Blog
Welcome. First, a word about Hamlin.
He is in cat contest—the prize is food, appropriate—if you have a moment, go to http://www.thecatconnection.com/contest/contestants.shtml
and vote for him. There is also a picture of the Cat under the
Christmas tree. He claims that he is
waiting for people to declare him King Cat by acclamation.
Niebuhr
obviously had an impact. You all did
well wrestling with his thought.
Tomorrow should be a good discussion.
CH 1502
Christian Movement
Glenn Miller
April 9, 2008
Cathie Kimball
Niebuhr’s prayers are very easy read and understood.
Reinhold Niebuhr
These essays by Reinhold Niebuhr are dense and carefully thought out and presented yet accessible. His worldview, though from a particular time and place, has relevance in many different times and places. He understands something about the human condition. There is much in his writing that is compelling.
I particularly like his prayers. “O lord, hear our prayers not according to the poverty of our asking, but according to the richness of your grace, so that our lives may conform to those desires which accord with your will. When our desires are amiss, may they be overruled by a power greater than ours, and by a mercy more powerful than our sin.” What a lovely way of expressing “thy will not mine”, one that acknowledges our own weaknesses but does not diminish us. He seems very kind.
“In the religion of Jesus, ethical tension and relaxation from tension through the assurance of grace are curiously intermingled so that the latter does not become a peril to the former.” In a sentence he sums up a dichotomy, a paradox, or as he states it a tension that I have long felt but not been able to articulate. The either/or approach of many religions precludes it and is frustrating to me. This is both/and, both an illumination of grace, and a call to ethical action as a result. He goes on to show how Jesus saw what he calls “glimpses of God” in many human acts, yet knew full well the extent of depravity that humans can embrace as well. He sees Jesus’ view of humanity as accurate, yet tending to call forth what is best in us.
Another
illustration that is compelling is Niehbuhr’s
description of the power and weakness of God.
The image of the divine Messiah helpless and crucified on the cross is
yet another paradox. It is in that
weakness, that vulnerability, that Jesus demonstrates his ultimate power over
death. It is in succumbing to it,
immersing himself totally in human life, that the power of the resurrection is
revealed. “…the revelation of the divine
goodness in history must be powerless…Powerless goodness ends upon the
cross. It..set[s]
up a sign and symbol of the
Niebuhr’s perspective on the human condition is at once realistic and hopeful. His description of how contrition and redemption are inexorably intertwined is well done. His view on the inherent nature of man defines his pessimistic optimism – realistic, yet not without hope. It is an excellent viewpoint for our age.
Kathleen M. Batchelder
CH 1502
Online Seminar #9
Essential
Reinhold Niebuhr—Parts I and II
In this
first reading of Reinhold Niebuhr’s essays and prayers, the terms “paradox” and
“tension” come to my mind frequently.
First, a paradox is an apparent contradiction which, when examined,
contains a truth or lesson. Niebuhr’s
use of paradox and his simultaneous consideration of two apparently unreconcilable terms or ideas build tension which makes his
essays interesting and insightful.
Finally, the prayers of Niebuhr are thought-provoking and rich in their phraseology
and ideas.
First, the
book’s Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown sets the tone for a first-time
reader of Niebuhr by reporting that “Niebuhr’s method can be described, in the
parlance of his day, as dialectical, involving the simultaneous affirmation of
what initially seem to be contrary propositions” (page xvi). The old English teacher in me immediately
wonders how Niebuhr will set up those “contrary propositions” and whether or
not my gullible mind will be able to understand his point from the debate. I need not have worried. While many of the ideas from Niebuhr’s essays
are still flying around in my brain, his writing is easier to understand than I
had anticipated. An oxymoron is a
pairing of opposite terms such as “jumbo shrimp,” “ plastic
glass,” and my personal favorite “military intelligence” (no offense is
intended to anyone—I just like the term).
