree of self-righteousness and a superficial “cult of prosperity” (Niebuhr 1952, pp. 44/54), that was the result of an unconditional belief in technical perfection and unlimited scientific progress, Marxism led to the ideological pretension, it would provide the blueprint for a just and egalitarian society. Niebuhr’s approach of political realism,2 applied to the domestic sphere, also opposes the ambitions of radical 2

As a political realist Niebuhr was in contact and cooperated with statesman and intellectuals like Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Thompson, C. B. Marshall, Georg Kennan, Adlai Stevensen etc., as it is shown by Rice 2013 and Guilhot 2011.

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constitutionalists, “because the constitution was the end and not the beginning of a democratic process in history” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 166).

3

Niebuhr’s„Christian Realism“ and Democracy

Christian realism has its roots in a specific understanding of human nature. Human beings as creatures are equipped with the gift of a freedom that allows these to transcend their biological boundaries and to think beyond these limitations. But inner defects in their will cause individuals to perform sinful behaviour that expresses itself in various forms of hybris, pride, self-love and pretension. Man tends to forget, that he is “not simply a creator but also a creature, corrupts the gift of freedom” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 158). ‘Humanitas’ includes the “existential awareness of the limits” of his own knowledge and power as well as the “possibilities of human power and goodness” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 170). The possibility of human achievements is derived from a creativity that is not restricted to an instrumental form of rationality but that allows the construction of utopian dreams. But this creative potential capabilities leads man to prideful forms of self-glorification. In chapter 7 of the book of Romans the janus-faced situation of man before God is expressed by the Apostle Paul. He shows that the radical freedom and an existential form of anxiety belong together, a thought that has been taken up by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Furthermore: “The highest achievements of human life are infected with sinful corruptions” (Niebuhr 1952, p. 145). In his most philosophical book NDM Niebuhr elaborates the human situation: “The Christian doctrine of original sin with its seemingly contradictory assertions about the inevitability of sin and man‘s responsibility of sin, is a dialectical truth which does justice to the fact that man’s self-love and self-centredness is inevitable, but not in such a way as to fit into the category of natural necessity. It is within and by his freedom that man sins. The final paradox is that the discovery of the inevitability of sin is man’s highest assertion of freedom” (Niebuhr 1941, p. 263). In the tradition of St. Paul, Augustine, Martin Luther (without his assumed pessimism) Thomas. Hobbes and Søren Kierkegaard Niebuhr’s Christian Realism has its roots in the knowledge of the evil in man and society, as it is taught in the doctrine of original sin (Niebuhr 1944, p. 167; Mützlitz 2013). In CL Niebuhr describes the theological relevance of this parable for his understandig of democracy. Children of light (Lk 16, 8) and children of darkness (1. Thess 5, 5) correspond to the “civitas coelestis” and “civitas terrena” in Augustine’s De civitate

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Dei (413/427). The Children of light are defined as “those who seek to bring self-interest under the discipline of a more universal law and in harmony with more universal good. … The children of darkness are evil, because they know no law beyond themself. They are wise, though evil, because they understand the power of self-interest” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 11). The children of light are virtuous, because they have some concept of a higher law than their own will, that means a sensitivity for moral questions and a sense of justice. They are characterized as naive and foolish, because they do not know and accept the dominating power of self-will in the world. They are foolish not merely because they underestimate the dangers of a radical pursuit of self-interest that prevails under the children of darkness, who consciously make maximal use of their power in a self-interested and even evil way. The children of light, moreover, underestimate the power of self-interest among themselves (Niebuhr 1944, p. 11). A conflict beween pious and less pious children of light is the result of this lack of insight into the deeper motifs that guide their actions. In order to win the battles against the totalitarian powers, the children of light have to be armed with the “wisdom of the ‘children of darkness’, but nevertheless must remain free from their malice” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 41), Niebuhr claims. Only with a consciousness for the particular role of the power of self-interest in human society are they able to constructively make use of this power. Egoism and the will-to-power are perilous drives if they are at play in unregulated form between different individuals, economic and political groups in domestic settings and between entities in the international sphere. Conflicts and corruptions are natural companions of power, and order can only be maintained by governmental coercion in the domestic realm, to achieve “a balance between freedom and order” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 59). Thus Christian Realism diverges in substantial ways from the structures of liberal capitalism as well as that of the communist oligarchy. This approach cannot go along with a simple democratic idealism and with humanism’s optimistic view of man, in which forms of peaceful interdependence are achieved because the self-will can easily be transformed into forms of general interest with help of rational education strategies. Niebuhr criticizes proponents of theories that declare easy ways to peace and justice by strategies of social manipulation and calls these social utopists. The influential educational expert John Dewey was especially attacked by Niebuhr for his liberal naivité (Niebuhr 1947, p. 1). Christian Realism, however, attempts to carefully balance the interests and forces in society, in order to avoid an “undue centralization of power control within the framework of a democratic process” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 115). A sustainable democratic order requires the integration of freedom and justice which is a never ending story. Especially in Germany it is quite unknown that

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Christian Realism does not only occupy the field of international politics but additionally offers precepts for the construction of a stable domestic sphere. Christian faith recognizes the difference between divine majesty and human creature, between the unconditional character of the divine and the conditioned character of all human enterprise. According to Niebuhr’s biblical interpretation, pride and pretension are the strategies of human beings to hide the conditioned and finite character of their human endeavors. These behavioral structures are subsequently the “quintessence of sin” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 135). According to Niebuhr, Christianity offers three important anthropological insights that make democracy the adequate form of political government: “It provides the individual with a source of authority that enables him to defy the authorities of the world. It appreciates, as does no other philosophy, the unique worth of the individual and locates that dignity in the position he holds before God. It recognizes the depth of man‘s sin as well as his creative powers and thus justifies the checks upon man‘s power provided by democratic institutions. Christianity also provides, when it is true to itself, that spirit of humility and toleration without which democratic institutions are constantly imperiled” (Harland 1960, p. 171ff.). It is Christopher Beem who recently referred Niebuhr’s understanding of the necessary democratic humility to the perilous polarization processes in the U. S. democracy of the twenty-first century (Beem 2015). For Niebuhr, a working democracy requires mature actors who are capable of self-criticism and who actively fight against their own hybris and pretension, equipped with the gifts of contrition and forgiving, and “the confidence in the divine providence and ultimate judgement (Niebuhr 1952, p. 155). Man with his attempts of self-deification is in need of God’s redemptive action. For a secular society this narrative is an old-fashioned one, for adherents of postmodernist theories even a dangerous story. For Niebuhr, however, Christian faith finds the “final clue in the meaning of life and history in the Christ, whose goodness is at once the virtue which man ought, but does not, achieve in history, and the revelation of a divine mercy which understands and resolves the perpetual contradiction in which history is involved, even on the highest reaches of human achievements” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 188). The biblical story knows the fragmentary character of all historic achievements because they are tarnished by sinful practice, “and yet has confidence in their meaning, because it knows their completion to be in the hands of a divine power, whose resources are greater than those of men, and whose suffering love”—in the drama of the cross (Niebuhr 1951a, pp. 176 ff.)—“can overcome the corruptions of man’s achievements, without negating the significance of our striving” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 190; Plathow 2019, p. 12).

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Niebuhr and His Dispute with Swiss Theologian Karl Barth

For Reinhold Niebuhr, only a part of reality is accessible to rational scientific insight which he calls “coherences” while the results of man’s spiritual freedom can only be grasped with help of stories and myths which subsequently are “incoherences”. While theology has to accepts its rational limitations, secular sciences should accept their epistemological boundaries, too. In an enlightening article Niebuhr summarizes: “A theology which both holds fast to the mystery and meaning beyond these coherences and also has a decent respect for the order and meaning of the natural world cannot be a queen of the sciences, nor should she be the despised and neglected handmaiden of her present estate” (Niebuhr 1951b, p. 168). Christian Realism, interpreted as a spiritually enriched version of secular Political Realism—is opening a universal perspective of sense: man as a creature, equipped with a free will mostly create his own reality that is constituted by the perceptions of his self-interest and the following tendency to act in terms of a will-to- power (Plathow 2019, p. 9). This leads him into destructive forms of competition from which follow corruption, anxiety and hatred. It is the product of original sin and of disobedience against God’s commandments that lead to his inability to practice perfect love and justice in his personal and political life (Romans 7, 18ff.). That is also why injustice makes compromises and “balances of power” necessary in democratic decisions. As are all human achievements, democratic decisions are of necessity imperfect and often burdened with guilt although they are usually the result of transparent political procedures. Niebuhr, the Christian theologian of social ethics, transcends the real dilemma of injustice by pointing to the dimension of God’s providence, to divine judgement and the redemptive “drama of the cross”. The paradox of grace, which the cross reveals, opens up the possibility of reconciliation through God’s love in personal relations and sometimes in social and political life. The institutionalization of reconciliation through truth and reconciliation commissions is a relatively new historical phenomenon that can be understood as a constructive application of the message of Christian Realism (Rohde 2021, pp. 241–244). The realization of the gospel message can create character traits like contrition, the ability to forgive and a humble character. Furthermore, it brings the peoples’ striving for the establishment of just and legal structures in the direction of the fulfilment of agape, as far, as this is possible in this world. Niebuhr examines the relationship between the individual Christian norm of love and the struggle for justice as a problem of social ethics. The implementation of structures of law and

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justice are benedictions, even if they are imperfectly realized by human beings in responsibility before God and to God’s honor. But they must not fall prey to the temptation to attempt to realize a utopian kingdom of God on earth. Niebuhr insisted on the category of limits against ideological dreams in man’s attempts to realize social goals; these limits should be reflected in decision-making processes; recently his category of limits was interpreted in terms of a “strategic narrative of restraint” (Steel 2019, pp. 259–262). To sum it up, Niebuhr’s thinking is not only analytic but also prescriptive, not moralistic but parenthetic, not humanistic but Christian. In order to confirm his framework, Niebuhr made use of a famous word of President Abraham Lincoln that expressed the spirit to reunite the nation after the civil war: “With malice toward none; with charity to all.” In democratic life mutuality and empathy in relationships are prerequisites for success; these generate the necessary qualities of responsibility and the acceptance of the interests of the other. Justice as a fair process is for Niebuhr what can tentatively be realized in this fallen world. The theologian prayed in Heath, Massachusetts in 1934, his famous serenity prayer: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things, that cannot be changed, courage to change the things, that should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” The origin of this prayer was contested. In Germany, it was ascribed to the Wuerttemberg pietist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782). This was sharply criticized by Niebuhr’s daugher Elisabeth Sifton who was upset about this allegedly false claims concerning the authorship and who wrote a full book about this affair which she used to an overall polemic against the Germans and their mentality (Sifton 2003, pp. 301–307).

5

R. Niebuhr’s Social-Ethical Theory of Democracy, Compared with Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Niebuhr’s Christian Realist vindication of democracy differs from Karl Barth’s dogmatic understanding of democracy that the Swiss theologian presented in his systematic treatise “Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde” (Barth 1946). With the doyen of the so-called dialectic theologian Niebuhr held a long-lasting dispute concerning the relationship of politics and religion. Barth writes that in a pattern of concentric circles Christ’s triumphant grace is revealed via the “Christengemeinde” and grows into a community he calls “Bürgergemeinde”. The Christian message would flow into democratic structures and laws. For him, politics is the

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result of the individual convictions of people. There is no safety net in his understanding of politics against the abuse of power and against the abuse of religion for ideological purposes in the form of institutional settings. Although Niebuhr held a profound respect for Barth and his spiritual and moral accomplishments, he did not share his political views as is visible in his Magnum Opus: “Theologies, such as that of Barth, which threaten to destroy all relative moral judgements by their exclusive emphasis upon the ultimate religious fact of the sinfulness of all men, are rightly suspected of imperiling relative moral achievements in history” (Niebuhr 1943, p. 220). Although for Niebuhr theology cannot be separated from the social and political spheres of this world but has nevertheless to provide answers that are inspired from transcendental sources, it is not realistic for him to derive political and social ethical judgements exclusively from ultimate theological propositions. Ethical and political decisions have always to be based on compromises and are exposed to relative and proximate standards. For Niebuhr, religion has to deliver guidelines for a social ethics that would improve the social conditions in this world. On these grounds, he settled a long enduring dispute with Barth. During the 1st meeting of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in the year 1948 the Swiss theologian had defended the otherworldliness of God in his address “God’s design and man’s disorder” and the assumption that it would be impossible to realize the Kingdom of God on earth (Barth 1949). In a direct answer to Barth’s statement, under the title “The Christian witness to the order of society and national life” Niebuhr characterized his theology as “too sophisticated.” (Plathow 2013, p. 42). Furthermore, Niebuhr criticized that Barth’s purely transcendental approach would prevent him from a mature political judgement. Barth, an outspoken Nazi enemy who was expelled from Germany because he refused to take the Hitler oath, did not argue with the same verve against the brutal interventions of the Soviet Union in their geopolitical sphere of influence. Niebuhr was very specific after the events of 1956 in Hungary when the revolt against the Stalinist government was crushed by the tanks of the red army. In an article for the Christian Century he asked: “Why is Barth silent on Hungary?” Harland summarizes: “Niebuhr criticized Barth for a theologism, that issues in confused guidance. If one is going to make political judgements from the vantage point of theological prestige he must take the political disciplines seriously” (Harland 1960, p. 42). I do not share Niebuhr’s harsh interpretation towards Barth’s political attitudes, because the Swiss theologian has proven his political maturity and anti-ideological stance as the leading author of Theological Declaration of Barmen (29.–31. 5. 1934). Furthermore, the responsible engagement of his intellectual followers in West and East confirms

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this assumption, especially their support to end the racist Apartheid in South Africa. With the influential German theologian Paul Tillich Niebuhr cultivated a productive personal and intellectual friendship after Tillich had emigrated to the United States in the year 1933. Tillich can be characterized as a Christian socialist. Furthermore, both worked together in the resistance against the Nazis (Stone 2012). They were close concerning political attitudes but had different views with respect to theological aspects. Niebuhr appreciated Tillich’s theory of symbols; otherwise he rejected Tillich’s “ontological questions within theology and the exclusiveness with which he confronts Jewish and Greek thought” (Tillich 1961, p. 36). Tillich missed an epistemological foundation in Niebuhr’s theology and criticized his concept of reason: he would be too focused on the cognitive function of technical reason which would be a reductionist understanding. It would leave out the logos type of reason. Tillich, the philosophical theologian, vindicated democracy within an existential and ontological system. In his book The Courage to Be he describes the correlation between the “courage to be oneself” and “courage to be part of the whole” as a form of synthesis between individualism and the social character of living (Tillich 1952, p. IV). Tillich’s understanding of democracy differs from Niebuhr’s power and interest-based vindication of this form of governance. For Niebuhr Tillich’s epistemology and ontology were too abstract in order to give ethical guidance in social and political affairs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ethic is influenced by Niebuhr as well. In 1930/1931 Bonhoeffer was a student of the UTS in NYC; he took part in Niebuhr’s lectures and seminars about “Religion and Ethics” and “Ethical interpretations” (Bethge 1970, p. 197) and he became acquainted with the Niebuhr family. In 1939, when Bonhoeffer left Nazi-Germany to live and teach in the U. S., Niebuhr encouraged him in many ways (Bethge 1970, pp. 732–742). Bonhoeffer followed Niebuhr in his biblical understanding of sin, justification and forgiveness, as it was taught by the protestant reformers. His thinking corresponds widely with Niebuhr’s interpretation of freedom, responsibility, and ethical decision-making in concrete personal, social and political situations. In Bonhoeffer’s ethics the experience of becoming guilty in violent acts of resistance in the battle against the evil of national socialism became most relevant. The question of the dirty hands and the acceptance of the consequences of guilt—an important conscience issue for many Christians in the resistance against Hitler—was what influenced the whole resistance movement. In the relationship between state and church for Bonhoeffer, the state in God’s global government has to secure legal rights and peace, freedom and order as far

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as possible; the church has the task to remind the rulers of God’s commandments, God’s justice, God’s kingdom, and the responsibility they have before him. Here Bonhoeffer basically follows Martin Luther’s teachings of the two kingdoms. But the martyr himself did not develop a coherent theory of state. For Bonhoeffer, man, separated from God, was in a situation of shame: “Shame is man’s ineffaceable recollection of his estrangement from the origin; it is grief from this estrangement, and the powerless longing to return to unity with the origin„, Man is ashamed of the loss of his unity with God and with other men.” (Bonhoeffer 1995, p. 24). And this estrangement could lead to the evil results in history he had to witness and in the battle against which he gave his life.

