Gary Dorrien: Influenced by Niebuhr
In January, Gary Dorrien was installed as the Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Niebuhr, who taught social ethics at Union from 1928 to 1961, was the most prominent and influential American theologian of the last hundred years. His evolving notion of “Christian realism” shaped the outlook of Depression-era radicals, World War II interventionists, anti-Communist cold warriors and early civil rights militants. He lectured across the country on a weekly basis, as does Dr. Dorrien, who, like Niebuhr, often arrives at his last class on Thursday “with my bags packed.”
Dr. Dorrien, an Episcopal priest, is also a professor of religion at Columbia University and the author of 12 books on topics that would meet Niebuhr’s approval, among them a critique of American foreign policy, “Imperial Designs” (2004). He recently completed a three-volume history of liberal theology in the United States.
This week Dr. Dorrien answered questions about Niebuhr’s theology and his own, and about the implications of both for contemporary politics, neoconservatism, the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq.
Q. How does your approach to Christian social ethics compare to Niebuhr’s?
A. There have been three major traditions of Christian social ethics over the past century — Social Gospel liberalism, Niebuhrian realism and liberation theology — and Union Seminary has been a major center of all three. Niebuhr absorbed the social justice ethic of the Social Gospel but turned against the idealism and rationalism it shared with the Progressive movement; he believed that the Social Gospel took too little account of conflict and human sinfulness. A generation later, liberation theologians turned against Niebuhrian realism, which they judged to be too much a defense of the American political and religious establishment.
My own work has been influenced by all three of these traditions: by the Social Gospel, by Niebuhr’s powerful blending of theology and political realism, and by the black liberationist, feminist, multicultural and gay rights perspectives that have flowed out of liberation theology and postmodern criticism.
From the beginning of social ethics as a distinct field in the 1880s, social ethicists have debated whether their field needs to be defined by a specific method. Should they burnish their social scientific credentials, or head straight for the burning social issues? Niebuhr is the field’s leading exemplar of directly addressing the social issues of the day without apology. I am on his side of that argument, though I also spend a lot of time explaining that there are other approaches to social ethics....
Read entire article at Pter Steinfels in the NYT
Dr. Dorrien, an Episcopal priest, is also a professor of religion at Columbia University and the author of 12 books on topics that would meet Niebuhr’s approval, among them a critique of American foreign policy, “Imperial Designs” (2004). He recently completed a three-volume history of liberal theology in the United States.
This week Dr. Dorrien answered questions about Niebuhr’s theology and his own, and about the implications of both for contemporary politics, neoconservatism, the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq.
Q. How does your approach to Christian social ethics compare to Niebuhr’s?
A. There have been three major traditions of Christian social ethics over the past century — Social Gospel liberalism, Niebuhrian realism and liberation theology — and Union Seminary has been a major center of all three. Niebuhr absorbed the social justice ethic of the Social Gospel but turned against the idealism and rationalism it shared with the Progressive movement; he believed that the Social Gospel took too little account of conflict and human sinfulness. A generation later, liberation theologians turned against Niebuhrian realism, which they judged to be too much a defense of the American political and religious establishment.
My own work has been influenced by all three of these traditions: by the Social Gospel, by Niebuhr’s powerful blending of theology and political realism, and by the black liberationist, feminist, multicultural and gay rights perspectives that have flowed out of liberation theology and postmodern criticism.
From the beginning of social ethics as a distinct field in the 1880s, social ethicists have debated whether their field needs to be defined by a specific method. Should they burnish their social scientific credentials, or head straight for the burning social issues? Niebuhr is the field’s leading exemplar of directly addressing the social issues of the day without apology. I am on his side of that argument, though I also spend a lot of time explaining that there are other approaches to social ethics....