Niebuhr moves past the meaningless pairing of opposite terms to the more
significant paradox where there is truth in the apparently contradictory
pairing of terms. For example, Niebuhr
writes, “The crux of the cross is its revelation of the fact that the final
power of God over man is derived from the self-imposed weakness of his love”
(page 22). His discussion of the power
and weakness of God verbalizes some of my questions, and I like his conclusion
that “this rational contradiction lies at the heart of faith’s apprehension of
the holiness of God” (page 23). Niebuhr
leaves me with assurance that my questions about the paradoxes of life and
faith are valid searchings. (Hi Hamlin, I can’t leave
thinking about paradoxes without including the web site for a popular paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttered_cat_paradox )
This is more like Zeno’s famous paradox than Niebuhr’s more
existential use of the word. Alas, as any one who has ever watch a child dress a cat in doll
clothes knows, cats get things off their backs very quickly. Good for them
Tension is
created by Niebuhr’s contemplation of contradictory terms. I hope I am not alone in constantly living in
a state of desire to “do the right thing” and at the same time to “be
comfortable.” No, most of
us have both impluses Niebuhr writes
about the role of faith in our consideration of these tensions of life: “An
adequate religion is always an ultimate optimism which has entertained all the
facts which lead to pessimism. . .Like the human personality in the human body,
it lives in and through the body, but transcends it” (page 6). I wonder sometimes if I am pulled to religion
and my desire for closeness with God at least in part by my desire to live with
the “better side” of the world’s incongruities. Probably. The sense that there may be a btter side is a powerful motivator. One of my all-time favorite book discussion
groups at our church was about 10 years ago when we discussed contradictions
(similar to those posed by Niebuhr) of living our faith in The Power of the
Lamb (I think the author’s are John Toews and
Gordon Nickel). I’d like to take some of
Niebuhr’s ideas back to that book’s discussion of everyday applications of the
tensions of faith.
Robert
McAfee Brown tells us that Niebuhr’s wife Ursula included some of his prayers
in collections of his sermons. I am
grateful. His beautifully profound and
simple Serenity Prayer gives voice for many of us in the dilemmas of living our
faith. I am delighted to have an
opportunity to study and to pray several of his heartfelt prayers. Many of them carry the paradoxes and tensions
of faith which have appeared in his essays.
I have used lectio divina
as study and prayer of scripture, appreciating the structure for deeper
exploration of the words and phrases of a text.
I know that the same lectio divina approach will be helpful as I contemplate Niebuhr’s
prayers. “O Lord, hear our prayers not
according to the poverty of our asking, but according to the richness of your
grace” (page 72) will help me to ask my questions and to nurture my belief.
I am
grateful for this chance to immerse myself briefly in Niebuhr’s essays and
prayers. His writing is deep and rich,
but quite accessible. I enjoyed the
essay “Humour and Faith” because I tend to see the
humor of the world around us, and I think humor is part of the tension at the
edge of awe, sympathy, pathos, grief, and belief. Sarah laughed with surprise, delight, wonder,
and belief when Yahweh told her that she will bear a child. I was
interested in the statement in the Introduction that some of Niebuhr’s writings
are “time bound,” but so far I have found them applicable to our times. Perhaps incongruities will be more likely in
Part III about “The Church and the Modern World.” This may be one place where
being older is a value. In Bob Brown’s day (he was Niebuhr student
and in the theological generation just above mine), people were searching for
the next Niebuhr and never found him
Gary Cyr
Reinhold Niebuhr
4/9/08
Great comments here.
Of all the readings we have done this semester and last fall, Niebuhr has captivated me the most. The richness of his prayers in chapter 6 reveals a depth of spirituality that combines the “truth” of orthodox theology with the optimism of liberal theology. His third prayer on page 72, for me sums up what I feel is his theology were well in its expression of living with the paradox of religion and life. Niebuhr’s argument that in paradox we begin to have a sense of the ultimate questions is weighted against the liberal view that the tensions between nature and spirit not being fully recognized and orthodoxy’s complete separation of absolute/divine, human/natural. In light of the time period he is writing, Niebuhr recapitulates a biblical understanding that both liberal Protestantism and orthodox theology have bifurcated into two extremes. Instead of a horizontal or vertical dichotomy of nature and religion that liberal and orthodox teachings argue, Niebuhr argues for both; it is an argument for poetic and imaginative expression instead of Platonic rationalism, logic, and dogma.