6

Democracy Today: Challenges and Relevance

Can Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, a school of thought which in some respects can be evaluated as a child of the Cold War, still be of help to analyze problems of a world that is characterized by global networks in communications, trade, technology and traffic? Global politics develops in the direction of the greater influence of regional hubs in North America, South East Asia, Latin America and Europa; new power centers in the form of emerging markets have risen like India, Brazil and South Africa that claim a chair at the table. The world can be described as increasingly multipolar (Plagemann 2015). Revisionist states like North Korea or Iran have the ambition to come into the possession of nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia would react to the proceeding Iranian ambitions and trigger a new nuclear arms race. We witness huge ecological and environmental challenges in the form of climate change with their implications, that imply the hothouse-effect by CO2 elimination, melting polar ice and the increase of the water-levels of the oceans, various forms of species extinction, plastic waste—the number of global problems that require global solutions is literally endless. These challenges do not only point to the tensions between ecology and economy and the problems of injustice and lack of solidarity concerning the perspectives of future generations; they reveal the division of the world in the haves and have nots. The decadence of the industrial nations ruins the life opportunities of people in parts of the world that suffer most from the exploitation of raw materials and the industrial overproduction (Milanovic 2012). Another threat concerns the problem of international terrorism. Terrorists with fundamentalistic religious backgrounds often make Western culture and its free

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lifestyle responsible for their own misery. They fight as outcasts against modernism. In countries like Iran or Afghanistan there rage cultural wars between parts of the population who take refuge in atavistic religious concepts and other groups of people that attempt to find their way into modernity. The communication revolution has given them a vision of freedom and self-determination. The fundamentalist islamistic or sectarian groups fight for a lost world. With false promises fundamentalists tempt young people to use violence against nonbelievers in order to get eternal rewards. The hatred of those who feel betrayed, endangers innocent citizens around the world and spreads feelings of insecurity and anxiety everywhere. The problem of worldwide migration is a result of the failure of an increasing number of states, of religious imperialism of religious groups like Boku Haram in Nigeria which culminated in the phenomenon of the Islamic State. This brutal terror organization has committed crimes against humanity and has killed and tortured thousands of people who did not follow their theocratic dictatorship (Filipec 2020). The rise of worldwide migation is another challenge for global political stability. Refugees cross borders and are not welcome in many areas of the world. The Western democratic countries were not capable of developing a common strategy to deal with this problem. It represents the global tensions between poor and rich, underdeveloped and developed countries and individuals, less educated and educated, unfree and free people, between servitude and freedom in the world. The problems and perceptions prevailing drove Niebuhr into socialism in his young years (Dibble 1977), have aggravated since then, because people in the twentyfirst century have found out that misery is not a God given fate that they have silently to endure. The desperate people of this world try to surmount the boundaries, the walls and electric fences. But it is hardly possible to separate between the needy and between people who make use of these processes in order to promote criminal aims in form of terrorism, drug trade or human trafficking. Hybrid forms of warfare, although not new phenomena, destabilize areas in which international law prevails (Murray 2012). Approaches of multi-level governance as tools to govern this complex environment have yet to prove their efficiency.

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The Problem of Populism and Imperialist Ambitions

The growing migration into Western countries has led to rising waves of nationalism and populism. If we consider Donald Trump’s nationalist „America first “-politics, the neo-nationalism in former communist countries like Poland, Hungary or Slovakia, right movements in the Netherlands, in France, Italy or in

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Germany—we observe deep divisions inside these societies. Self-righteous elites versus insecure groups of the socially deprived; people who benefit from rapid globalization versus people who lose their identity and their safety net. Trade conflicts are on the rise between the U. S. and China. Europe is torn between these global superpowers and is not capable to defend itself against revisionist ambitions of Russia. It has no influence to stop Turkey’s neo-imperialism. The future of NATO is uncertain and conflicts between Iran and Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Russia and the Ukraine and the never ending war in Syria have the potential to trigger further refugee waves. The stability of existing nation-states is threatened from inside as well as from the ambitions of imperialist powers. The list of conflicts and crises is long. But why turn to Niebuhr in these stormy times?

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To Understand the Nature of the Conflicts

A cry for justice and a yearning for equality, freedom and love is unmistakable in this imperfect world. Niebuhr’s life was a prophetic struggle to improve the world for the sake of the underprivileged. A second time I remind of his famous dictum: “Man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” and “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible” (Niebuhr 1944, p. IX). Niebuhr does not want to say that liberal democracy offers absolute solutions for all problems. He accepts Christ’s statement in John 12; 8 that “The poor you will always have with you” (quoted in Rohde 2021, ch. 3). Niebuhr contradicts the optimism of Protestant middle-class liberalism as well as a distracted form of socialism; social utopism in general as well as an exaggerated hope in empirical positivism and the idealistic perfectionism of pacifism. That he was an enemy of all forms of totalitarian ideologies is self-evident. He worked hard to support the European resistance against fascism. Representative democracy based on the principles of the constitutional state, equipped with instruments to restrain political powers is, as Niebuhr emphasized, a necessary prerequisite that allows living together in freedom and peace. The ambiguity of human freedom, will and rationality has to be regulated by legal and juridical structures, that were backed by the legitimate monopoly on violence of the state. This was the exclusive possibility for men to combine freedom and order, “however evil his inclinations may be from his youth upwards” (Genesis 8, 21). Freedom could be a creative force that man used for incredible innovations in technical discipline and in science; but it was oftentimes abused and perverted in historical forms of corruption and violence that made people and peoples guilty.

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The combination of freedom and security in international affairs3 and the containment of the power struggle required in Niebuhr’s political realism the construction of systems of a viable balance of power that sometimes had to be based on structures of deterrence. To deal with the problems of the present Niebuhr knew that multilateral systems were indispensable. The late Niebuhr expressed his hope that nation-states could at least sometimes overcome a too narrow definition of their national interest: “The importance of establishing this residual creative freedom in collective man lies not in the possibility of subordinating the lower to the higher or wider interest—but in the possibility that even a residual loyalty to values, transcending national existence, may change radically the nation’s conception of the breadth and quality of its ‘national interest’” (Niebuhr 1965, pp. 76–77).4 This can be referred to nearly all global issue areas, be they climate change and ecological problems in general, the fight against global terrorism, the regulation of cyberspace, the development of standards for a human handling of the refugee problem or the battle against grave social inequalities in and between nations. In constitutional democracies, where the rule of law, human rights and justice prevail, hospitality and solidarity have to be brought in line with requirements of law and order. At the same time, Niebuhr would support sophisticated concepts of foreign aid in order to allow the self-development of nations. From a social and political perspective, immigrants and refugees can strengthen the civil society of societies. A biblical standpoint says that all people, men and women, natives and strangers are equally created in the image of God (Genesis 1, 27) and blessed with dignity. Nevertheless everybody, not only the migrant, but also the native, is a kind of stranger (Leviticus 19, 34) in this finite world. Solidarity must be practiced towards everyone, is one of the demands of the “golden rule” (Matthew 7, 12) and a consequence of the commandment “Love your neighbor” (Leviticus 19, 18; Matthew 5, 43). In crisis situations and in cases of need the law should be interpreted as close to the agape principle as possible. What Niebuhr suggests is to consider Aristotle’s equitableness, ‘aequitas’. Love and justice could help to overcome the fears of people that refugees would compete with them in a way that would make them losers. The challenge of nationalism and populism can only be met and political disputes deescalated if the pluralistic constitutional state guarantees that the problems and fears on all sides are taken seriously. 3

Rohde 2016, p. 210: “Niebuhr’s clear refutation of marxistisch-orthodox ideology targeted cosmopolitan liberalism as well; his criticism created the framework for his foreign policy realism and his democratic realism” (own translation). 4 This Niebuhrian idea is forcefully brought home by Scheuerman 2011, pp. 28–30.

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Niebuhr’s political realism reminds us of the fallibility of all human beings, a lesson, that remains necessary in times of the assumed omnipotence of science. The gift of humility that Niebuhr demands opens up the transcendental dimension. The assumption of original sin (Genesis 3, 5/ 8, 21) and its consequences in personal, social and political life is made concrete in Christian realism. But Niebuhr succeeds in reformulating a concept that seems strange to non-believers, to a wider secular public (Rohde 2016, p. 258). His ideas can be applied to reconciliation processes like these in South Africa (Moon 2008) or Chile where truth & reconciliation commissions translate the message of forgiveness and grace into political steps. Even after World War II, Niebuhr demanded a spirit of reconciliation and worked hard against a further punishment of the destroyed Germany and against a paternalistic form of reeducation what he expressed in his anthology Discerning the Signs of the Times. Furthermore, Christian Realism strengthens secular values like freedom, justice, solidarity, responsibility, and natural sustainability, as they are proclaimed in the 10 commandments (Exodus 20, 1–17), the “golden rule” (Matthew 7, 12) and the commandment of love (Deuteronomy 6, 5/Matthew 22, 37–40). These are realized in form of humility, tolerance and thoughtfulness. This is the framework in which the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany published—in the tradition of Niebuhr and others—a document about democracy as an “offer and instruction”; the publication is called “Evangelische Kirche und freiheitliche Demokratie” (1985). And in “Christentum und politische Kultur” (1997) (Plathow 2018, pp. 164–169) the constructive and critical influence of the reformatorian message for the political culture was complemented. The democratic state in Germany, rooted in the constitution called Grundgesetz (GG) that was created in the year 1949, is grounded in the dignity of all human beings (GG, art. 1) and in the fundamental and human rights (GG, art. 1–19). The preamble “in responsibility before God and man” and GG art. 79, 3, which ordains, that the articles in GG, art. 1–20 are unchangeable, refer to its transcendental dimension. Niebuhr who saw the development of the Bundesrepublik after the war with satisfaction (Niebuhr 1973) would have shared the values of the German constitution with its principles of freedom, equality, and participation at its core. Today democracy responsibility requires the engagement of most citizens in view of the worldwide challenges for people, nations and international institutions on our tiny blue planet, characterized by global and bipolar conflicts in a multipolar, but also multilaterally connected world. For Christians this responsibility means responsibility before God as well.

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The global pandemic has proven man’s ability for solidarity, but the distribution of the vaccine will show whether altruism or egotism in collective form will prevail. The crisis of the year 2020 is a precious reminder how fragile this life is. It is worth remembering the transcendental dimension of our existence.

References Barth, Karl. 1949. Die Unordnung der Welt und Gottes Heilsplan. In: Karl Barth, J. Danielou, and & Niebuhr. R., Amsterdam. Fragen und Antworten. Theologische Existenz Heute 5. München. Barth, Karl. 1946. Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde, In: Theologische Studien 104. Zürich; EVZ Verlag. Beem, Christopher. 2015. Democratic Humility – Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience, and America’s Political Crisis. Lanham: Lexington Books. Bethge, Eberhard. 1970. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Eine Biographie. München. Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1995. Ethics. NYC: Touchstone. Filipec, Ondˇrej. 2020. The Islamic State: from terrorism to totalitarian insurgency. NYC: Routledge. Guilhot, Nicolas 2011. The invention of international relations theory: realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory. NYC: CUP. Harland, Gordon. 1960. The Thought of Reinhold Nebuhr. NewYork: OUP. Mearsheimer, John. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. NYC. Norton. Milanovic, Branko. 2012. The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality. NYC: Basic Books. Moon, Claire. 2008. Narrating political reconciliation: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation. Lanham: Lexington Books. Murray, Williamson ed. 2012. Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present. Cambridge: CUP. Mützlitz, Nina-Dorothee. 2013. Grenzen der Freiheit. Reinhold Niebuhrs theologischpolitischer Beitrag für eine demokratische Gesellschaft. In: Öffentliche Theologie und internationale Politik. Zur Aktualität Reinhold Niebuhrs. Eds.D. Schössler, and M. Plathow, 127–146. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1960 (1932). Moral Man and Immoral Society. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr Reinhold. 1941. The Nature and Destiny of Man. I. Human Nature. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr Reinhold. 1943. The Nature and Destiny of Man. II. Human Destiny. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr Reinhold. 1944. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique if its Traditional Defence. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1947. Democracy as Religion. C & C, Vol. VII., (August 4), pp. 1–2. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1951. Glaube und Geschichte. München: Verlag Paul Müller. (engl. 1949. Faith and History. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold 1951a. Coherence, Incoherence, and Christian Faith. The Journal of Religion, Jul., 1951, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 155–168. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1965. Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence cs. NYC: Scribner.

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Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1973. Germany, Worldview 16, no. 6, pp. 13–18. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 2008 (1952). The Irony of American History. Chicago: UCP. Nye, Joseph R. 2004. Soft Power: The means to success in world politics. NYC: Public Affairs. Plagemann, Johannes. 2015. Cosmopolitanism in a Multipolar World: Soft Sovereignty in Democratic Regional Powers. NYC: Palgrave. Plathow, Michael. 2013. Reinhold Niebuhr und die I. Weltkirchenkonferenz in Amsterdam 1948. Das christliche Zeugnis internationaler Verantwortung. In: Öffentliche Theologie und internationale Politik. Zur Aktualität Reinhold Niebuhrs. Eds. D. Schössler, and M. Plathow, pp. 59–74. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Plathow, Michael. 2019. “Ironie“. Interpretationsmodell der Historie und ihre Bedeutung für Reinhold Niebuhrs politische Theologie heute. In: Multipolarität und bipolare Konflikte. Politisch, theologische und weltanschauliche Aspekte transatlantischer Beziehungen. Eds. D. Schössler, and M. Plathow, pp. 1–17. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Plathow, Michael. 2018. Liebe und Recht. Leipzig. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Rice, Daniel. 2013. Reinhold Niebuhr and his Circle of Influence. Cambridge.Wm. B. Eerdmans. Rohde, Christoph. 2021. Der Krieg und das Kreuz - Prämissen einer realistischen katholischen Friedensethik. Rückersdorf. Lepanto Verlag. Rohde, Christoph 2016. Die Geburt des christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes. (Beiträge zur politischen Wissenschaft, Bd 185). Berlin. Duncker & Humblot. Schössler, Dietmar/Plathow, Michael (Eds.) 2013. Öffentliche Theologie und internationale Politik. Zur Aktualität Reinhold Niebuhrs. Transatlantische Studien Bd I. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Schössler, Dietmar/Plathow, Michael (Eds.) 2019. Multipolarität und bipolare Konfrontationen. Politische, theologische und weltanschauliche Aspekte transatlantischer Beziehungen. Transatlantische Beziehungen Bd II. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Schössler, Dietmar. 2013. Reinhold Niebuhr: Sein Leben und Werk. In: Öffentliche Theologie und internationale Politik. Zur Aktualität Reinhold Niebuhrs. Eds. D. Schössler, and M. Plathow, 13 -58. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sifton, Elisabeth. 2003. The Serenity Prayer – Faith and Politics in the Times of Peace and War. NYC: Norton & Company. Splinter, Dieter. 1998. Theologe zwischen den Welten. Reinhold Niebuhr und die „Deutsche Evangelische Synode in Nord-Amerika“ 1892 -1928. Aachen. Shaker Verlag. Stone, Ronald 2012. Politics and Faith: Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Seminary in New York. Macon: Mercer University Press. Steel, Brent J. 2019. Restraint in International Relations. Cambridge: CUP. Tillich, Paul. 1952. The Courage to Be. New Haven. Yale University Press. Tillich, Paul. 1961. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Doctrine of Knowledge. In Reinhold Niebuhr. His religious, social and political thought. Eds. Charles W. Kegley, and R. W. Bretall. pp. 36– 43. NYC: H & B.

