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The American Spectator
Another Perspective
Niebuhr and Obama
By Mark Tooley on 1.20.09 @ 6:07AM
Last year, Barack Obama cited Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) as one of his
favorite philosophers. The choice contrasted with George W. Bush's
famous citation in 2000 of Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher.
Citing a deceased theologian with a German name seems sophisticated, and
Jimmy Carter likewise often pointed to Niebuhr, and justifiably so.
Niebuhr was probably the 20th century's finest ethicist in the liberal
Protestant tradition.

Despite lay fans like Obama and Carter, who are themselves liberal
Protestants, Niebuhr is today rarely embraced by the modern Religious
Left, which prefers utopianism to Niebuhr's school of Christian realism.

Niebuhr would appreciate the irony, because he himself was once a sort
of utopian who shared the pacifism and socialism of Social Gospel
enthusiasts after World War I. The rise of Nazism jolted Niebuhr back to
the reality of transcendent evil, and he steadfastly endorsed World War
II, even while criticizing the Allied bombing of German cities and
questioning the atomic attacks on Japan. Later, he supported Western
resistance to Soviet communism, though he opposed the Vietnam War almost
from its start.

Niebuhr always remained left of center politically, endorsing the New
Deal and welfare state, and heartily endorsing civil rights. A Lutheran,
he taught for 30 years at Union Seminary in New York, which was then
America's flagship liberal seminary. Today, like most once distinguished
liberal seminaries, Union is a shadow of its former influence. But in
Niebuhr's day it hosted some of America's great theological minds,
including Niebuhr's colleague and close friend, Paul Tillich.

Often described as neo-orthodox, Niebuhr did share that movement's
belief in the power of human sin. But he did not share neo-orthodoxy's
attempt to salvage the supernatural aspects of Christian orthodoxy.
Niebuhr did not believe in biblical miracles, a physical resurrection or
an afterlife for individuals. He criticized neo-orthodoxy's main
proponent, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, for his adherence to
supernatural and extra-rational Christian doctrines. Ironically, at
least in the 1950s, he was politically to the right of Barth, and he was
chagrined by Barth's sometimes accommodating stances towards Soviet
communism.

Niebuhr's unrelenting conviction that humanity is sinful, and his denial
of transcendent salvation through supernatural intervention, confines
him to a rather grim worldview. It also somewhat limits his appeal to
orthodox Christians, as a theologian, if not so much as an ethicist.
Evangelicals in the mid-20th century did not admire Niebuhr, but
evangelicals were then on the periphery of American culture, with
liberal Protestants still at the pilot's wheel. Today, searching for
serious political philosophers, some evangelical intellectuals
appreciate Niebuhr as superior to most other prominent Protestant
ethicists of his era. Despite their ascension to America's largest
religious demographic, evangelicals seemingly still lack moral and
political thinkers of Niebuhr's caliber. Regretfully, evangelical left
academics are often filling the void, espousing the pacifism and
utopianism that Niebuhr rejected.

Adlai Stevenson, a cerebral Democrat who, like Obama, appealed to
intellectuals, admired and befriended Niebuhr. Lyndon Johnson awarded
Niebuhr the Medal of Freedom in 1964. But perhaps it was Hubert Humphrey
who was the politician to whom Niebuhr was closest. Both helped found
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) as a voice of mainstream,
anti-communist liberalism in America. Wittily in his address at ADA's
founding in 1947, Niebuhr obliquely denounced pro-Soviet left-wingers by
declaring, "I never believed in my country right or wrong, especially
when it wasn't my country."

Niebuhr's anti-communist liberalism was in sync with Humphrey's until
the Vietnam War, which Niebuhr opposed as "fantastic," even though he
understood the nasty outcome of a communist Southeast Asia. He thought
U.S. involvement in Asian land wars unwise and unwinnable, though he had
tacitly endorsed the Korean intervention. He speculated that Vietnam's
surrender to communism could be accepted if anti-communist Vietnamese
relocated to Thailand and were protected with "massive" U.S. military
power, as recounted in Richard Wightman Fox's biography.

Vice President Humphrey was not persuaded, and in 1966 he made his
pro-war case at the 25th anniversary dinner of Christianity & Crisis
magazine, which Niebuhr had founded to rally support for World War II.
The gala was at New York's famous shrine of progressive Protestantism,
Riverside Church, and Niebuhr's declining health prevented him from
attending. So Humphrey visited Niebuhr's apartment beforehand and
discussed Vietnam.

Niebuhr's later described his friend's adherence to President Johnson's
war policy as "very sad."

At the dinner, Humphrey stalwartly tried to enlist Niebuhrian realism in
his case for Vietnam. "We reaffirm our intention of using military power
of almost limitless quantities in measured limited degree," the Vice
President told 400 mostly liberal Protestant listeners. "In Vietnam we
have one -- and only one -- military objective: the halting of forceful
conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam."

Tying the Vietnam War to a larger social justice agenda, Humphrey
insisted: "We reaffirm our intention to sustain the struggle against the
forces of Communist expansion, against the forces of poverty,
illiteracy, famine and disease for as long as the cause of freedom
requires it."

According to the New York Times, he even bitingly criticized the rising
chorus of anti-war protests, observing that among the failings of "the
great tradition of social protest in America" were oversimplification,
political naiveti and sweeping impatience with "everybody in authority."

Commenting on the speech, Niebuhr privately regretted that Humphrey had
tried "claiming my anti-Nazi stance of the 1930's with the present war."

And he lamented that his friend was "in a tragic position of outdoing
the Machiavelli of the White House, meanwhile losing all his friends."
Despite the Vietnam disagreement, Niebuhr eventually would support him
for president in 1968. When approaching death, Niebuhr once rose from
his bed upon seeing President Richard Nixon on the television,
exclaiming, "That bastard!" Niebuhr evidently never voted for a
Republican, though reportedly he was willing to support Nelson
Rockefeller, had he won the Republican nomination.

Rejecting Christian orthodoxy, Niebuhr even dismissed much of
Christianity's Just War tradition as untenable. He constructed his own
purportedly more realistic rationales for war in defense of justice. His
exertions were brilliant, and his proposed worldview was justifiably
influential across nearly a half century. Obama and other political
liberals who admire Niebuhr could look to far worse. But orthodox
Christians of all stripes might begin to look for alternatives who
balance Niebuhr's reasoned pessimism about humanity with equal
hopefulness about an active Christian Providence.

Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on
Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.