Within the first half of this reading, I found myself recalling a phrase that I believe Niebuhr would agree with: that within every empire is the seed of its own destruction. The best of intentions may also carry the worst of outcomes. There is sound wisdom in the belief that our involvement with World War II was necessary, but that our good intentions can lead into a different form of tyranny. The forces of good and evil lie within the heart of humanity, but it is not merely a choice one makes between the two; they live together in paradox and tension. This is expressed in Nirbuhr’s discourse between power and weakness.
Niebuhr presents a point of view that suggests a balance of opposites; that the ultimate questions point toward an ultimate end, which is God. Power and weakness become pointers to this end. What emerges is the language of sign and symbol. Niebuhr utilizes symbols as a means of revealing the nature of God, as does nature itself. Nature does not embody God nor does God negate the laws that govern nature…things happen; yet God reveals God’s self through them. I believe that Niebuhr suggests that we cannot know the all of God, but that through various signs and symbols we learn about the nature of God. Moses, the Judges and Prophets, Jesus all as sign and symbol that reveals and points toward the Ultimate. But the Ultimate end also finds expression in language. Good insight. You are getting inside his thought
Niebuhr mentions the mythos of story; the mythology of religion. Not only does religion need specific symbols, it needs story to convey the righteousness of the Creator. I may be wrong here, but I usually interpret myth not as a true story, but story which points to truth. After reading Niebuhr I find this understanding supportable. Niebuhr presents an understanding of religion that is not confined to Platonic logic or Barthian orthodoxy, but is expressive through ritual, story, art, etc. It reminds me some of what Schleiermacher wrote, but nauenced as a result of two world wars.
What I find in his theology is openness towards other traditions and beliefs. How he presents his thoughts leaves open the ability to have ecumenical conversation without seeking to convert one another. Was he open to such interfaith discussion? The World Council of Churches emerged shortly after the wars, was Niebuhr involved in its workings/formation? Yes In his writings he mentions “the cult of death” during the Middle Ages. To what was he referring? The passion for purgatory and all the emphasis on Judgment after death. I don’t have many questions but too many ideas have emerged from this set of readings. I look forward to the rest of the book!
CH 1502 Phyllis
Merritt
Christian
Movement II
Glenn Miller week of
The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr
Parts I and II
A couple of
weeks ago when I was struggling through Schleiermacher, one of the comments Dr.
Miller made in class was the fact that we can read, and we can read. The reading that gives us several things to
chew over and think about is good reading indeed. With apologies to the women who were on the
committee to produce the Women’s Bible, I now understand that comment.
Schleiermacher
intrigued me. There was, in that
reading, more than one idea to mull over and think about. While I deeply appreciate the Women’s Bible,
I found that the thinking in it is along one line, equal consideration of women
in Biblical and religious matters. To be
honest, I have based that statement on our assignment and know I should read
the complete book before I make such a comment.
In addition, I do not want to seem as though I am abandoning the cause,
but are their no women who write like Schleiermacher and Niebuhr? This week’s reading assignment makes my mind
itch. What a wonderful metaphor
. Niebuhr was great as a theologian precisely
because he made people’s mind itch and itch again once the first itch was
scratched. He had a tremendous mind and
a grasp on the Bible that was profound.
In the
foreword, Robert McAfee Brown states that Niebuhr wrote “not so much for the
ages as for the moment.” (xiii) With
that in mind, I wrote the acknowledgement information about each essay near its
title before I began to read. “Optimism,
Pessimism, and Religious Faith” was originally a lecture and was published in
1940. While I am sure that every age has
its own “brand” of optimism and pessimism, I liked knowing that he wrote this
during a time of extreme crisis. Brown
also notes that much of Niebuhr’s writing can transfer “from one age to the
next.” (xiii) This lecture is one that
can. Niebuhr was the last great “public
theologian” in America whose thought expressed the deep paradoxes of what was,
until recently, a nation that had been nurtured and grown on the paradoxes of
Protestant faith.