Reinhold Niebuhr: State Governance in Times of Crisis Ingmar Niemann

Abstract

In this contribution, it will be shown how Niebuhr’s anthropology shaped his outlook on the nation-state and its role in international politics. Thereby, the role of the statesman and teacher of the people and as representative of their interests is stressed. Reasons for his influence on diplomats and important personalities are given. The articles concludes that Niebuhr’s thinking is timely in times of a renaissance of great power politics and the emergence of a new challenger to the U. S. hegemony. Keywords

Christian Realism • Power politics • Irony of American History Containment policy

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Introductory Remarks

Reinhold Niebuhr was a theologian and political writer of the twentieth century. His intellectual heritage has been rediscovered in recent years in which the crisis of the Western world and of democratic systems has emerged once again. In this contribution I intend to show that his power conscious approach can help I thank Christoph Rohde for a valuable discussion concerning the topics of this paper and for important information with reference to more recent publication on Niebuhr. I. Niemann (B) Wolfratshausen, Germany © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_8

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us to understand some of the problems we witness in our times. The contribution starts with a presentation of Niebuhr’s evolution from a pacifist to a realist. Next, the consequence of his resulting pessimistic anthropology was that the principle of the balance-of-power was domestically and in the international sphere a necessary principle to avoid the worst historical disasters. For Niebuhr, it was the mission of statesmen to guide their nation-states through the dangerous waters of international politics. His preference for a specific style of diplomacy will be discussed and personalities mentioned that came close to Niebuhr’s ideal. Finally, I maintain that despite some minor flaws in his assessments, Niebuhr’s overall worldview is still of remarkable value in times of a renaissance of hegemonial conflicts in the international sphere.

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The Evolution of Realist Niebuhr’s Thinking

At the beginning of the first World War, Niebuhr was a unknown pastor of a small German-speaking congregation in Detroit. Born in 1892 as the son of German immigrants, he was linguistically and culturally influenced by his German heritage. During the First World War he acted as an American patriot and urged his fellow citizens of German descent to support the USA in the conflict with the German Reich (Rohde 2016, pp. 47ff.). However, should not Niebuhr, as a committed Christian, also have been an avowed pacifist? After his “hurra patriotism” (Splinter 1998, p. 97) he became one. Already during the war, he came to the conclusion that war was a result of economic motives and, therefore, had to be rejected in principle: “It is unnecessary to establish here that the principal cause of modern warfare is commercial warfare. Economic issues underlie practically all national animosities. This, then, is the stuff that modern nationalism is made of, at least in so far as it is manifested in modern warfare” (Niebuhr 1916, p. 614). This impression strengthened when he realized that the US entry into the war was motivated less by moral than by economic reasons (Rohde 2016, p. 185). As a Christian with Marxist convictions, he was involved in the Socialist Party of the USA for a while until the end of the 1930s. During this period, he was not one hundred percent committed to the principle of non-violence. The use of violence was an option for him to defend the interests of disadvantaged groups in society: “… equality is a higher social goal than peace” (Niebuhr 1932, p. 235). His originally pacifist convictions continued to erode as a result of his work in the Detroit parish Bethel. His increasing realism towards social processes was supported by his recognition that states had to defend their interests in a

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fundamentally violent world. While individuals could potentially act in morally ambitious ways, states had to adopt to the rules of the balance-of-power dynamics in the international power competition. His distinction between Moral Man and Immoral Society (MM) constituted the title of a book he published in 1932. Paul Oestreicher, former director of the International Center for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral, summarized these ideas as follows: “Man can sacrifice himself, can be idealistic, can enforce high principles for himself in his life. But the collective is inherently incapable of acting idealistically. A government has a duty to protect its own people and cannot sacrifice its own people as Jesus did” (Bertsch 2013). Collective idealism is impossible, claimed Oestreicher regarding Niebuhr’s quite radical thesis. The best that can be achieved is a legal system that questions and sometimes tames the egoism of the collective. “We can only fall back on the law but not on love. Love can be only be exercised by the individual, including love for one’s enemies, but the collective can only live based on law, i.e. police enforcing the law” (Bertsch 2013). “The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world,” is the original quote that impressively reflects this interpretation. Justice, the key element of Niebuhr’s political thinking, became the focus of his practical and analytical concerns. Niebuhr did not develop a political philosophy of his own, but he wrote in-depth analyses on topics such as the problems of the state, power and interest. There are several reasons why Niebuhr broke away from pacifism. One of them was his perception of the failure of the League of Nations in the interwar period. This liberal institution that was established by U. S. President Woodrow Wilson in the hope to achieve a lasting global peace was not accepted in the U. S. Senate, where a membership of the U. S. was bluntly rejected. When in late 1930s the Japanese provoked military incidents in Manchuria and subsequently gradually annexed parts of China and Mussolini’s Italy occupied Abyssinia in 1935, it became clear that the multilateral institution was unable to curb the aggressors. Not only his early pacifist vision had ultimately failed when it was confronted with the emerging fascism in Europe but also his belief in the viability of institutional stability. The unwillingness to defend one’s own civilization against radical illiberal ideologies was completely incomprehensible to him (Niebuhr 1940, pp. 778–779). The British policy of appeasement was just one of many factors that pointed to a general lack of understanding of the looming threat the fascist nations represented. Nevertheless, the successes of fascism were the end of all pacifist hopes to still be able to prevent a global war. What remained was the US peace movement’s hope to at least avoid an American involvement into a future war. As Niebuhr wrote in 1934: “There is very little that can be done to stop an international war … the main program of peace forces must now be to

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stiffen the opposition of all classes to our participation in the next war” (Niebuhr 1934, pp. 132–133). A few years later, Niebuhr had turned into a proponent of military measures against evil powers. He realized that a Christian ethic had proven itself in the relentlessness of real life. How can the longing for peace be implemented in an immoral, widely inhuman world of states? One answer can be found Niebuhr’s concept of “responsible interventionism”. This concept included the idea that the freedom of states should be defended against totalitarian regimes even with a justified use of force, if necessary (Niebuhr 1940). He accepted the tragic fact that such use of force could possibly be immoral. Therefore, he supported both the carpet bombing during the World War II, which he regarded as a strategic necessity as well as the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Diggins 2010, p. 64) although the use of these bomb was “morally indefensible”. Niebuhr did not develop clear set of criteria for a jus in bello. Therefore, he did not condemn the bombardments of Hamburg and Dresden, which killed over 100,000 people, mostly civilians. (Erwin 2013, p. 85) He defended everything that seemed pragmatically or strategically necessary. The USA would not act based on a higher morality, but morally deficient, since as a state in an anarchical environment, it could not endanger its own survival. “Christian realism” was now the approach that Niebuhr wanted to act on. He supported the Allies in World War II and spoke out in favor of the US involvement in the war, as a victory by the Axis powers would threaten the existence of Christianity (Niebuhr 1941a, p.1). His reputation as Professor at the UTS gave his word weight. The existence of sin in the world was reality; pacifism as an expression of agape love was a laudable attitude for religious people but not a realistic precept for statesmen to act on. In Niebuhr’s worldview, the human free will lead with necessity to morally deficient outcomes. Norm and reality can never be brought in full accordance.

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The Balance-of-Power as Necessary Answer to Human Weaknesses

The consequence for the practice was that power had to be balanced by power. Human beings that disposed of unrestrained power were tempted to abuse this power and “play God”. Historically, corrupted governments and oppressive systems often were the result of human self-deification that was the cause of the possession of uncontrolled power by finite beings. Hitler and Stalin were no historical exceptions.

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Niebuhr was not the only theoretical analyst of international politics support of the US intervention in World War II. As early as the 1930s, when the Roosevelt administration took office, some well-known scholars joined the school of “powerpolitical realism”.1 Most of them worked at the Institute of International Studies at Yale University, which was founded in 1935 with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation (Pijl 1996, p. 217). Their concept of war was an interpretation in Clausewitz’s sense. As Nicolas J. Spykman put it in his book America’s Strategy in World Politics in 1942: “The international community is a world in which war is an instrument of national policy and the national domain is the military base from which the state fights and prepares for war during the temporary armistice called peace. In terms of that location, it must conduct its military strategy in war time, and in terms of that location, it should conduct its political strategy in peace time” (cited in Kaplan 1984, p. 20). Niebuhr formulated this attitude more diplomatically: “The dream of perpetual peace and brotherhood for human society is one which will never be fully realised” and, in keeping with the Hobbesian tradition, he added that society “is in a perpetual state of war” (Spykman, cited in Fox 1985, p. 140). The “schizophrenic” attitude of American culture to the problem of power has become increasingly evident in the decades-long debates between “idealists” and “realists” regarding the shaping U. S. foreign policy, even before Niebuhr. The diaries of the former US Secretary of State James Forrestal shed light on the depth of this tension. Forrestal wrote in a note in 1944: “Our problem—to achieve a solution between the power we now possess, our reluctance to use it positively, the realistic necessity for such use, and our national ideals” (cited in Stourzh 1955, p. 102). A similar position was taken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his message to Congress on January 6, 1945: “In the future world the misuse of power, as implied in the term ‘power politics’, must not be a controlling factor in international relations. That is the heart of the principles to which we have committed. We cannot deny that power is a factor in world politics any more than we can deny its existence as a factor in national politics. But in a democratic world, as in a democratic nation, power must be combined with responsibility, and the obligation to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good” (Stourzh 1955, p. 102). Cordell Hull, an idealist, and US Secretary of State with the longest term in office, did not believe in the need for a power factor in international relations. Returning from the Moscow Conference in 1943, he said: With the establishment 1

Well-known scholars of this group included F.S. Dunn, Arnold Wolfers and Nicolas J. Spykman.

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of the United Nations, “there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their interests” (Hull 1948, Bd. II, p. 1314–15). This kind of a Wilsonian idealism, which is also evident in Hull’s statement, had no longer convinced Niebuhr at the end of the interwar period and later after World War II. After a visit to Germany in September 1946, which gave him an impression of the oppressive occupation policies of the allies, particularly in the Eastern zone, he concluded that the Soviets under Stalin intended to bring all of Europe under their control (Rohde 2016, pp. 149ff.). Because he had developed close relationships to German leaders who worked in the resistance movement, he also became an advisor to the State Department. His reports concerning the German situation were published by Time, Life and Reader’s Digest, so that the pastor from Michigan quickly became a well-known and popular figure in the transatlantic world. He also received admission to the Council on Foreign Relations, arranged by CIA chief Allen Dulles (Brown 2002, p. 129). Niebuhr’s anti-communist approach was also shared by another influential US diplomat: George F. Kennan. As a long-time observer of developments in the USSR, Kennan held the opinion that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “one-world” vision should be replaced by a realistic alternative in terms of power politics. The opportunity for its implementation was favorable when, in February 1946, the Soviet Union was not willing to join the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. In the “Long Telegram”, Kennan, in his former role as US deputy head of the mission in Moscow, maintained that Stalin was a fanatical revolutionary with whom peaceful coexistence was not possible (Yergin 1980, p. 168). This document is also considered to be the foundation of the US containment policy (Kissinger 1995, p. 436–443). In this note, Kennan held the opinion that Stalin could not afford a confrontation with the United States while building his communist system. But, over time, some observers, including Walter Lippmann, questioned Kennan’s assessment, viewing it as defensive and fatalistic (Mayers 1990, pp. 114–116). Kennan in turn replied that developments in countries such as Greece, Turkey and Iran show that the Truman Doctrine and the containment policy associated with it was, in fact, working (Mayers 1990, p. 116–117). Kennan never made a secret of the fact that he never “considered the Soviet Union a suitable ally or a real or possible partner for this country” (Yergin 1980, p. 66). Niebuhr agreed and held the opinion concerning the Soviet Union, that “we do face once more the distinction between relative justice and tyranny.” Communism, he explained is “an organized evil which spreads terror and cruelty throughout the world and confronts us everywhere with faceless men who are

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immune to every form of moral and political suasion.” By the late 1940s Niebuhr concluded that “Russian truculence (…) cannot be mitigated by further concessions”; therefore “we must be ready to risk war (…) rather than yield to Russian pressure” (cited in Berke 1992). Niebuhr was part of a group of influential diplomats and theorists of international politics who, with their anti-communist attitude, laid the ideological foundations for a power politics based on realistic principles and who, with their critical views on the Soviet expansion, contributed significantly to the escalation of the Cold War in its early stages.

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Niebuhr’s Assessment of Diplomatic Personalities

Niebuhr believed that the USA was insufficiently prepared for a confrontation with the Soviet Union. In a whole chapter of his major historiographical work IAH he talked about the diplomatic immaturity of the nation. Additionally, the U. S. believed in a naïve way to be the “most innocent nation on earth”: “The irony of our situation lies in the fact that we could not be virtuous (in the sense that we practice the virtues which are implicit in meeting our vast world responsibilities) if we were really as innocent as we pretend to be (Niebuhr 2008, p. 23). In other words: If the U.S. were really an innocent nation, they would be necessarily an irresponsible nation! For him, the quality of statesmen was a decisive variable that determined the well-being of a nation-state to a high degree. The Constructive Role of Statemen in History But his intellectual perspective of those statesmen who took over responsibilities in world history was not as pessimistic. His focus on leaders as examples offers interesting insights. Reflecting upon the ancient role models of wise teachers, he considered statesmen as rulers who, at the same time, also act as educators of the people. For Niebuhr, a wise American statesman should be Praeceptor Americae, who can realistically thwart the illusions of Wilsonian internationalism. He was therefore in search for the “ideal statesman”, a figure who shapes the state, and whose exemplary and prominent character makes the actions of the state more understandable. In Niebuhr’s opinion, there had already been excellent statesmen of this kind in US history. First, there was Abraham Lincoln: In Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address, a time when the civil war was almost over, he pointed out, that charity is preferable than retribution, as Mark Noll describes it. Lincoln did not celebrate the victory of the unionists as a prove of the righteous of its own cause. Although providence played

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for Lincoln a significant role in the fate of the nation, he did not claim revenge against the confederates. Besides this, the USA “might not be a uniquely chosen nation” (Noll 2005, p. 425–437). In this sense, Lincoln was a President of reconciliation who had “malice toward none and charity towards all.” Lincoln counts as a president who resolved the confrontation by having the courage to accept the interests of the opponent, insofar as this was compatible with his own convictions. At least, it was a remarkable act of humility, a character trait that was on top of Niebuhr’s preference list (Beem 2015). Secondly, Niebuhr praised the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This comes to no surprise, as Niebuhr himself had urged Roosevelt to support Great Britain with all available means when France was defeated in World War II and the island had to face the Third Reich alone for a few months. Niebuhr described this phase as crucial: “The next three months may be the turning point of world history” (cited in Erwin 2013, p. 69). His concern was not so much the direct military participation of the US in the war, but rather the economic and supportive measures that the United States could offer to England (Niebuhr 1941a, p. 2). Roosevelt acted in a spirit that Niebuhr appreciated. Moreover, with the American participation in the war that was forced by Japan’s reckless attack on Pearl Harbor, the President ended the naive internationalist peace policy that was pursued by President Woodrow Wilson and which Niebuhr had so strongly rejected. In addition, Roosevelt was also a moral role model for him, as he promoted human rights nationally and internationally. The domestic “New Deal” in the 1930s that he enforced against the American liberal myth was a Keynesian program to stipulate demand and lower unemployment rate achieved to alleviate the worst effects of the depression. During the war, the Atlantic Charter that he initiated together with Winston Churchill, gave moral guidance to the world in the dark times of the war. However, Roosevelt was not primarily an idealist, but he considered the global spread of human rights a by-product in the development of a new world order. (Holleman 1987, p. 329). And this world order was based on stable power relations not only on the belief in moral progress. Niebuhr’s Preference for a Moderate U. S. Leadership Niebuhr demanded the USA to take a leading role in the free world without exercising global hegemony. In this context, he praised Henry Stimson, who was Secretary of Defense in the Roosevelt administration, and Paul Hoffmann, who organized the successful implementation of the Marshall Plan under Henry Truman. The theologian believed that both withstood popular isolationism and led the US to a mature global leadership (Niebuhr 1952, p. 17).

