Foreign Affairs · 1997 · 659 citations · 0 references
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Reinhold Niebuhr, a leading twentieth‑century American religious thinker and social critic, served as a Detroit pastor and professor before turning to socialist activism. The book argues that the church should engage in social reform, asserting that individuals are sinful, society is driven by self‑interest, and history is ironic rather than progressive.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) was one of America's foremost twentieth-century religious thinkers and social critics. As pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, he became deeply interested in social problems. He was Professor of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary, remaining there until his retirement. Ultimately, he abandoned his liberal Protestant hopes for the church's moral rule of society and became a Socialist activist. Moral Man and Immoral Society is Niebuhr's eloquent argument for the church's involvement in social reforms as well as a platform for his beliefs that men are sinners, that society is ruled by self-interest, and that history is characterized by irony, not progress.