I found
passages that reminded me of two of Shakespeare’s plays. Niebuhr’s quote from Bertrand Russell (8)
reminded me of the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy from Macbeth. A few pages later, when I read Niebuhr’s
statement that “historic religion has a note of provisional pessimism in its
optimism, for the simple reason that it takes cognizance of more of the facts
of human existence” (13), I could hear Friar Laurence’s recognition of that
same idea—“Within the infant rind of
this small flower/ Poison hath residence and medicine power.” (Romeo and Juliet)
I have marked
several passages that I want to mull over.
Here are a very few:
·
“History
does not move forward without catastrophe, happiness is not guaranteed by the
multiplication of physical comforts, social harmony is not easily created by
more intelligence, and human nature is not as good or as harmless as had been
supposed.” (9) Yes
·
“While
traditional religion usually overstates the case at this point and makes human
sin responsible for all the imperfections of nature, it remains true
nevertheless that this insight actually incorporates a good deal of what might
be regarded as chaos into the universe of meaning.” (14)
·
“These
paradoxes [referring to a Whitehead quotation] are in the spirit of great
religion. The mystery of life is comprehended in meaning, though no human
statement of the meaning can fully resolve the mystery. The tragedy of life is recognized, but faith
prevents tragedy from being pure tragedy.” (17)Yes. Faith prevents the tragic from becoming the
meaningless or the merely evil. What
makes Hardy’s novels truly tragic is the sense that
they both could and could not have turned out differently.
I
found “The Power and Weakness of God” to be more difficult reading. I do not know if that was because I was
trying to read too much of the assignment at once and my brain was on overload,
or that it was just more difficult. New England
congregationalism has had real difficulty with the cross and its horrid
paradox that God is greatest where God is weakest. I don’t have much marked on page 22, so that
means I need to go back and re-read the section on paradox of power and
weakness. I did mark the last sentence
of the section, though: “…all the ages of faith have found in the crucified
Lord a luminous point which “makes sense” of the eternal mystery by defying the
conclusions of common sense.” (23) I
liked both the expression “luminous point” and the idea that the mystery is
still a mystery. How many great thinkers
have tried to crack that mystery, but it remains elusive! Niebuhr’s comments on page 26 about the peace
of the coming centuries seem to have come true in our lifetimes… “
The
section in “Two Sermons” on pages 38-39 addressed a point that most of us may
agonize over at times—the tragedies and calamities of human life, the suffering
of the innocent. To ask “what ultimate
use, what final point for the grace of God is there in this calamity” (39) is a
difficult task for me. His closing
prayer is one that I should read often.
I
liked this reading. I know, though, that
I did not do it justice…there are just too many itchy ideas for me to take in
all at once. Again, a book for future
reading…and listening…and thinking. This is a profound theologian
writing good stuff. If you got it all on
the first read, you would not have read it for the first time.
Sandy Lucas
some thoughtful notes here. This reading clearly struck some fire.
Thoughts on “The
Essential Reinhold Niebuhr”
Although I know the famous Niebuhr serenity prayer, adopted by AA, I knew little more of the man or his writings until this reading. I am so grateful to have “found” him. It reminded me of my discovery of the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. There is a depth and complexity of thought yet a simplicity and clarity in style, which makes the ideas accessible. I look forward to reading more of his work and understanding his ideas, which challenge and deepen my own.