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But the Vietnam conflicts in which the United States were robed into showed that this diplomatic maturity was always endangered by statesmen who were led by ideological concerns instead of sober calculations of interest. Accordingly, Niebuhr viewed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s critically. Even though he supported Kennedy’s policy in the region in the early sixtieth, he was critical of the later escalation in Southeast Asia that was the result of a massive troop build-up in 1965. Although he believed that the USA could not withdraw from South Vietnam because of the credibility of its imperial position (Dorrien 2009, p. 137), from 1966 on, he turned away from the domino theory (Rohde 2016, p. 182) and followed the insights of his realist fellow Hans J. Morgenthau who had anticipated the coming disaster for the U.S. in Vietnam at a very early stage (Rohde 2004, pp. 257ff). Niebuhr, who died in 1971, did not accept Richard Nixon as a capable political leader, out of moral, intellectual, and political reasons. One of his latest pieces included a shot against the hypocrisy of the President who later resigned as the first president in U. S. history (Niebuhr 1969). Finally, it can be summarized that the figure of the statesman was an important element in Niebuhr’s Christian realism because the statesman had the important task of reconciling individual and collective morality and to guide the state in the heavy waters of the anarchical international system. And the moral imperfections of human beings had to be taken into consideration if the actions of a statesman were assessed: “The moral achievements of statesmen must be judged in terms which take account of the limitations of human society which the statesman must, and the prophet need not, consider” (Niebuhr 1976, p. 7). Niebuhr’s Influence on the Scientific Community Several political scientists, including George F. Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz and Samuel P. Huntington, as well as political historians, such as Richard Hofstaedter, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Christopher Lasch, have confirmed Niebuhr’s influence on their thinking. Schlesinger described the legacy of Niebuhr as being “contested between American liberals and conservatives, both of whom wanted to claim him” (Berke 1992). Interestingly, neoconservatives like George Weigel, Peter Beinart, or Anatol Lieven have also found an interest in Niebuhr. They made use of his work IAH in order to criticize the hybris of the American globalist elites and their moralistic attitudes (e. g. Beinart 2011). Niebuhr’s complex thought can be interpreted in many directions. But he influenced the worldview of many contemporary and future decision-makers. Niebuhr’s fellow realist Hans J. Morgenthau opposed the popular liberal “One World Vision” at the end of World War II as well. He basically shared Niebuhr’s

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pessimistic anthropology and the assumption of man’s innate striving for power that led to a inter-state conflicts and organized forms of violence (Morgenthau 1946, p. 194–195). But Niebuhr did not influence the constitution of Morgenthau’s school of classical realism. His ideas also come to fruition in neorealism. Kenneth Waltz, for example, often quotes Niebuhr in his fundamental work “Man, the State, and War”. In particular, “the impossibility of human perfection” is a topic that plays a central role in Waltz’s thinking. The struggle for power, a central concept in both theories, is therefore the driver of internal affairs and foreign policy. U. S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson quoted Niebuhr and mentioned the “element of moral ambiguity that is always present in historical responsibilities” in a 1950 speech (Stourzh 1955, p. 107). For Acheson it was the the task of a mature political leadership to bring the great physical power and moral idealism of the USA together in politics (Acheson 1950, pp. 799–801). Niebuhr served four US presidents, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Truman and Johnson as a “moral advisor” and an independent critic of the state at the same time. President Lyndon B. Johnson presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 for his tireless commitment against totalitarianism and for democratic freedom. Niebuhr remained influential even after his death in 1971. Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton have confirmed Niebuhr’s influence in their thinking. In the 2008 presidential campaign, both candidates, Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, pinpointed to Niebuhr’s analyses as influential on their thinking. President Barack Obama even called Niebuhr his “favourite philosopher” as well as his “favourite theologian” (Pew Research Centre 2009). It was therefore no surprise that he based his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize on the ideas and considerations of Reinhold Niebuhr and Mahatma Gandhi. In doing so, he used Niebuhr’s conceptual framework to give military measures a targeted, peaceful function as peace president: “War is terrible and at the same time sometimes necessary, and this seemingly irreconcilable truths requires the international community to develop higher standards both for justifying war and for waging war. War can only be avoided with a just peace based on a shared commitment to political freedom, respect for human rights and concrete strategies to expand economic opportunities around the world” (Obama 2020, pp. 621–622). These words would probably never have stemmed from Gandhi’s lips, but with reference to Niebuhr’s thinking, violent means in specified situations for Obama could contribute to peace in the long run. What would Niebuhr think about a President Donald Trump? In the spirit of nineteenth century President Andrew Jackson, whose supporters are extremely critical of

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the globalist belief in world reforms through international law, multilateralism, and humanitarian interventions (Cha 2017, p. 86), this president was not a supporter of the traditional post-war liberal beliefs. But his cautious foreign policy—withdrawal of larger troop contingents from the crisis regions of the Middle East, intensification of diplomatic efforts in the conflict between the Arab states and Israel, etc.—shows that this administration understood Niebuhr’s fundamental conviction: Amplifying the position of power, as the Bush administration in the Middle East did in its conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, does not strengthen the role of the USA, but rather weakens it over time (Mearsheimer 2018, pp. 164–165). He was thus in agreement with other realists including Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, or Christopher Layne who believed that waging wars in the periphery of world politics weakens the national interest of the USA, which they demonstrated using the example of the Vietnam conflict and its consequences for the role of the USA in the world (Rohde 2004, pp. 262–269) as well as more recent interventions like that in Libya.

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Niebuhr’s Estimate of the Post-war U. S. Foreign Policy

In his famous 1952 book IAH, Niebuhr analysed essential determinants that influenced the history of the United States. He makes use of literal figures like pathos, tragedy and irony that transcend purely scientific categories of analysis. For instance, Niebuhr classifies natural disasters as pathetic, because nature does not answer the question why things happen. These are events that are beyond human influence. Furthermore, the theologian regards historical decisions as tragic in which evil results are deliberately accepted to achieve morally justified outcomes. Thus, the dropping of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, in his opinion, were necessary means to force a timely peace with Japan that saved many lives of American soldiers. Generally, however, he diagnosed a tragic dilemma when nations needed nuclear weapons in order to avoid major conflicts with help of a precarious balance of horror (Niebuhr 1952, p. 1).2 Niebuhr particularly emphasised the importance of the stylistic tool of irony for the understanding of American history. He identified several threats in various paradoxical situations in which the US was entangled in the Cold War: A vice 2

“Ultimately [the possession of nuclear weapons] may equalize military strength because it places a fairly cheap form of destructiveness in the hands of even weak nations, provided they have uranium deposits” (quoted from Rohde 2016, p. 174).

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can grow out of arrogant praise of one’s own virtue, overconfidence in relation to one’s own strength can result in weakness and excessive striving for security intensifies the general feeling of insecurity in the sense of a security dilemma (Lepenies 2007, p. 4). Niebuhr described these paradoxes in an almost artistic way, so it deserves a longer quote: “A comic situation is proven to be an ironic one if a hidden relation is discovered in the incongruity. If virtue becomes vice through some hidden defect in the virtue; if strength becomes weakness because of the vanity to which strength may prompt the mighty man or nation; if security is transmuted into insecurity because too much reliance is placed upon it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not know its own limits—in all such cases the situation is ironic” (Niebuhr 1952, p. xxiv). The irony of the history of the United States lay mainly in the fact that the United States became the leading world power almost against its will, at least rather unplanned and always with noble intentions. Was that why they kept their self-image of an “innocent nation”? And was the United States involved in global conflicts only because they were called to help, so that their power was ultimately only an Empire by Invitation (Lundstad 1999), as some liberal idealists or neoconservatives claimed? Niebuhr clearly contradicted these ideas. For him, the occupation of the continent and the expansion to the west were examples of the will to power, also practised by the Americans, who immaturely considered themselves innocent, but practically represented an imperialist power (Lepenies 2007, p. 5). Regarding the Cold War, Niebuhr saw an “ironic ambiguity” in the relationship between the USA and the communist states. The rival’s self-righteousness would be answered by their own self-righteousness. One of his powerful expressions said: “The world is not going down because of criminals, but because of people who pride themselves to be fair.” Niebuhr’s concept of the state is dynamic and embedded in the structure of the international system. For him, the priority was not to create a barely achievable global harmony, but rather to implement a “restrictive concept of national interest” (Rohde 2016, p. 196). Nationalistic self-infliction should be avoided through wise statesmanship; on the other hand, wise self-interest should be at the centre of governmental action. Another important message of IAH concerns the dangers of fundamentalism in world politics. In Niebuhr’s understanding, threats of this kind must not be countered with ideological counterinsurgencies, but with a sober and resolute interest politics that renounces an exaggerated sense of mission (Lepenies 2004, p. 3). Although Islamic fundamentalism did not play a major role in world politics during Niebuhr’s lifetime, Niebuhr’s structural comparison of communism and radical Islam is quite interesting: “The rise of communism in our world is comparable

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to the rise of Islam and its challenge to Christian civilisation in the high Middle Ages. Some of the measures we take against it are informed by the same lack of realism which characterised the Crusades. The Islamic power finally waned. It was destroyed not so much by its foes as by its own inner corruptions” (Niebuhr 2008, p. 128). Two years earlier, he had almost prophetically opposed the extremes of totalitarian Islam: “The invasion of Europe by Mohammedanism offers the best historical parallel to our present situation. Its fierce equalitarianism and its readiness to use any means to achieve its ends sharpen the analogy” (Niebuhr 1950, p. 343). According to Niebuhr, only military measures prevented Islam from penetrating Central Europe (Niebuhr 1950, pp. 341–342). Should this statement be interpreted as an invitation to take containment measures at an early stage to prevent the further spread of political Islam? That Niebuhr was sometimes also guilty of attitudes he criticized is shown in the following example: Eight years after the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, he wrote that Great Britain did not want to endanger his relationship with the United States and largely gave in. In the treaty, most US proposals were put through, in particular the reduction and limitation of the total tonnage of the capital ship fleet of the former naval power Great Britain to the same level as for the emerging naval power USA, to 500,000 tons. The same applied to aircraft carriers, which were limited to 135,000 tons for both powers. Niebuhr interpreted this, almost arrogantly, that the United Kingdom “has definitely capitulated to our supremacy” (Niebuhr 1930, pp. 106–108). Does the irony of American history apply only to politicians but not also to theologians?

6

Niebuhr’s Institutional Scepticism—The Illusion of World Government

The globalization of the challenges facing mankind, the development of technology and communication after the Second World War, and the increasing international economic interdependence led to mutual dependencies between international players, which, however, did not result in political and moral rapprochements that could have contained major conflicts (Niebuhr 1949, p. 379). The reality of nuclear weapons, which had the potential for the global destruction of humanity, led to a new existential threat. The 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis during John F. Kennedy’s presidency later confirmed the real possibility of a potential nuclear Holocaust (Jervis 1976). As the much more realistic decision-makers had learned the lessons of the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s, it seemed possible to establish a

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more efficient global organisation to deal with this problem. Niebuhr discussed the options intensively in his journal C&C (Rohde 2016, pp. 276–277). President Franklin D. Roosevelt hoped that the United Nations could be a milestone in the realization of the idea of a “One World Policy” although he was not a naïve Wilsonian idealist as was shown beforehand. Niebuhr, however, had doubts whether the United Nations could compensate for the shortfalls of the League of Nations. While the USSR vetoed the provision of armed forces by the UN Security Council, the U. S. had to establish an alliance of the ‘willing’ against the North Korean aggression in the Korean war that started in June 1950, which then, as a result of Soviet ineptness, turned into a UN-mandated intervention against North Korean aggression (Kindermann 2001, pp. 344ff). The right of veto, however, remained the defining structural principle of the Cold War that paralysed the United Nations regarding peace building measures. It was only after the Cold War that humanitarian interventions created lasting confidence-building measures in favour of the peace organisation (Baumann 2014), but this instrument does not substitute for the liberal hopes for a global government. For Niebuhr it was just an illusion that “could only captivate the most abstract idealists” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 278). Niebuhr criticized optimists who thought that the UNESCO could be the starting point for a world government: “… the difficulty with UNESCO is that its idealism is informed by a too simple universalism. Its idealists burke the tragic realities of life: the conflicts of interest which cannot easily be composed; the perils of war which cannot be simply overcome; the power of collective egoism which is not easily sublimated” (Davis and Good 1960, p. 260). The reality of international politics had put an end to mankind’s dream of being able to live under one roof, led by a world government. Niebuhr could only reject the idea of world peace through naïve forms of collective security. Niebuhr saw no organic binding forces of the world community, nor the necessary prestige for a world government that could develop in a relatively short time period. He considered traditional, historical, organic and natural factors of communal cohesion, such as a common language, ethnic kinship, geographical factors, shared experiences and threats as binding forces. (Davis and Good 1960, p. 99) He was also critical of the necessary transfer of sovereignty between states: Why should powerful states, unlike weaker ones, hand over their sovereignty to a world government? Legislative processes would not work on a global playing field as effectively as it did in nation-states (Rohde 1996, p. 36). Instead, Niebuhr hoped, that regional systems of order would emerge as it did in Europe under the forceful leadership of the U. S. A collective form of representation of interests could produce a global balance of power, a constellation

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that could put off the burden from America to be the policeman of the world. Instead, the U.S. could participate in a global balance-of-power system, albeit as a leading power in the alliance of western democracies. Nevertheless, the United Nations also represented something positive for Niebuhr: “The one objective is to preserve the unity of one world, even though it be seriously divided, and to provide a meeting ground between east and west where some of the tensions and frictions may be resolved. The other is to preserve our ‘way of life’ against a tyrannical system which we abhor” (Niebuhr 1958, pp. 93– 94). The ideological goals were indeed contradictory, but for Niebuhr there existed a suitable substance of peaceful coexistence that enabled the competitors to use rational diplomacy in order to prevent the worst (Rohde 1996, p. 40). And even though he saw little chance to establish an integrated world community, he did not claim that the attempt in itself was a mistake. First steps in this direction would be possible, because despite difficult global conditions, people and states were not prisoners of historical fate: “We shall have constant opportunity to perfect instruments of peace and justice if we succeed in creating some communal foundation upon which constitutional structures we can rest. We shall exploit our opportunities the more successfully, however, if we have knowledge of the limits of the will in creating government, and of the limits of government in creating community” (Niebuhr 1958, p. 104). Scheuerman has shown that the late Niebuhr grew in faith concerning global reforms in the direction of a more integrated world community (Scheuerman 2011, p. 74).

7

Human Beings Will Not Change—Do States?

“This pluralism must necessarily include the right of non-believers to convict the believers when faith is not fruitful of justice. It also includes the right and duty of the empirical and historical disciplines to subject religious symbols to scrutiny and criticism” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 27). Niebuhr’s Christian Realism did not claim to have unmasked the absolute truth about men. To represent Christian values does not mean that moral systems, stemming from other religious or secular sources, could not be meaningful and justified in a pluralistic world. However, what really mattered was that a faith allowed the constitution of a political form of government that made pluralism possible.

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“Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems” (Niebuhr 1944, p. 118). Niebuhr was convinced of the idea that democracies and democrats can solve problems better than any other political system. Democracies would have a legitimate right to impose their interests, if necessary, even by violent means, but they had to do so “in an awareness of their own fallibility” (Lepenies 2004, p. 3)—important words in times of the corona pandemic in which in many democratic states basis democratic rights are temporarily restricted. Every exercise of power should be accompanied by a twinge of conscience. With this anthropological perspective, a self-confident policy, equipped with reasonable self-doubt and a good dose of humility, had to be implemented and enforced. The Perils of an Inadequate Image of Man Man was captured in the contradiction that his creative power allowed the mastery of matter to a high degree but that he was impotent to master his own self. This gap was the reason for the tension he lived in between the perceived omnipotence and deeply felt powerlessness (Niebuhr 1941a). The central aspect of Niebuhr’s Christian Realism is the recognition that a wrong political image of man can have serious consequences: Misjudgement of the motives and possibilities of one’s own and of other actors’ actions could lead to fatal foreign policy decisions (Kindermann 1965, p. 297). Misperceptions had nearly led to a horrendous nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Misunderstandings in the South Chinese sea or in the Black sea could provoke dangerous conflicts in our days. Inadequate estimates or American misjudgements arose, for example, in the analysis of Soviet foreign policy at the end of the Second World War, or in the consideration of the political character of Chinese communism as well as in the possibilities and limits of the United Nations (Kindermann 1965, p. 300). The domino theory (Jervis 2017, pp. 248–250) is one of the classical misperceptions that led to the failed interventions of the USA in Vietnam and later in Iraq and Libya (Mearsheimer 2018). Some Intellectual Flaws in Niebuhr’s Thinking But how does Niebuhr’s image of man manifest itself in his own attitudes? In evaluating political actors, the theologian was not free from prejudices: He felt a deep dislike for the French, because he blamed them for the Versailles treaties and thus saw the entire French nation as morally responsible (Pijl 1996, p. 220). In his view, the Russians had the mission of counteracting the complacency of the Anglo-Saxon people and preventing the world from falling victim to uncontrolled capitalism (Pijl 1996, p. 220). This certainly did not mean that he considered the communist Soviet Union as a strategic partner, but at least, he saw even in a nation

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he declared as an enemy, ideas that could be understood as correctives with respect to undesirable developments of his own nation. This shows that Niebuhr did not divide the real world in good and evil although he made use of this image in his spiritual thinking.

