[Ed. note: Be sure to read the comments for the, um, commentary.]
“[T]he course of history, particularly in the past two centuries, has proved the earlier identification of growth and progress to be false. We have, or ought to have, learned, particularly from the tragedies of contemporary history, that each new development of life, whether in individual or social terms, presents us with new possibilities of realizing the good in history; that we have obligations corresponding with these new possibilities; but that we also face new hazards on each new level and that the new level of historic achievement offers us no emancipation from contradictions and ambiguities to which all life in history is subject. We have learned, in other words, that history is not its own redeemer. The ‘long run’ of it is no more redemptive in the ultimate sense than the ‘short run’.
It is this later development of modern history which has given the Reformation vision of the Christian faith a new relevance. No apology is necessary for assigning so great a pedagogical significance to the lessons of history. The truth contained in the gospel is not found in human wisdom. Yet it may be found at the point where human wisdom and human goodness acknowledge their limits; and creative despair induces faith. Once faith is induced it becomes truly the wisdom which makes ‘sense’ out of a life and history which would otherwise remain senseless. This is possible for individuals in any age, no matter what its historical circumstances.
“But it cannot be denied that historical circumstances may be more or less favourable to the inducement of the ‘Godly sorrow’ which worketh repentance. There are periods of hope in history in which the Christian faith would seem to be irrelevant, because history itself seems to offer both the judgment and the redemption which the Christian faith finds in the God who has been revealed in Christ. There are other periods of disillusionment when the vanity of such hopes is fully revealed. We have lived through such centuries of hope and we are now in such a period of disillusionment. The centuries of historical hope have well nigh destroyed the Christian faith as a potent force in modern culture and civilization. We do not maintain that the period of disillusionment in which we now find ourselves will necessarily restore the Christian faith. It has merely re-established its relevance. There is always the alternative of despair, the ‘sorrow of the world’, to the creative despair which induces a new faith.
“If, however, the modern generation is to be helped to find life meaningful without placing an abortive confidence in the mere historical growth, it is incumbent upon those who mediate the truth of the gospel to this generation, to accept and not to reject whatever truth about life and history has been learned in these past centuries of partial apostasy.”
From The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 2, pp. 213-14. The original lectures on which this is based were given in the Fall of 1939, shortly after the start of World War II. I think it is cool that he is Obama’s favorite philosopher/ theologian.
N.B.: Reinhold Niebuhr is not to be confused with his brother, H. Richard Niebuhr (also a theologian), or his nephew, Richard Reinhold Niebuhr (also a theologian), or his third cousin, H. Niebuhr Richard Reinhold Reinhold (not a theologian).
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11 responses to “Reinhold Niebuhr on Obama, the Recession, and Creative Despair”
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Simeon – can you elaborate on what you see is the connection between Obama and Niebuhr. Or in other words, what do you think the implications are that Niebuhr is Obama's favorite philosopher/theologian?
Sorry, I'm just not totally following.
The problem with Simeon is that he's smarter than the rest of us.
I guess there are several things about this quote I find interesting.
First, it made me think about this past Fall, when on the one hand the US elected Obama– first black president, embodiment of good social "progress" in America– on a platform of change and hope, and at the same time was hit with the worst recession in who knows how long. It was a very Niebuhrian moment. Niebuhr more than perhaps any theologian I can think of tried to make sense of how to be genuinely hopeful and excited about something like Obama's election and at the same time work from a Reformation viewpoint that development is not necessarily progress and 'history is not its own redeemer' and recessions happen and are awful. It is difficult to hold those two things together, and Niebuhr did it about as well as you can, and I think that is a good thing.
Another interesting factor is that Obama himself seems to me to be a more complex and profound thinker than the superficial reading of him as only an apostle of hope and progress suggests. This is exemplified by the fact that he likes Niebuhr, a notorious pessimist in many ways, so much! This is just speculation, but I would like to think that Obama's own views are somewhat closer to Niebuhr's than to that of pure naive progressivist optimism. (The great picture of Obama with a cigarette is very Niebuhrian.)
Depending on where you stand on that one, you can read the amazing 3D glasses picture two ways: as Obama looking at the world through naive rose-tinted glasses, or as real creativity/humor and affirmation of the best of the world. (In my world, 3D glasses usually represent the Holy Spirit, but that's just me.)
Finally, Niebuhr's affirmation from a Christian perspective that we should 'accept and not reject whatever truth about life and history' the secular world has to offer and his description of creative despair ('godly sorrow', 2 Cor. 7) arising from the world finding its own limits rather than only from sheer Christian biblical fiat strikes me as very Mockingbirdian.
(Really, however, I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of an eminent theologian wearing what looks to be a vampire costume.)
Simeon: Thanks for taking the time to explain what you were intending. We puzzled over it for a bit, but this clears some of it up.
I *heart* a good vampire ref.
Simeon, I enjoyed this brief exposure to a theologian with which I was not fmailiar.
I think he looks more like Uncle Fester looking up a potion or a spell…
And you got me with the link to H. Neibuhr Richard Reinhold Reinhold. Why are there so many songs about rainbows? thomas
Sim, this is really great stuff. Thank you for sharing. I've been hearing Niebuhr's name more and more recently, but never his voice, and this really helps there. And that quote about creative despair inducing faith… unbelievably great! Would love to hear more.
The idea that "creative despair (in historical evolutionary human progress) induces faith" has been seen as the spark behind the "Southern Renaissance" that gave us Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Allen Tate, Tennessee Williams, John Crowe Ransom, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Eudora Welty and, or course, Faulkner. For the South of their collective memory and personal experience, despair was the only road to faith and hope.
Thanks for the great post, Simeon. But Obama's favorite theologian? I guess you don't get elected president on a "creative despair" platform.
Just wondering, if I wanted to wade into the waters of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, what work or volume would you suggest?
Probably best would be his book Moral Man and Immoral Society. The Nature and Destiny of Man is great as well, and full of interesting insights, but intimidatingly long.
Thank you.