“The Power and Weakness of God”
deals with the theodicy question about the power of God, the love and mercy of
God, and the existence of evil. Just
this week, the question of theodicy and suffering came up in my Healthcare
Ethics class and I found myself weary of the same old discussion but unable to
articulate why except that it seemed like a superficial argument with no
resolution. After
reading Niebuhr, I under-stand my discontent. He states that the question of God’s power
and mercy must be understood in the context of paradox and mystery. It is
a contradiction and that doesn’t disprove the existence or attributes of God;
the contradiction is part of our
faith. And this moves the discussion doesn’t it from
the issue of the reconciliation of opposites to the nature of great truth
This contradiction of power and mercy is seen most visibly on the cross. “The Christian faith has made this absurdity of a suffering Messiah into the very keystone of its arch of faith,” he writes. (p. 22) He states that God’s power is manifest in powerlessness, the “self-imposed weakness of His love” (p. 28) that has the power to bring humankind to repentance. God, who executes justice, also bears and suffers injustice. “There can be no repentance is love does not shine through the justice,” Niebuhr writes. “It shines through whenever it becomes apparent that the executor of judgment suffers willingly, as guiltless sufferer, with the guilty victim of punishment.” (p. 29)
What does all this have to do with
the “if God is all powerful why is there evil and suffering in the world”
question? As a Niebuhr neophyte, I think
he would say it isn’t a choice between God’s power or
God’s love. It’s not an either/or
dilemma; it’s a both/and situation. “Thus the final majesty of God is the majesty
of His mercy. It is both the completion
and the contradiction of His power.” (p. 30) Yes, that is correct. is
He would also say that our faith has to hold the optimism and pessimism of the world in tension and find our meaning in its seeming contradiction. In “Optimism, Pessimism, and Religious Faith” he writes “that the world is intensely meaningful, even though its meaning transcends human comprehension, runs as one strain throughout all profound religion.” (p. 14) In other words, we don’t throw our faith overboard in the face of suffering or conclude that there is no God. Nor do we adopt a Pollyanna theology of “everything is beautiful.” We recognize that both goodness and evil exist in our imperfect world and that there is an ultimate reality holding it all.
And when we are overcome by the absurdities and contradictions of life, it helps to have a sense of humor to keep things in perspective. “Humour is concerned with the immediate incongruities of life and faith with the ultimate ones.” (p. 49) Faith and laughter will get us through!
Barbara Chodkowski
Christian Movement II
Email Seminar – Niebuhr 1
I remember studying Niebuhr years ago and learning that he
was both a pacifist and a socialist in his thinking. I know that he was very active in the
organization of unions, I think, around the
It was in the first of the two sermons in the Essential Reinhold Niebuhr, that I began to really think. I got to the point where Niebuhr begins to describe life in three dimensions (p.38), and began to contemplate. In dealing with the first dimension (that of the natural world), he begins by telling us that “we cannot expect that God will put up a special umbrella against this or that possible disaster.” I have always had a problem reconciling the thought of those who blame God in some specific way for people who are killed in natural disasters. Yes, the Bible tells us of some, but God normally takes credit. I have always believed that the natural world operates on its own, but that it can be manipulated by efforts – even so feeble as our own. So certainly God could manipulate the natural world, and has manipulated the natural world, but doesn’t always manipulate the natural world. It makes sense then, that natural disasters can be just that – natural – independent from the will of God, other heavenly being, or human being. This “calamity” (p. 39), as Niebuhr calls it is independent of the historical realm (2nd dimension -people affected) and the Realm of Grace (3rd dimension – God affected).
Addressing History as the realm in between the two makes sense to me given Niebuhr’s philosophy. It also explains the pacifism that drew him toward a political position involving détente. He gave up the pacifism in the 1939s If we can be affected so easily and without anything to do with our behavior by the first and third dimensions, it makes sense in this logic that we would want to minimize involvement on our own part in larger decisions that could change or end the lives of those who we cannot begin to know or even count. Natural calamity is bad enough, involvement in our lives by the realm of Grace is preferred, but contributing to our own calamity by human involvement when we cannot be sure makes little sense looked at in this way.
I also liked the positivism in Niebuhr’s statement about Christian Faith: “We may be persuaded that God is on our side – not against someone else – but on our side.” We are for Niebuhr part of a plan and too much worry over the natural world or our historical significance (he mentions ego), maligns our role as a Christian to follow within constraints. “But from the standpoint of our faith we should take our humble and contrite place in God’s plan if the whole, and leave it to him to complete the fragmentation of our life (p. 40).” This says to me that all Christians are called by God to follow. We can stay active in day to day decisions, although they should be for the good of the whole (a little socialism), but the big picture is still God’s territory (unless the natural world intervenes).