8

Conclusion: Niebuhr’s Views—Left-Wing Patriotism or Merely Prejudices?

Whittaker Chambers wrote about Niebuhr in his last cover story for the influential Time magazine (March 1948): “Most U.S. liberals think of Niebuhr as a solid socialist who has some obscure connection with Union Theological Seminary that does not interfere with his political work. Unlike most clergymen in politics, Dr. Niebuhr is a pragmatist. Says James Loeb, secretary of Americans for Democratic Action: Most so-called liberals are idealists. They let their hearts run away with their heads. Niebuhr never does. For example, he has always been the leading liberal opponent of pacifism. In that period before we got into the war when pacifism was popular, he held out against it steadfastly. He is also an opponent of Marxism” (Chambers 1948, pp. 72 ff.). Although Niebuhr had welcomed the nuclear armament of the West as part of the containment policy, the Berlin crisis of 1961 gave him a concrete impression of what a nuclear threat and the possibility of a nuclear war could mean (Berke 1992). From this time on, he began to speak of the USSR as a “partner” in avoiding a nuclear Holocaust and began to advocate a mild form of multilateralism: i.e., that America should renounce a first use of nuclear weapons, since such means would burden a society with unendurable guilt. Does that mean that he did return to his pacifist roots? Hardly. He was interested in left-wing patriotism, a patriotic attitude that is defensive in character insofar that it is not driven by the ideological sense of mission of the political left. In recent years this crusading mentality has been discussed several times in the U. S. election campaigns under the heading “Hawkish Left”. However, without any real recognizable success—because the left in the USA is still awaiting “their Niebuhr”! (Lepenies 2004, p. 5). Liberal internationalism as a scientific approach in the analysis of international relations is the dominant intellectual approach in the U. S. epistemic community; dissenters have difficulties to come to successful careers (Walt 2019). The Biden administration has already proven in its early stage that it intends to restore this thinking in its diplomatic practice.

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The reality of power politics, however, forces the United States again to defend its global model of liberal values with violence if necessary. Niebuhr, along with his realist fellows (Guilhot 2011), has always supported this approach. But they have regularly criticised the U.. foreign policy when their actions were ideologically justified by a sense of global mission. Niebuhr always advocated a non-partisan, illusion-free foreign policy for the United States (Berke 1992). His commitment to containment politics in the Democratic Party may have helped to prevent a split in the party on this issue and to establish consensus on the foreign policy direction of the USA in the 1940s (Rohde 2016, p. 174). In addition to this pragmatism and the realistic insights in international issues, Niebuhr also warned about believing in science. According to Lafeber (1980, p. 47): “Niebuhr warned against relying fully on reason and especially on belief in science, since both reason and science often refused to include religious and historical knowledge necessary to solve worldly problems.” Niebuhr was hugely influential in the 50 s and 60 s of the twentieth century. After that, new global messages took over the political scene: Postmodern and liberal ideas such as the anti-nuclear power or peace movements, Latin American freedom theology, but also postmodern and evangelical developments gained in importance as a result. Niebuhr’s ideas were no longer convincing at the end of the Cold War and ultimately no longer appropriate in the era of globalization even if the Niebuhr’s term “irony” was still popular in the 90 s and even the magazine Esquire opened the September issue in 1991 with the slogan “Forget Irony—Have a Nice Decade”. “It took the tragic events of September 11, 2001, to revive Niebuhr,” wrote the historian Gene Zubovich in relation to the revival of Niebuhr’s ideas (Zubovich 2017). Therefore, Niebuhr’s essay IAH continues to have an impact today. The new 2008 edition, edited by historian Andrew Bacevich confirms this fact. The threat to western democracies came from Soviet communism and expansionism seventy years ago. Today the challenges are different, but they are no less dangerous. The economic rise of China that comes along with increasing its military dominance in the region (South China Sea, Formosa Strait, etc.) also challenges the role of the U. S. as balancer in the region as well as that of the dominant global superpower. It is again a totalitarian dictatorship that strives for global hegemony. China’s socio-political ideals can in no way be reconciled with the liberal values of the West. In comparison to the Soviet Union, this nation-state disposes of a growing and innovative economic base. And only nation-states that built reliable alliances that can defend their independence and their way of life not

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international institutions (Mearsheimer 2018, p. 142–143). This is what Niebuhr foresaw for the nearer future and where he was right. Nevertheless: Niebuhr warns decision-makers to respond to aggressive challenges with appropriate means. A fundamentalist communist one-party dictatorship cannot and must not be countered with equally fundamentalist means but with sober interest policies. Thus, Niebuhr is relevant again, more relevant than ever!

References Acheson, Dean. 1950. Speech November 9th.. Department of State Bulletin, XXIII, November 20th , 1950, pp. 799–801. Beem, Christopher. 2015. Democratic Humility – Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience, and America’s Political Crisis. Lanham: Lexington Books. Beinart, Peter. 2011. The Icarus Syndrome – A history of American Hubris. NYC: Harper. Berke, M. (1992): The disputed Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr. Online. Available from: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1992/11/the-disputed-legacy-of-reinholdniebuhr (Accessed: March 26, 2021) Bertsch, M. 2013. Pazifismus als Staatsräson - Oder als Privatsache. Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Religionen (online). Available from: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/pazifismusals-staatsraeson-oder-als-privatsache.1278.de.print?dram:article_id=250674 (Accessed: March 22, 2021) Brown, Charles Calvin. 2002. Niebuhr and his age. Reinhold Niebuhr’s prophetic role and legacy. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. Cha, T. 2017. The Return of Jacksonianism: the International Implications of the Trump Phenomenon. The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 83–97. Chambers, W. 1948. Faith for a Lenten Age, in: Time, Vol. 51 no. 10. Davis, Harry R./ Good, Robert C. (Eds.) 1960. Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics. His political Philosophie and its Application to our Age as Expressed in his Writings. NYC: Scribner. Diggins, John B. 2010. Why Niebuhr Now? Chicago: UCP. Dorrien, G. 2009. Social ethics in the making - Interpreting an American tradition. Chichester: Blackwell. Erwin, Scott R. 2013. The Theological Vision of Reinhold Niebuhr‘s The Irony of American History ‘In the battle and above it’. Oxford: OUP. Fox, R. W. 1985. Reinhold Niebuhr – a Biography. NYC: Pantheon. Guilhot, N. 2011. The invention of international relations theory: realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory. NYC: CUP. Holleman, W. L. 1987. Reinhold Niebuhr on the United Nations and Human Rights. An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 70, No. 3/4, pp. 329–354. Hull, C. 1948. Memoirs, II. NYC: Macmillan. Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: PUP.

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Jervis, Robert. 2017. How Statesman Think. The psychology of International Politics. Princeton: PUP. Kaplan, F. 1984. The Wizards of Armageddon. NYC: Simon & Schuster. Kindermann, Gottfried-Karl. 1965. Politische Theorie und Internationale Politik in der Sicht der realistischen Schule Hans J. Morgenthaus und Reinhold Niebuhrs. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Vol. 6, No. 3. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24193281 (Accessed March 1, 2021) Kissinger, H. 1995. Diplomacy. NYC: Simon & Schuster. Lafeber, Walter. 1980. America, Russia, and the Cold War. NYC: Wiley. Lepenies, W. 2004. Linker Patriotismus. Die Welt, May 22nd. (online) Available from: https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article315078/Linker-Patriotismus.html (Accessed January 8, 2021). Lepenies, W. 2007. Politische Ironie: Europäisch-Amerikanische Ausblicke. 58. ÜberseeTag, Morgenveranstaltung (online). Available from: https://www.ueberseeclub.de/resour ces/Server/pdf-Dateien/2005-2009/vortrag-2007-05-07Lepenies.pdf (Accessed: April 8, 2021) Lundstad, Geir. 1999. “Empire by Invitation” in the American Century. Diplomatic History, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 189–217. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7709.00163 Mayers, D. 1990. George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy. Oxford: OUP. Mearsheimer, J. J. 2018. The Great Delusion. Liberal Dreams and International Realities. New Haven: YUP. Morgenthau, Hans J. 1946. Scientific Man versus Power Politics. Chicago: UCP. Niebuhr, R. 1916. The Nation’s Crime against the Individual. American Monthly Vol. 188, No. 5, pp. 609–614. Niebuhr, R. 1930. Awkward Imperialists. Reader’s Digest, January 1930, pp. 106–108. Niebuhr, R. 1932. Moral Man and Immoral Society. A Study in Ethics and Politics. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, R. 1934. Shall we Seek World Peace or Peace for America? WT 17, No. 6, pp. 132– 133. Niebuhr, R. 1940. Christianity and Power Politics. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, R. 1941a. The Lend Lease Bill. C&C, Vol. I, February 10, pp. 1–2. Niebuhr, R. 1941b. The Crisis. C&C, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 1–2. Niebuhr, R. 1944. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and A Critic of Its Traditional Defense. Chicago: UCP. Niebuhr, R. 1949. The Illusion of World Government. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 379– 388. Niebuhr, R. 1950. A Protest Against a Dilemma’s Two Horns. World Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 338–344. Niebuhr, R. 2008. The Irony of American History. Chicago: UCP. Niebuhr, R. 1958: World Crisis and American Responsibility; Collected and Edited by E. W. Lefever. NYC: Power Books. Niebuhr, R. 1960. Staaten und Großmächte. Gütersloh: Verlag Gerd Mohn. Niebuhr, R. 1965. Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, R. 1969. The King’s Chapel and the King’s Court. C&C, Vol. XXVIII, (August 4), pp. 211–212.

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Niebuhr, R. 1976 (1929). Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. NYC: Da Capo Press. Noll, M. A. 2005. America’s God. From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Oxford. OUP. Obama, Barack. 2020. Ein verheissenes Land. München: Penguin. Pew Research Center (May 4, 2009): Obama’s Favorite Theologian? A Short Course on Reinhold Niebuhr. Online. Available from: https://www.pewforum.org/2009/05/04/oba mas-favorite-theologian-a-short-course-on-reinhold-niebuhr/ (Accessed: 26.01.2021) Pijil, K. van der. 1996. Vordenker der Weltpolitik. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Rohde, Christoph. 1996. Das Bild des politisch handelnden Menschen im Christlichen Realismus Reinhold Niebuhrs unter Berücksichtigung der Internationalen Politik. Neuried: Ars Una. Rohde, Christoph. 2004. Hans J. Morgenthau und der Weltpolitische Realismus. Wiesbaden: Springer. Rohde, Christoph. 2016. Reinhold Niebuhr. Die Geburt des Christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Scheuerman, William E. 2011. The Realist Case for Global Reform. Cambridge: Polity Press. Splinter, Dieter. 1998. Theologe zwischen den Welten. Reinhold Niebuhr und die „Deutsche Evangelische Synode von Nord-Amerika“ 1892–1928 (Theologische Studien), Aachen: Shaker. Stourzh, Gerhard. 1955. Ideologie und Machtpolitik. Vierteljahresschriften für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 3., No. 1., pp. 99–112. Thompson, M. G. 2007. An Exception to Exceptionalism: A Reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr’s Vision of “Prophetic” Christianity and the Problem of Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy. American Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 3, 833–855. Yergin, D. 1980. Shattered Peace. The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Walt, Stephan M. 2019. The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. NYC: Farrer, Strauss & Giroux. Zubovich, G. 2017. Reinhold Niebuhr, Washington’s Favorite Theologian (online) Available from: https://religionandpolitics.org/2017/04/25/reinhold-niebuhr-washingtons-favoritetheologian/ (Accessed: April 11, 2021)

Niebuhr and the Race Question: Can the State Successfully Eliminate Racism? Christoph Rohde

Abstract

In this contribution, the author will discuss Reinhold Niebuhr’s contested stance towards the race problem inside the United States. By drawing on the concept of universal sin in the understanding of Christian Realism, it will be demonstrated, how Niebuhr interpreted the sin of racism and discrimination in the context of the inevitable sinfulness of social groups. Although the theologian admitted that the sin of white people against black minorities was a particularly grave historical perpetration, he argued that every group that would be in a powerful position would behave in abusive ways. Therefore, he pleaded for a careful path toward reconciliation in the race conflicts, what brought him a lot of criticism in the posthumous reception. Keywords

Racism in the United States • Martin Luther King • Niebuhr and race issues Identity Politics

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C. Rohde (B) München, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2021 C. Rohde (ed.), Religion and the Liberal State in Niebuhr’s Christian Realism, Staat – Souveränität – Nation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34464-1_9

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Introduction

More recently Niebuhr interpretations praise the commitment of the theologian for social improvements and his fight for a better standing for particular minorities as well as his supportive work for European resistance movements against Nazism (Rohde 2016, pp. 156–157). But some observers claim that the theologian was weak in his support for the blacks in general and the civil rights movement specifically. In this contribution I intend to show that these accusations were only partially justified although Niebuhr’s treatment of the subject was not fully consistent. Nevertheless, with reference to the recent dramatic events around the assassination of the black American George Floyd and the following radicalization of the “black lives matter” movement, I argue that Niebuhr was right in his assumption that a too radical approach towards the implementation of civil rights in all American states with their different historical paths and traditions particularly in the South would stir violent resistance. Currently, we witness a kind of radicalization in the name of emancipatory ideas that confirm Niebuhr’s basic assumptions. That does not mean that Niebuhr was impeccable in his dealing with this agonizing problem. But his evolutionary approach towards politics that was the complex result of his intellectual development and his personal experiences with revolutionary groups and parties is still helpful to cope with an intellectual atmosphere in the Western world that is characterized by irreconcilable divisions. Niebuhr’s own development as well as his courage to change (Bingham 1961) made him a man of humility and wisdom. Niebuhr admired personalities like Abraham Lincoln or Hubert Humphrey who attempted to overcome human evil, be it in the form of racism, exploitation or other forms of abusive behavior. He praised these characters for their wisdom and prudence in their decisions. These mature characters did not attempt to achieve a political and ethical maximum that would cause bitterness and the desire for revenge in their opponents but actively searched for reconciliation. In this contribution I proceed as follows: firstly, I shortly introduce Niebuhr’s overall stance towards the weak and unwanted in society and the political and spiritual motifs that inspired him. Secondly, it will be shown how Niebuhr transformed his perspective on the state and on the strategies how political change could be brought about. In a third passage, I specify Niebuhr’s approach towards racism in general and the problem of the black community in the U.S. specifically. His relationship towards Martin Luther King is clarified in this context. In a concluding section, I draw the line towards the current resurgence of politic violence against blacks in the U.S. What should we take from Niebuhr in order to

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achieve reconciliation and progress in the civil rights question in the U.S.? How can a violent kind of radicalization of the participating groups be avoided?

