H. Richard Niebuhr: A Lifetime of Reflections on the Church and World

H. Richard Niebuhr may have influenced more different kinds of students of religion than any other religious thinker in the twentieth century.  Sociologists of religion, church historians, social and theological ethicists, theologians, and ministers all look to the works of Niebuhr for insights that enrich their own understanding of religion.  Other sages may have been more dominant in any given discipline, but few have so influenced so many over such a wide range of issues.  The breadth and richness of his insights allow Niebuhr to appeal to people from a variety of theological perspectives.  Yet, above all, Niebuhr was a churchly person who spent his life struggling to determine and to express the church’s proper relationship to the world.  That struggle is the focus of this book.

 Readers seeking a faithful exposition and enlightening interpretation of major works by Niebuhr…will be richly rewarded.  But Dr. Diefenthaler does much more than that.  He places these works in the context of Niebuhr’s life and many little known or unpublished writings.  Niebuhr’s church commitments and his responses to the world of his day shed considerable light on the development of his thought.  Dr. Diefenthaler’s comprehensive treatment will help readers to see Niebuhr as a whole.  As a historian Diefenthaler also helps readers to see Niebuhr’s thought in the context of his life and major events and issues of his time.
41639X6ZFVL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_
Click here to purchase

ENDORSEMENTS

“Jon Diefenthaler brings a fresh and unique perspective to bear on the interpretation of H. Richard Niebuhr….Using much previously untapped material, Diefenthaler traces Niebuhr’s development in regard to changes in his normative conception of the relation of Christianity and culture.  The author employs Niebuhr’s own categories in the interpretation of these changes, and the result is rich and instructive.”

James W. Fowler, author of “To See the Kingdom: The Theological Vision of H. Richard Niebuhr”

 

“Jon Diefenthaler has written a stunning interpretation of the life and thought of Richard Niebuhr, by doing what a scholar must.  In the absence of letters and personal records, he thought through carefully the long sequence of publications that flowed from Niebuhr’s pen from his college days onward.  What makes Diefenthaler’s study convincing is that he took seriously Niebuhr’s own claim that he had never moved far from the German Evangelical culture in which he was reared.”

Timothy L. Smith