The Oxford Handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr, Robin W.Lovin and JoshuaMauldin (eds), Oxford University Press, 2021 (ISBN 978‐0‐19‐881356‐9), xxviii + 637 pp., hb £110
2022-01-01

With 37 authors at over 600 pages, this volume is a truly impressive resource, almost comprehensive in its presentation and deeply academic and critical in its approach. It sheds new light on one of the key figures of the twentieth century who deeply influenced both the theological and ethical debates about Christianity, society, culture and politics, and society and politics themselves. Yet this influence is in no way to be understood exclusively in the ‘past tense’. Indeed, ‘Niebuhr’ and his ‘realism’ (‘Christian’ or otherwise) are concepts that are still being discussed and employed in theological, ethical and even political discourses. The volume is a genuinely positive contribution to the contemporary academic discussion about Niebuhr, and it goes beyond the walls of the academy (as Niebuhr himself would have welcomed). This is also the unique contribution of this edited volume, for it sets out a twofold approach, both to historicize Niebuhr and also to address his significance with view to contemporary issues. After a very helpful general introduction from the editors, the volume is divided into six sections: (1) ‘Niebuhr and his times’, (2) ‘Allies and adversaries’, (3) ‘Theological starting points’, (4) ‘Ethics’, (5) ‘Politics and policy’, and (6) ‘Niebuhr's legacy’. The essays present a picture of a unique public intellectual who was active simultaneously in theological, social, and political discourses. These various realms of thought, action, and experience overlapped and mutually reinforced his sober and realistic approach to the world and the basic questions about human existence and faith in God. Each essay is a treasure trove of insight and resource, and each could easily be discussed at length. A few essays can be highlighted here, such as the essay on his relationship to John Dewey. This is a unique and very important contribution in the volume, showing how they actually shared so much in common in their political and social thought, making the later conflict essentially intramural, even though Niebuhr was critical of his optimistic view of humanity as bettering itself through education. More could have been said about this relationship in the essay and especially regarding the impact of Dewey on Niebuhr and his development. Perhaps Dewey's criticism of the younger Niebuhr's view of history in the early 1930s (declaring, celebrating, and calling for the imminent death of ‘capitalism’), for example, was just as instrumental as his brother Richard's criticisms in the redevelopment of his thought in the later 1930s and early 1940s. The historical essays in the first section show us Niebuhr in the tensions of the development of his thought, spanning the ecclesial, academic, and political realms, but they also remind us of the truly admirable moments in his biography, such as his claim, in 1930, that segregation was causing racial hatred, his support, in 1934, for the establishment of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, his work for the interracial Delta Cooperative Farm in 1936, his advocacy, during World War Two, for Jews fleeing the persecution of German National Socialism, his rejection of the internment of the Japanese during World War Two, and criticism of the Allied practice of the annihilationist bombardment of German cities. They provide an excellent introduction to his historical development and often refer to his key publications and the influential personalities in this development. The essay on George Kennan, the architect of the United States' Cold War era containment strategy (opposed to open war, or isolationism), is also very impressive. It shows how Niebuhr and Kennan mutually reinforced one another in their intellectual assessment of Soviet communism, demonstrating how Niebuhr's ethics took shape in realpolitik, and how the Christian faith was essential to both figures. The essay on Niebuhr's friend Abraham Heschel, who delivered the eulogy at Niebuhr's funeral (and who often took walks with Niebuhr in New York), is also highly instructive. It shows us how the concept of prophetic irony was shared by both thinkers and influenced their common left/of/center liberal social critique. It also shows how Niebuhr conceptualized Protestantism in a new way, condemning anti-Semitism — Heschel's mother and his three sisters were killed in the German National Socialist genocide — and developing a positive relationship to Judaism. The essay on Martin Luther King Jr. is very informative on King's development, even though the new debates about the archival material are left unmentioned. King read Niebuhr as a student and seems to have drawn some inspiration from his idea of prophetic critique and realism. The gradualist-Niebuhr was more sensitive to the racial injustices of American history and more critical of racial segregation than most of his colleagues in the white American Protestant establishment, and he did criticize segregation and racism early on, but he was not at the forefront of the movement for racial justice with King. As Gary Dorrien remarks in his essay in the first section of the volume, ‘Niebuhr was like Kennedy and Johnson in giving belated high priority to racial justice’ (p. 81). He welcomed the 1954 Brown decision of the Supreme Court but did not support the call to immediate change. As Dorrien writes about the Niebuhr of the 1950s: ‘What mattered was to nurture patiently the germinating forces for openness in the South’ (p. 81). Later in 1964, however, he came to acknowledge how deeply seated the problem was, both in the South and the North. Dorrien writes about the Niebuhr of the 1960s: it ‘saddened him to consider that he had been naïve about racism’ (p. 82). The essays on his theology and ethics are instructive in two ways, as historical exegesis of Niebuhr and as immediate engagements with his thought from our contemporary perspective. Overall, the deeply ethical and anthropological orientation of his theological mind comes to the surface in most of these essays, which often work back from this standpoint to the moral principles and dogmatic loci. The essay on ecclesiology, for example, shows us a refined picture of a humble ecclesial community of imperfect human beings, a fallen community of grace that does not present itself as the answer to every question, or see itself in pure opposition to ‘the world’, but as a community of the gospel that can both correct and prophetically challenge ‘the world’, while also being itself corrected by ‘the world’. The ecumenical attitude in his ecclesial thought, the focus on Christian liberty in reform, and the criticism of traditionalism in church order as a potential obstacle to ecumenism are also brought out strongly in this essay. The essay on moral realism is very learned and deeply insightful in its location of Niebuhr in the broader philosophical discussion. It shows the specific anti-reductionistic distinctions in Niebuhr's articulation of naturalism and human nature, and lays an emphasis on his conception of self- and group-transcending human freedom, value pluralism, contextualism, and moral fragility — all being deeply intertwined with his anthropology, and view of God as the ultimate source and end of value. The final essays on his legacy provide the collection with a nice contour and outlook. After decades of criticism, Hauerwas's reconsideration of the positive sides of Niebuhr and his many insights into human sinfulness and pride is a gem in this mix, as well as Stout's reflections on the need for (in borderline cases requiring discretion), but dangers of the idea of proximate justice. Finally, John Bew situates the Niebuhrian sensibility wonderfully into our contemporary discussion about history, politics, and statecraft, reminding us of our continuing need of those impulses so closely associated with him, such as the social impulse, the focus on realistic responsibility and ‘political grace’ (p. 620). What would Niebuhr say today? One can only speculate, and in this sense of speculation, I think he would probably still be critical of the economic injustice of our wealthy Western societies, condemning the unbelievable disparities of wealth and opportunity, as well as the inequality in education, healthcare, housing, and all the various racial inequalities in our societies — and not least the tragic epidemic of gun violence. He would certainly reject both the radical right and the radical left today, and especially the use of violence in politics. Such violence, as he argued regarding the violence of the 1960s, often makes problems worse. Niebuhr's criticisms of president John Kennedy's adultery and his insistence that morality in private life was essential for functional political leadership is only one of the many important moments in his work which deserves special attention today. Niebuhr was written off by some because of his realism, but the form of Christian realism that he advanced was entirely aware of the dangers of Machiavellianism, amorality, or indifference to injustice in domestic politics and in international affairs. This volume deserves high praise because it helps us to understand Niebuhr today, and the continuing importance of his thought. Above all, Niebuhr highlights the complicated and indeed contradictory nature of our moral orders in personal, social, and political relations, and the need to bring them a bit closer to the kingdom of God, even if they never were, and never will be this.