2

The Development of Niebuhr’s Social Ethical Thought

There is one striking sentence that represents the essence of Niebuhr’s early thought. “… equality is a higher social goal than peace” (Niebuhr 1960, p. 235). When he wrote this sentence in 1932, Niebuhr was on the high point of his socialist commitment. He had witnessed the prejudices of the protestant Middle class towards the poor, needy and black people. And over time, in him grew the conviction that resistance against social injustice in America would probably not be possible without the use of violent means. Young Reinhold who was swayed by his father who himself was an adherer of the American social gospel movement, was born in a time of radical social transformations caused by the rapid industrialization of the North. In the 1920s many black Americans moved into its industrial metropolises. They served as cheap labor for the big capitalists. „If one set of issues dominated the thinking of many Americans in the 1920s, it was the whole constellation of questions surrounding race and race relations (Miller 2007, p. 387). But the social gospel movement that consisted dominantly of white, Protestant men had its limitations concerning the race problem (Bellmann 2018, p. 47). The same must be conceded for most of the white churches. As a young pastor in Detroit Niebuhr witnessed the exploitation of black as well as white workers in the automotive industry. Especially the seemingly generous Henry Ford was a red rag for him.1 Niebuhr was invited to write a series of articles for Norman Thomas’ socialist journal World Tomorrow in which he should analyze the social situation of employees in American industry capitalism—a task in which the Bethel pastor excelled. He had received the background knowledge that the Khu Klux Klan was a “protestant project”. In an early piece he compared this American racist group to Nazism (Niebuhr 1924, p. 1331) and came to the conclusion that the American Klan was much more dangerous than the German cult: “This paganism is an evidence of the ruthless honesty of the German intellect and is certainly very much to be preferred to the orthodox hypocrisies of our own racial bigots, who clothe their prejudices in the phrases of a religion which, in its essential genius, 1

Niebuhr, R., How Philanthropic Is Henry Ford?, in: D. B. Robertson (Hrsg.), Love and Justice. Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr, Gloucester, Massachusetts 1976, 98–103.

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is the very antithesis of their spirit” (Niebuhr 1924, p. 1331). Niebuhr thought in this period that the honest nihilism of Nazism would be evil and insane to such an extent that it would be self-defeating; this was a premature evaluation which he later regretted.

2.1

Niebuhr’s Experiences in His Own Parish

Pastor Niebuhr doubted whether his stance on race relations in his own church was prophetic enough. He held a pastorate in the Detroit Bethel Evangelical church in which Niebuhr took a pastorate from August 1915 until 1928 (Brown 2002, pp. 20–21) when he left for UTS. Niebuhr had encouraged that Negroes could attend church. The members of the parish council had blocked his initiative what left Niebuhr disappointed and furious. On these grounds, he was tempted to leave. The young pastor described his feelings in an impressive letter to the council in which he explained while he stepped away from his plan to leave (Stone 2012, pp. 319–320). In his diary NTC had written in 1929 he regretted his lukewarmness towards the Negros question that had cost his predecessor his job (Niebuhr 1976). His predecessor, Adalbert Helm, was driven out of the church because he had supported the membership of blacks in the Bethel parish. Dorothee Sölle, the German liberation theologian, could not accept that Niebuhr did not follow the hard line of pastor Helm but made compromises concerning this question (Stone 2012, p. 321).

2.2

Niebuhr’s Serious Commitment Against Racism in His Early years

Nevertheless, Niebuhr took the problem of racism seriously in this period of life. This becomes obvious by the fact that the Detroit people were sad when Niebuhr left for New York City in spring 1928. John C. Dancy, rector of the Detroit’ urban league, stated: “I do not speak for myself only, I feel that I am expressing the feelings and sentiments of the great majority of Negroes in Detroit, when I say that there is genuine regret in the minds of the colored group of this city at your leave taking. There are many of us still mindful of your usefulness in trying to do those things which would mean for better understanding and better relationships between the races in the city of Detroit” (Sabella 2017, p. 18). In 1930 Niebuhr delivered a lecture that contained the thoughts of black intellectuals like James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. Dubois Marsh and Strange Glory (Sabelle 2017,

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p. 127). He raised funds for the interracial project, the Highlander Folk School in Eastern Tennessee, in which leadership skills for unionists and civil rights activists were taught (Brown 2002, p. 63). Furthermore, he was on the board of the Delta Farm Project in Mississippi that was intended to share the living standard for Southern sharecroppers by forming cooperative cotton producing projects for impoverished peasants. Who accuses Niebuhr of having been permanently indifferent towards the race problem in the U.S. is clearly on the wrong path: “Niebuhr was thus connected to some of the influential civil rights projects of the 1930s” (Sabella 2017, p. 18). However, the dramatic world political events inside Europe and Asia brought Niebuhr to give top priority to the support of resistance groups against European fascism and the support of the socialist agenda in the U.S. That does not mean that Niebuhr was indifferent concerning the suffering of many blacks in America. His calculation in his work for Norman Thomas’s socialist party was that the improvement of the overall social situation for the underprivileged would serve the cause of the blacks as well. Niebuhr was aware of the danger racism posed to American Christianity. “Race prejudice is one of the greatest challenges to the spirit of real Christianity. The whole validity of the Christian faith is in the balance as men try to solve the race problem. Either there is in Christ neither white nor black or the whole of the Christian faith becomes absurd” (Niebuhr 1927, p. 584). But in these years he hoped that the race question would be marginalized if the social problems would be overcome. Still in 1945 he diagnosed that the problem of racism was the most vicious of all the social problems in the country (Niebuhr 1945, p. 129).

3

Racism Out of a Christian Realist Perspective

For Reinhold Niebuhr racism was not a phenomenon sui generis. It could not be explained as a singular cause of human evil but as the result of tribalism that affected all kinds of social groups and that took shape in a variety of expressions. In his contested book MM he laid the groundwork for a social psychological explanation of discriminating group behavior that crosses cultural and historical boundaries. Although anthropological science had affirmed the normative assumption that “all men are created equal”, historical processes had led to empirical inequalities and structural injustices. For Christians, however, it would not be enough to point to the formal ideal of equality in order to deal with the problem of race relations. It is necessary to take into consideration the tribal character of human social behavior (Niebuhr 1965, p. 90). Man was not only a rational being that had solely to

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be educated in the right way in order to become a tolerant person and to get rid of the relicts of barbarism in its behavior. For Niebuhr, there were sociobiological factors at work that tempted members of groups to find fulfilment in the degradation of other persons or other groups.2 He doubted the universalistic dreams of multicultural idealists: “Our anthropologists rightly insisted that there were no biological roots of inequality among races; and they wrongly drew the conclusion from this fact that racial prejudice is a form of ignorance which could be progressively dispelled by enlightenment” (Niebuhr 1944, pp. 138–139). In Niebuhr’s understanding it is not some social source that causes racist attitudes. It would be a common phenomenon in history that majorities in a society looked down on minorities that represented different qualities than their own. These dominant groups deem only right or appropriate that which is in line with their own standard. The reasons for this selfish and self-referential behaviour are heterogenous; be it envy, insecurity concerning its own status, religious reasons or various other factors. For the theologian pure psychological explanations for the causes of racism are not sufficient. It is not an idiosyncratic sin of Western arrogance or a “unique Nordic sin”, as Niebuhr calls it in a pessimistic statement (Niebuhr 1928, p. 121). In the understanding of Christian realism racism is a universal phenomenon no group or nation is innocent of. „Racial bigotry, like every other form of human pride and sin, is something more than ignorance and something less than malice, though the malice of actual sin may grow out of the predispositions of pride and contempt that lie at the foundation racial bigotry” (Niebuhr 1945, p. 125). For him, the cure for this destructive human behavior does not lie in mutual accusations but in a common research analysis into the root causes of racism that involve all groups that are part of the conflict. The theologian was well conscious of the sins the white man had committed against the colored man; these “cry to heaven” (Niebuhr 1928, p. 121). But he knew that the blacks as well as other minorities were not natural victims but were prone to tribalism and its consequences as well. The vicious circle of evil and revenge had to be broken. This principle that reconciliation, not retribution, was the only key to healing and the built-up of constructive relationships between different ethnic, national, religious or other kinds of groups was the spiritual precept Christianity offered. Reconciliation is for Niebuhr the prerequisite to end conflicts in a sustainable way. This form of idealism was the Christian part of the story that sometimes bore fruits in history. Niebuhr made this point clearly in his anthology Discerning the Signs of the Times in which he criticized the self-righteousness of the victorious nations after World War II. The tit-for-tat mechanism would have to be overcome. For representatives 2

For a sociobiological foundation of Niebuhr’s Christian Realism see Thayer 2004.

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of postcolonial studies this would be an unacceptable belittlement of the problem of racism. Indeed, Niebuhr neglected the discussion of material compensations that were targeted specifically to the suffering black community; he did not offer the blacks concrete signs of hope for a substantial improvement in a tolerable time span. In this respect he was less creative than in his commitment for the socialist party in the 1920s. Niebuhr’s skepticism concerning the viability of consciously created multicultural communities is clearly recognizable in his writings. “Would the highly academic idea that variety is the span of life, that it will make civilization more interesting to preserve many types of culture, have sufficient potency to restrain young mean and maidens of different groups from pooling their lives and fortunes and thereby effacing the dividing line?” (Niebuhr 1945, p. 121). As soon as minority groups were to become the majority in society, they would repeat the sins of suppressing the minorities of their days. The economic class struggle for Niebuhr is an aggravating factor, not the dominating cause of racism. Once again, the analytical deep structure of Christian Realism lies in its recognition of the limits of human rationality and the consequences for the conceptualization of social orders. Racism is not first and foremost socially constructed; attempts to avoid racist behavior mainly with help of an artificially constructed non-discriminating language and the following avoidance of racist stereotypes does not take account of biological and social psychological conditions that make racism such a stubborn challenge. Niebuhr’s conviction is that a political system alone cannot cure human beings from discriminating attitudes: “… despite all democratic pretensions, there is no democracy that has fully transcended racial prejudices. Perhaps we might add that no democracy ever will transcend them completely…” (Niebuhr 1942a, p. 129). Race bigotry, the predisposition to downgrade other groups is “an abyss of evil in the soul of men” (Niebuhr 1945, p. 126). This evil, in turn, is the result of the radical freedom of men which is abused in various forms of individual and collective self-glorification. For Christian Realism, not a pure rational form of enlightenment is the cure for this moral misconduct, but a spiritual attitude of repentance and contrition and a consciousness of the common humanity. This message is not “modern” but as the following passage shows it can be of permanent relevance for the problems of today.

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The Dividing Character of Identity Politics

Today racism is defined by the majority of social scientists as a moral failure that can only be practised by majorities against minorities and of white people against other minorities, especially against black people. While it is empirically proven that black people suffer most from the results of structural racism in the United States. such a narrow definition is burdened with a variety of problematic connotations. Mostly, this attribution leads to the dividing spirit of identity politics that are endangered to produce another form of racism—the allegedly justified racism of the underprivileged. Identity politics which contains an activist agenda of transformative practice, however, gives emphasis to emotional boundaries and does not include but exclude. In a recent book Francis Fukuyama has worked out the imminent dangers of radical identity politics that claims liberation from abusive social bonds. Identity politics alleges that our institutions have contributed to the development of historically unjust relations. These institutions would perpetuate privilege and the degradation of minorities. Privilege in the understanding of postcolonial studies that theoretically support constructions of identity politics is defined as unearned advantage gained by the fact of the membership in a historically powerful group. Oppression, however, is the result of constraints on individual’s life’s choices because of membership of a historically disadvantaged group. This kind of pre-determined absence of equality of opportunities would have to be remediated. For Fukuyama, institutions took a “therapeutic turn” in order to raise the self-esteem of the members of marginalized groups (Fukuyama 2018, p. 107). Activist programs like affirmative action led to selective improvements for blacks in the United States, but most of “blacks’ economic and social gains in the last century cannot be ascribed to affirmative action programs” (Wax 2009, p. 135), but were the merits of individuals that exploited their opportunities. As Fukuyama adds, a overwhelming focus on programs for minorities can trigger the resentment of other disadvantaged groups that feel disregarded in their needs for a long period. One example for groups that were losers in the recognition struggle is the old working class (Fukuyama 2018, p. 118), people who overwhelmingly saw in President Donald Trump the man who could restore their fortunes. Although the basic idea of racial justice would be shared by almost anyone, the strategies to achieve progress concerning racial and social justice are highly contested. There are material and idea-based variables that are causes for inequalities. For representatives of postcolonial studies oppression and privilege are created not just by political institutions but are perceived as created mentalities that are the

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result of cultural phenomena like a particular use of language and the ‘construction’ of identities. Therefore, the transformation of language is an essential key in educating the people in values like tolerance and the acceptance of diversity. For Christian realism language is only one variable in the complex social behaviour of human beings. Recognition of individuals and groups is dependent on the agape love that cannot be achieved perfectly but in productive degrees. Institutional progress has to be accompanied by personal examples. Race justice cannot be achieved without a substantial number of healthy inter-racial relationships.

4.1

Between Evolutive Transformative Agenda and Violent Strategies

Identity based liberation movements demand a radical transformation of this unjust society. There are claims for recognition that transcend pure materialistic redistributive requests. Insofar their concerns are absolutely justified and necessary. But for Fukuyama, the problem is that identity politics has been conquered by a radical left that has lost their proletarian base (Fukuyama 2018, p. 113). The ever-expanding welfare state and the growing welfare of the working class as well as the failure of Marxism as large-scale socio-economic program globally has led the left to a shift of emphasis. Since the 1980s the left agenda contains the support of minorities in their struggle for emancipation. Identity politics and multiculturalism are the cornerstones of the modernized left ideology. For Fukuyama identity politics can help to increase the recognition of underprivileged minorities but it carries with it several problems. For a group of materially satisfied progressives, the necessity to combat socioeconomic inequalities has lost its urgency (Fukuyama 2018, p. 115). It is not difficult for paid university faculty staff, bureaucrats and career politicians on safe tracks to step in for the disadvantaged. Furthermore, identity politics can focus on timely interest groups and thereby neglect the justified concern of marginalized groups that fight for the recognition of their legitimate interests for a long time. One example may be the white American working class that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. This group became—widely unnoticed—an underclass whose members more and more live in precarious conditions and who have become politically indifferent (Sennett 2017) or become members of right populist movements. The same phenomenon takes place inside Europe in which social democratic parties lose ground because they have neglected the needs of their classical patronage.

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The Denial of Discourse in Identity Politics

Another problem the radical commitment to identity politics leads to is the tendency to obstruct a rational discourse by giving emphasis to subjectivity instead of intersubjectivity: “The focus on lived experience by identity groups valorizes inner selves experienced emotionally rather than examined rationally” (Fukuyama 2018, pp. 116–117). It’s no wonder that today American campus identity politics frequently leads to intolerant behavior; the mentality to spot a “microaggression” everywhere and discrimination at every corner poison the discourse instead of extending the range of political options. The radical character of the claims that the advocates of minority groups frame, endangers the legitimacy of their cause. Overzealous activism on the left perhaps backfired by mobilizing the conservatives in the Presidential election of 2016. Additionally, the legitimate interests of minorities lose their credibility when too closely connected to neo-Marxist thinking that interprets the contest for power in a society as a zero-sum game. Christian realism offers a more convincing explanation for the universally existing problem of racism. For, firstly, it does not presuppose homogeneous social groups with unidirectional interests that never existed in history and that produce the mechanistic image of a permanent class struggle. Secondly, monocausal explanations for human misbehavior do not fit into the Augustinian doctrine of free will. Therefore, there are no easy exit strategies to abolish racism. Neither the strategies of material compensations nor attempts to purify discriminating language and teach tolerance and openness would be adequate tools to eradicate the root causes of racism. They could be helpful means in a more comprehensive strategy to recognize the other as human being and other groups as legitimate partners. But as a totalitarian strategy to control social outputs or as a form of social engineering they lead to counterproductive results. Thirdly, in Christian realism, the Manichean worldview of good versus evil groups does not correspond empirical findings. Niebuhr did not share a social romantic image of innocent indigenous groups that were driven out of a natural peaceful environment. He stated: “All over the world we find minority groups which once suffered from the arrogance of majorities, quickly adopting the vices of the majority when they attain a dominant position” (Niebuhr 1928, p. 122). This does not mean that Niebuhr was not aware of the heavy burdens historical forms of imperialism loaded on many peoples, especially executed by technologically advanced white groups (Niebuhr 1959). The worldview of identity politics that attributes the sin of racism exclusively to one particular group of people would probably be interpreted by Niebuhr as one-sided and deterministic. It would neglect the fact that minorities themselves

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more than often are not innocent groups that would live in harmony and peace if they would not have been affected by the imperialism of white men. Niebuhr’s assumptions in MM make clear that self-referential behavior of groups regularly leads to a dangerous inside-outside dichotomy. The Christian realist understanding of racism is superior to monocausal forms of explanations that are connected with an anti-capitalistic bias if not with a fullblown neo-marxist ideology. Christian realism attempts to avoid easy dichotomies between good and evil, between perpetrator and victim. All groups Niebuhr states tend to pursue egoistic aims and abuse power if they get such an opportunity. This leads to the suffering of groups that are in the weaker position at any given time.

