As we inch toward the presidential elections of 2016, crawling through a seemingly endless desert of soundbites, debates, and TV advertisements, we would do well to step back and revisit Reinhold Niebuhr’s Cold War liberalism. The new collection of Niebuhr’s Major Works on Religion and Politics, edited by Elisabeth Sifton, shows that Niebuhr’s political reflections are just as relevant today as they were when he wrote, and can guide us through the political wasteland in which we currently find ourselves.
Part of the frustration of reading Niebuhr on racial injustice comes from the fact that, as Paeth says, Niebuhr failed to support black liberation and empowerment at the precise moments when the logic of his Augustinian thought should have told him to do so most strongly.
One of the reasons why Amos made people squirm in his day and why Belhar irritates us in our own is because those of us used to being in charge have little practice in and less patience for listening to people whom we deem to be our inferiors.