5

Niebuhr on the Development of Race Legislation in the U. S.

For Niebuhr the 1896 supreme court decision Seperate but equal was a decision that was appropriate for its days because it could be considered as a compromise between the democratic ideal of equality and the social realities in the country (Niebuhr 1954, pp. 149–150). It allowed the evolutionary development of more integrated communities through actions and attitudes of individuals and groups that overcame the racial bias; an evaluation that is not easy to share from a present perspective. Niebuhr who in his younger years held the conviction that essential social progress could not be achieved without violent means had changed his mind during the years. He embraced the step-by-step development of emancipatory laws that took into consideration both legal requirements of the realization of equality but also historical constraints that hampered the local and regional implementation of these laws. Law has proven to be a robust instrument to enforce rights in the long run (Niebuhr 1950, p. 146). But it was not enforceable in the short term, when it met resistance in the dominant culture of a region. For example, although in the Emancipation Proclamation after the Civil War slavery was formally abolished, history had shown that there remained parts of the country in which this inhuman business was sustained. Therefore, steps had to be taken carefully to extend the legislative action. It made sense for Niebuhr that laws like the Fair Employment Practices Act were appropriate legislative acts for individual states but not applicable as Federal laws. It made more sense to begin with anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation in order to bring the South into business (Niebuhr 1950, pp. 147–148). Liberals in the South could live with these laws that could touch their consciences with a higher degree of probability.

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The landmark supreme court decision on Segregation in the Schools Brown v. Board of Education of May 14, 1954 is praised by Niebuhr as a synthesis of boldness and the respect for the existing political realities (Niebuhr 1954, p. 149). This balanced jurisdiction would be helpful in order to avoid resistance by Southern authorities and racist inhabitants. Indeed, the decision confirmed the assumption that the “separate-but-equal” education was not equal at all. It reversed the 1896 decision of the supreme court Plessy v. Ferguson which postulated the constitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine. The inhuman and highly discriminating so-called Jim Crow-laws were the result of this jurisdiction. Drawing on Gunnar Myrdal’s prominent work An American Dilemma—The Negro Problem and Democracy Niebuhr pointed to the tension between the legal requirements of equality and the grown convictions and traditions in local communities that are often the source of ignorance and intolerance. In contrast to Niebuhr, Myrdal’s anthropology was much more optimistic and had wide influence on the American public (Chappell 2004, pp. 39–41). He showed a high degree of confidence into white churches and collective institutions in the South that these would be able to develop society towards more tolerance. For Chappell, Myrdal brought a naive version of the American creed into the country. This led to the ironic outcome that this liberal optimism delivered a precept for inaction (Chappell 2004, p. 42). Niebuhr more than often had criticized the self-sufficient attitude of the self-declared American liberals that ruthlessly made use of the unjust mechanisms of an untamed capitalist system (Niebuhr 1934, pp. 26–28). For Niebuhr, the Brown decision took local Southern sentiments into consideration without accepting the still existing structures of injustice. For the theologian it had the power to catalyze moral growth in the long run. Niebuhr criticized the white supremacists in the Southern states harshly, but in 1954 he was still convinced that basically the court’s school decision would be accepted without violent resistance: “(The court) has fixed a point in our advance in democratic race relations” (Niebuhr 1954, p. 151). The Christian church alone was not very creative in resolving the race issue, Niebuhr had to admit (Niebuhr 1956a, p. 153). The church was the most rigorously segregated institution in America, many black people reminded the Christians who stayed in their sin. He was especially critical of the famous preacher Billy Graham and his ethical perfectionist crusades. But Graham, who was “enlightened” on the race issue—Niebuhr puts the term into italics -, did not refer his gospel messages to the racial injustices that still existed in the South of the U. S. (Niebuhr 1956b, p. 155).3 That the gospel did not develop enough spirituality to 3

The same accusation came back as a boomerang on Niebuhr himself as will be shown later.

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transcend racial boundaries saddened Niebuhr. It showed that in Protestantism the good news widely had become a powerless civil religion that put this world first. “Protestantism thus reveals its pathetic particularism and proves that the forces of history, whether they be racial or national, cultural or economic, can divide it without the church having the power and the grace to preserve even a symbol of its ultimate unity in Christ” (Niebuhr 1956a, p. 145).

6

Niebuhr and Martin Luther King

Reinhold Niebuhr never met Martin Luther King personally. His declining health kept him from taking part in the march on Washington in 1963 (Dorrien 2017). But both admired each other. The civil rights leader had intensively studied Niebuhr’s writings from his early academic years on (Halliwell 2005, pp. 232–236). In 1952 King had written an essay with the title “Reinhold Niebuhr’s Ethical Dualism” for DeWolf’s Seminar in Systematic Theology at Boston University. In this paper he discussed the pessimistic anthropological assumptions of Niebuhr’s anthropology which he basically shared (Chappel 2004, p. 51). But he concluded that a problem of Niebuhr’s analysis lies in his disregard for a positive outlook on the world for Christians that intended to grow in faith and love: “This weakness lies in {the} inability of his system to deal adequately with the relative perfection which is the fact of the Christian life. How one can develop spiritually; by what powers Christian values are conceived in personality; and how the immanence of Agape is to be concretely conceived in human nature and history—all these problems are left unsolved by Niebuhr” (King 1952, p. 8.) King grappled with Niebuhr’s thought. He was simulteanously impressed by it and critical of some of its aspects. Their essential affinity concerned the need for a prophetic spirit that became visible in Niebuhr’s scriptures. Chappell states: „King’s striving to reconcile prophetic elements from his peculiar tradition with the best of the rest of American Protestantism, and with the best of the American civic tradition, made his thought converge with Niebuhr’s” (Chappell 2004, p. 48). Niebuhr’s influence on King concerns his understanding of non-violent resistance as well. Niebuhr had already in MM encouraged the blacks to practice non-violent resistance against the indignities of Jim Crowism in the spirit of Gandhi4 who successfully made use of this strategy in India (Brown 2002, p. 41).

4

Niebuhr, however, disagreed with Ghandis understanding of absolute pacifism. For Niebuhr’s Ghandi interpretation see.

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In 1956 he had wholeheartedly supported the strategy of the civil rights movement in the Montgomery bus boycott. This was because in Martin Luther King he saw a pragmatic leader who was capable of making decisions that had moral substance and spiritual depth. Violent action would be self-defeating. (Halliwell 2005, pp. 233–234). Pressure short of violence was a strategy that belonged to Niebuhr’s understanding of patriotic dissent, as Tjalve has shown in a convincing examination (Tjalve 2009). Civil disobedience and forms of boycotts were means that Niebuhr had already approved in the battle against Nazi antisemitism after the evil Reichskristallnacht and the occupation of Austria in 1938 (Rohde 2016, p. 99). Nevertheless, the retreat into their smaller neighborhoods did not exempt the blacks from the overall felt and real discrimination. The civil rights leader admitted that Niebuhr’s influence on his way of thinking was immense. “ … the prophetic and realistic elements in Niebuhr’s passionate style and profound thought was appealing to me, and I became so enamored of his social ethics that I almost fell in the trap of accepting uncritically everything he wrote” (King, quoted in Halliwell 2005, pp. 230–232). King came from a bourgeois background. There existed relatively stable community bonds in the South that consisted of grocery owners, handworkers, and other small businesses. Later, Niebuhr supported King in his confrontation with “black power “adherers. This was criticized by Niebuhr biographer Richard W. Fox, who believes that Niebuhr did not offer any perspectives for the blacks in the Northern states. For him, the renunciation of any use of violence for the purpose of self-defense was naive at best (Fox 1985, p. 283).

7

Niebuhr as Gradualist Concerning the Race Question

The young Niebuhr believed that the Negro could improve his situation only through coercion (Chappell 2004, p. 28). The late Niebuhr, however, had changed his mind and he feared the outbreak of violence in the South if the race question was pushed too hardly. Niebuhr’s friend, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., regretted that in his early years he had not acted decisively against racial discrimination in the Southern United States. In 1942 he had undertaken a wartime mission to the South for the Office of War Information and came to the conclusion: “The tragedy of the situation is that no improvement would be made by giving more power to the Negro. The Southern Negro would abuse power even more than the reactionary southern white” (quoted in Chappell 2004, p. 29).

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Niebuhr feared violent reactions of Southern whites if blacks would get more privileges. He kept this line of argument until the sixties. Additionally, Niebuhr often referred to the “cultural backwardness” of the black people that would not allow them an easy progress (Halliwell 2005, p. 227). Although this was the result of the experienced oppression of the blacks and mainly the responsibility of the colonialists, Niebuhr was a bit unadept when he claimed that only the most gifted members of the race (Niebuhr 1965, p. 101) could overcome the stigmatization. For the mass of the black people the culturally determined barriers were too high: “A common language did not help the Negro group, nor, for that matter, a common Protestant faith with the dominant white majority. The hazards of an obvious “color” mark of race and of historically contingent cultural backwardness were insurmountable” (Niebuhr 1965, p. 91). Although Niebuhr described the term “backwardness” as historically contingent, this diction provoked some criticism. Niebuhr was seen considered as racist by several observers. To prove this some of his statements were taken out of context and used against him, for instance this one that he ironically gave in his journal Christianity & Crisis: “ …we may all be racists at heart… ” (Niebuhr, quoted in Harriwell 2005, p. 230). Niebuhr was one of the pioneers of the Union for Democratic Action, later the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) shortly after FDR had died; the other founders were Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Reuther and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.. Although they pursued a progressive agenda like the continuation of the social arrangements of the New Deal they were careful in the promotion of the civil rights agenda in the South. For they feared that any action on this sensitive issue could divide the Democratic Party there. Even Senator Hubert Humphrey, later Vice-President in the Johnson administration, was careful not to drive civil rights claims too far for Southern Democrats. American liberals in general tended to see racism as an aberration, not as a general problem of U. S. domestic politics (Chappell 2004, p. 36). After the problem with Senator Henry Wallace’s foreign policy distractions towards the Soviet Union had been resolved, the ADA could focus more on domestic issues. It was important for the members that the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan had been accepted by congress. But the organization put its focus on issues economic and social issues in the narrower sense and neglected a directed approach towards racism. It is interesting that some Niebuhr critics just blamed him for the same underestimation of the problem of racism. Niebuhr influenced the agenda of ADA and was himself influenced by it. They pursued a strategy of gradualism to battle the racial injustices in the Southern states. Niebuhr shared this kind of thinking and was critizised only subsequently for his alleged negligence. He did not listen to black nationalists like Malcolm X who expressed the depth of despair of

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the black people. Instead, he cited novelist William Faulkner in order to defend a this course of patience and prudence. For Cone this was unacceptable in times of several lynchings that took place during the fifties. Niebuhr who could preach with eloquence about the absurdity of the message of the cross, about its beauty, futility and redemptive power, did not have the imagination to refer the cross to the suffering of the blacks in the United States, James Cone regrets: “For all his exquisite sensitivity to symbols, analogies, and the moral dimensions of history, he was ultimately blind to the most obvious symbolic re-enactment of the crucifixion in his own time? Niebuhr’s focus on realism (‘facts of experience’) and the cross (tragedy) should have turned his gaze to the lynching tree, but he did not look there, even though lynching trees were widely scattered throughout the American landscape. Why did Niebuhr fail to connect Jesus’ cross to the most obvious cross bearers in American society” (Cone 2011, pp. 37–38)? Cone, the intellectual founder of black liberation theology and former Professor at Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, admits that Niebuhr attempted to intellectually grasp the desperate situation of the blacks. But he would not have been capable of feeling and expressing empathy for their suffering (Cone 2011, pp. 40–41). While lynching as a public spectacle was on the decline in the 50 s, legal lynchings as instruments of executive terror were still in operation. But Niebuhr was silent on that shameful subject. Dorrien thinks that the theologian was caught in a typical American bias: “Though Niebuhr hated white racism, he did not recognize that white supremacism was the deeper problem because he took for granted the superiority of Euro-American culture and democracy” (Dorrien 2017). Cone who is harsh on Niebuhr blames him for not having proactively built relationships to the black community although this community lived only a few blocks away from UTS where Niebuhr taught. With the exception of his dialogue with radical black intellectual James Baldwin after the 1963 Church Bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls, Niebuhr did not have substantial personal contacts with leaders of the civil rights movement that demanded immediate changes (Cone 2011, p. 53). His contact with Martin Luther King was only indirect and of an intellectual nature. It did not help to get authentic passion for the case of racism, Cone states. Niebuhr lacked the prophetic spirit that he showed in his work against the Nazis, for the Jews, against liberal illusions and pacifism.

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The Opportunities and Limits of the Black Lives Matter Movement

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement came into being in the year 2013 after the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin and the verdict of not guilty of the Latin American George Zimmermann who allegedly acted in self-defense. What began with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has become a global network that represents the request of the American and global black community to be treated fairly above all by state authorities. Systemic racism towards Black people resulted in a lot of killings of black people. One example is the death of Eric Garner in New York City in the year 2014 after a policeman had put him in a chokehold while arresting him. The shooting of the unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in August 2014 in the small town of Ferguson in Virginia increased the determination of a wider public to deal with the race problem. In the aftermath of the incident the Ferguson Commissionwas installed as an independent local group appointed by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon on November 18, 2014.5 Its mission is to study the social and economic conditions that could help to improve the social situation of black people. 16 volunteer leaders organize examinations of the social conditions and the underlying contexts that cause poverty, lack of education, problems with law enforcement and so on. But the death of George Floyd in spring 2020 provoked a boost of indignation nation-wide because it was a killing that could be witnessed by millions of people. A video that showed a police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck went viral shortly after his death. His desperate outcries “I can’t breathe” are symbols for the desperation black people experience in their daily lives. Floyd’s killing did to a global wave of righteous indignation that was expressed in peaceful and creative ways. However, it sparked violent unrest in several American cities; New York City was one of the hotspots of this outburst that included acts of systematic destruction and looting under the critical conditions of the pandemic (Corona et al. 2020). Additionally, the global structure of the BLM movement was extended in an impressive way. In London, for example, two Black activists, 18 year old Aima, and Tash, 21, organized a rally in Trafalgar Square. It was attended by thousands on Sunday, May 31st. In my hometown Munich, several hundred participants were expected for a BLM demonstration but 25.000 finally attended the meeting on June 6, 2020. In the United States, on this day, more than half a million people gathered in nearly 550 places across the U. S. Data analysts estimate that in America about 15 million to 26 million people participated in demonstrations after the death of George Floyd. Thereby, BLM 5

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would be the largest social movement in the history of the United States (Buchanan et al. 2020). But what are the most efficient strategies for the movement to achieve political results?

8.1

Does Violence Support the Emancipatory Ideas of BLM?

The results of the 2020 U. S. Presidential election have shown that more blacks have elected a Republican candidate than in previous elections since 1960. The number of black women who have voted for Donald Trump has doubled. Nevertheless, an overwhelming number of new black voters have supported the election of Joe Biden. But personality traits are less important than concrete policy preferences. It is a clear indication that a huge number of people of color do not want to be addressed as a part of a community of identity. This means: personality traits do not necessarily lead to a specific voting behavior. Attitudinal factors are much more complex than is assumed in identity-based theories. BLM had direct influence on the outcome of the Presidential race, 9 of every ten voters admitted that the protests over police violence was a factor in their voting decision, as shown by a large voter survey (140,000 respondents) conducted for The Associated Press in cooperation with the University of Chicago. For around 20% it was even the most important factor that influenced their voting behavior. However, it is surprising that the voters were deeply divided on this question. While 53% voted for Biden, 46% preferred President Trump. This means, that this issue nearly perfectly mirrors the balance of votes in the election. (Tavernise and Eligon 2020). The justice issue led voters to Joe Biden, the involved violence caused others to vote for Donald Trump. The BLM activism is an act of choice, not of a specific identity attribution. The movement pursues a multi-track strategy in order to gain influence. An important part represents the social media activism, that leads to concrete actions on the streets which was the starting point for the whole movement. Furthermore, the constitution of local action committees like the already mentioned Ferguson Commission is a means to make the situation of black people in specific areas more transparent. It is also of high relevance, that black people increasingly gain influence in political affairs and in the academic field. With Cori Bush the first Black woman represents the state of Missouri in Congress. The progressive community leader and veteran BLM has won a seat in the House of Representatives. The Ferguson events had motivated Bush to join a progressive platform (Kaur 2020).

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The question of the ideological orientation is critical for the success of BLM. Does it focus on the eradication of structures of white supremacy6 or does it extend its agenda in the direction of an anti-racist cultural revolution? In the wake of the BLM protests a variety of monuments that represent contentious symbols of the American past were removed, because they stand for a long legacy of racism and oppression, e. g. even statues of Christopher Columbus nation-wide (Asmelash 2020)? Will it sustain extremist wings that justify the use of violent means? Does it integrate anarchistic groups like the Seattle “defund the police” movement? Or does it take a moderate road towards an evolutionary process towards justice and emancipation? These are relevant questions. There ist no doubt that the blacks were the biggest losers of the economic depression of the early thirties. With the Great Migration, the African American population in New York City had grown over 150 percent. Harlem was a symbol of the effects of this migration (Olzowka et. al. 2014, pp. 95–96). 90 years later, the blacks are the most affected by the Corona pandemic. Black lives are taken disproportionally by the virus. The reasons for this fact are manifold. As blacks do not receive sufficient health care, many people suffer under pre-existing conditions that increase the risks in case of an infection dramatically. Black people are overrepresented in jobs that produce a higher risk to get an infection like in the food service industry, hotel industry or as taxi drivers and chauffeurs. The contradictory information concerning the risks of the virus has led to the fact that the communities were not able to learn a behavior of prevention. And the housing situation of many people of color can contribute to health problems. They often live in segregated neighborhoods near industrial areas or highways with heavy traffic, that more likely are densely packed. The probability substantially increases the risk for the spread of highly contagious diseases like the Covid-19 virus (Scott 2020). It is confirmed that the death rates of Black and Hispanic/Latino people are much higher than those of white people and people out of these ethnic groups die in a much younger age. Black Law professor Dayna Bowen Matthews puts it this way: „What we politely call a ‘health disparity’ is killing people of color daily. It is causing people of color to live sicker and die quicker, because of the color of their skin” (quoted in Ford et. al. 2020). BLM could be historically successful if it followed the multi-track strategy of political resistance and constructive change. It needs a figure like Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps Niebuhr would have supported the development of a moderate emancipatory movement. The worldview of Christian Realism, however, would not work with a simple victimization narrative that is mostly written by white 6

https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

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activists that are not themselves affected by the injustices against the ethnic minorities. To be credible, the minorities have to represent their own agenda, what they increasingly do. For white liberals that tend to lead in a benevolent form of social paternalism, the challenge is to hand the emancipation over to the minorities themselves. A form of “homogenized coloniality,” which reproduces the Eurocentric global historiography should be resisted (Cooper 2005, pp. 49–52). For Niebuhr, the circle of bitterness, caused by historical injustices, could only be broken, if all participants would be prepared for openness. Perhaps the work of the truth and reconciliation in South Africa (e. g., Cole 2010) could serve as a constructive example for such an honest refurbishment. As in Christian Realism, there are no fully innocent historical groups, it is important for all sides to acknowledge the relativity of one own group’s truth claims in a spirit of democratic humility (Beem 2015).

9

Was Niebuhr Lukewarm Concerning Racism?

There are indeed some aspects of Niebuhr’s stance towards racism that can be criticized from some distance. Even his former assistant and interpreter Ronald Stone believes that Niebuhr neglected the problem of race relations in his most important books. Niebuhr admits this: “In the United States, we arc conscious, as we were not a few years ago, how difficult it is for democratic politics to deal with the problem of race, especially when it is reinforced by economic handicaps” (Niebuhr and Heimert 1969, p. vi). Especially critical against Niebuhr’s stance on race was Fox who accused Niebuhr of having been too slow in comprehending the situation of the blacks: “He had lived on the border of the black ghetto for thirty-five years and was just beginning to understand the character of racism in New York” (Fox 1985, p. 282). The United States for Niebuhr was a messianic nation. As such, it was affected by two weaknesses that left it vulnerable to a lack of self-criticism: of messianism-moral pretension and political parochialism as he described it in his book The Irony of American History (Sifton 2015, pp. 509–510). But Niebuhr himself fell prey to the exceptionalism that he described as immature. Weaver makes the argument that his perhaps unconscious acceptance of the myth of manifest destiny invoked in him an ethnocentric blindness: “Although Niebuhr is aware of slavery and racism, he ignores the indigenous population of the continent almost entirely. The only mention of it, in either The Irony of American History or A Nation So Conceived, is on the first page of the latter” (Weaver 1995, p. 237). In his four major works on American foreign policy, he did not

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find the race question a major concern (Cone 2011, p. 51). His biographer Richard W. Fox was very critical of Niebuhr’s lack of passion for the race question. He had organized a Bethel forum on race relations in 1927 in which he not only preached about race prejudice in general but about the question “where shall the Negro live?” in particular (Fox 1985, pp. 93–94) which was very challenging for the white Detroit neighborhood. Fox describes Niebuhr’s too rational dealing with the race question in the following words: “It was…, by his own standard, tame, methodological, and detached… in straightforward, almost clinical prose he itemized the problems Detroit blacks faced… ” (Fox 1985, p. 93). These problems were overcrowded houses, usurious rents, massive police violence, the exclusion of black women from workplaces, lack of medical care and so on. Niebuhr’s priorities were the question of social justice in general and resistance against totalitarianism on the international stage specifically. He was especially committed to save as many Jews as possible from annihilation. Additionally, he sharply criticized how the American born Japanese were mistreated after Pearl Harbor (Rohde 2016, pp. 233–234). And he hoped that the integration of many blacks in the U.S. Army during World War II would improve their standing in society. Therefore, some criticisms like this of Cone are at least exaggerated if not fully unjustified. If one does research in the Niebuhr Papers it becomes evident how large Niebuhr’s network of relationship was and in how many valuable political, social, theological, and civil society activities he was involved Thompson 1974, pp. 431–434). Furthermore, Niebuhr’s health was deteriorating after his stroke in 1952 so that he drastically had to reduce his commitments (Dorrien 2017). On August 28, 1963 some 250,000 people had gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in order to protest the social and racial discrimination of the black people. On this occasion Martin Luther King had held his famous “I have a dream” speech that he actually had not intended to hold. But he was inspired to these words by gospel star Mahalia Jackson who stood behind the civil rights leader on the podium. 57 years later, thousands of protesters continued the protest against black discrimination. This time the families of George Floyd and other victims of violence against blacks as well as Martin Luther King III (McNamara 2020). In 1965, King had invited Niebuhr to participate in the 54mile Selma to Montgomery March what Niebuhr could not realize as he wrote in a telegram from March 19, 1965 to the human rights leader: “Only a severe stroke prevents me from accepting … I hope there will be a massive demonstration of

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all the citizens with conscience in favor of the elemental human rights of voting and freedom of assembly.”7 Niebuhr’s attitude towards the race problem had changed at the end of his life. He wrote the foreword for the Mississippi Black Paper (Brown 2017). In this collection 57 testimonies in come from well-known civil rights heroes such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, and Rita Schwerner are gathered but also unknown voices and stories that tell the story of the staggering crimes against the blacks in the state. It vividly describes how white officials and everyday citizens executed assassinations, all kinds of physical and psychological abuse, harassment, tax discriminations and many more forms of vilification. He had felt more empathy in his later years as he learned more concretely about the inhuman practices of race discrimination. In one of the last articles he wrote in 1967 with the title “The Negro Minority and Its Fate in a self-righteous Nation” he used words that sound like these of Malcolm X: “For our Negro minority the American ‘Dream’ has become a ‘nightmare’,” (Niebuhr 1968, p. 61). In an earlier book he wrote that the only proletarians in the American paradise were the black people (Niebuhr 1965, p. 89). His friend John C. Bennett defended Niebuhr’s commitment concerning the race question: “I was always impressed by the practical nature of Niebuhr’s interest in the problems of race long before the days of the civil rights movement or of Black militancy” (Bennett 1971, p. 6). But Bennett himself was not a radical in the struggle against racism and the idea of white supremacy, as Cone stated. He summarizes: “Although Niebuhr is often called a ‘prophet’, and he claimed that ‘all theology really begins with Amos’, he was no prophet on race… Niebuhr took no risks for blacks” (Cone 2011, p. 61). That is what he had admitted in his diary from 1929 NTC in which he had said about his attitude on race: “I am a coward myself… and find it tremendously difficult to run counter to general opinion” (quoted in Cone 2011, p. 62). Niebuhr had found in Amos an early prophetic example through his Professor from Eden College, Samuel D. Press. It became his firm conviction that “all theology begins with Amos” (quoted in Brown 2002, p. 15). That he was not a prophet in all political fields in understandable. In the early forties, Niebuhr considered the race issue first and foremost as a strategic question in the Second World War: “The similarity between the white man’s arrogance in the democratic world and Nazi race theories is apparent. If we do not repent of this arrogance, we cannot win the war. (Niebuhr 1942b, p. 82). Later, Niebuhr saw the need to 7

The letter is to be found here: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/niebuhr-rei nhold.

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improve the situation of the American blacks in the Cold War as an imperative in order to protect the U. S. human rights credibility in the reputational struggle against Communism. To sum up, it seems to be fair to say that on the one hand Niebuhr took seriously the problem of racism from the beginning as a social and moral injustice that he grasped in a more abstract way: “… the commandment ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ brings us under religious and moral compulsion to eliminate the violations of brotherhood in the field of race relations… (Niebuhr 1952, p. 60); but on the other hand, he developed sympathy for the concrete suffering of the minorities in the last decade of his life.

10

Can the State Take Appropriate Measures Against Racism?

Would Niebuhr accept a paternalistic state that attempts to enforce human rights norms with the help of scientifically based educational concepts? He spoke out against artifial concepts of social engineering (Niebuhr 1956a, p. 8) as a strategy to transform immature or evil attitudes of people. Instead, it would require a variety of devices that involved the whole society in order to improve the acceptance and tolerance between different groups. In this respect, students of social justice can learn a great deal from Niebuhr’s work in race relations. The evil that expresses itself in racism must be fought continuously (Stone 2012, p. 319). For the theologian, moral teaching, economic boycott, divestment strategies and church actions as well as civil rights legislation were instruments to combat the sin of racism. Its malignancy can be contained not with a purely moralistic approach that blames the majority of society of being “structurally racist”. It needs moral disarmament from all sides. A one-sided form of victimization is not helpful to bridge the gap between ethnic groups and social classes. The fact that privileged white people jump on the bandwagon of the black man’s case represents a hypocrisy in its own case. White people cannot determine in which black people feel discriminated. A racism in reverse in order to cure the evil of white supremacy would end in a vicious circle of hate and bitterness. Niebuhr probably would have appreciated the mission of BLM but he would perhaps have urged its leadership to tame the radical forces inside the movement. But that is pure speculation. Niebuhr’s treatment of racism is prone to be criticized from the idealist front as has been shown beforehand. The late Niebuhr, however, saw in the inequalities the blacks were exposed to in the U.S. one of the greatest challenges for the U.S. Society shortly before the celebrations of the 200th birthday of the nation. He suggested a negative income tax as one strategy to facilitate the burdens of the blacks, a concept

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that was surprisingly developed by the liberal economist Milton Friedman. And he knew that it will be a never ending story to work against racism, discrimination and injustice. It was not a “socially constructed” society that would guarantee the complete eradication of racism. Instead, a sustainable effort was necessary to teach as many as possible in democratic virtues that contain tolerance and the acceptance of the other. Tjalve is right when she states: “In contrast to the deconstructivist or pragmatist belief that a radically disenchanted view of justice is a precondition for democratic principles of difference and dissent, realism insists that a sense of faith, understood as the spiritual recognition of transcendent principles and our incapacity to fully understand or realize these, is necessary for a truly charitable and truly forgiving democratic dialogue” (Tjalve 2009, p. 188). What Christian realism has to offer is not only a precept that is helpful in the fight against racism in the narrow sense, but it can support a renewed form of humble dialogue between globalists and patriots, between urban and rural population, between libertarians and socialists and between representatives of different religions. To be a realist means, in the understanding of Augustinus, to be able to withstand the conformism to follow solely the prevailing rules in a society; to be able to honestly accept and understand the backgrounds and thoughts of people who follow alternative ideas. This intellectual gift is the result of the confident acceptance of the imperfectabilities of human beings in this world and the hope to achieve peace in a perfect transcendent world. In current discussions, it is not uncommon that realists are either called reactionaries or even racists if they argue that racism, nationalism and imperialism are not problems only of white people but universal characteristics of human behavior. “No one loves a political realist”, this famous bonmot by Robert Gilpin (Gilpin 1996) has not lost its deeper meaning. Christian realism maintains that change is possible, but it is always temporary and in danger of being stolen by historical forces. The state alone, however, cannot eliminate the evil in the world. But it can maintain social stability that allows the development of norms and legal systems that are the result of the collective free will of its citizens. For Niebuhr, the free will was the first requirement for people to make just and loving decisions. Temptations to enforce moral behavior with help of a paternalistic state should be resisted because it would make matters worse. We must be able to accept historical compromises. In IAH he found a moving phrasing: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our

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friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness” (Niebuhr, quoted in Sifton 2015, p. 510).

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Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1969. With Alan Heimert. The Democratic Experience. Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence. NYC: Scribner. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1977 (1958). Pious and Secular America. Fairfield/N.J.: Kelley. Olszowka, J., Sullivan, M. M., Sheridan, B. R., and Hickey, D ed. 2014. America in the Thirties. NYC: Syracuse University Press. Rohde, Christoph. 2016. Reinhold Niebuhr – Die Geburt des Christlichen Realismus aus dem Geist des Widerstandes. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Sabella, Jeremy L. 2017. An American Conscience – The Reinhold Niebuhr Story. Grand Rapids: Eerdmas Publishing. Scott, Eugene. 2020. 4 reasons coronavirus is hitting black communities so hard. Washington Post, April 10, 2020. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/10/4-rea sons-coronavirus-is-hitting-black-communities-so-hard/ Sennett, Richard. 2017. The Fall of Public Man. NYC: Norton & Norton. Sifton, Elisabeth (ed.) 2015. Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics (Library of America 263) NYC: Library Classics of the United States. Stourz, Gerhard. 1955. Ideologie und Machtpolitik als Diskussionsthema der amerikanischen außenpolitischen Literatur. Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 3. No. 1, pp. 99–112. Stone, Ronald. 2012. Politics and Faith. Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Macon: Mercer University Press. Tavernise, Sabrina/Eligon, John. 2020. Voters Say Black Lives Matter Protests Were Important. They Disagree On Why. NYT, November 7 (updated Nov. 11). URL: https://www.nyt imes.com/2020/11/07/us/black-lives-matter-protests.html Thayer, Bradley. 2004. Darwin and international relations: on the evolutionary origins of war and ethnic conflict. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Thompson, Kenneth. 1974. Niebuhr as Thinker and Doer. Journal of Religion, No. 4, pp. 424– 434. Tjalve, Vibeke Schou. 2009. Realism and the Politics of (Dis)Enchantement. In Political Thought and International Relations – Variations of a Realist Theme. Ed. Duncan Bell, 177–194. Oxford: OUP. Wax, Amy L. 2009. Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century. Lanham: R&L. Weaver, Jace. 1995. Original Simplicities and Present Complexities: Reinhold Niebuhr, Ethnocentrism, and theMyth of American Exceptionalism. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 231–247.