Helmut Richard Niebuhr (September 3, 1894 - July 5, 1962) was one of the most important Christian theological-ethicists in 20th century America, most known for his 1951 book Christ and Culture and his posthumously published book The Responsible Self. The younger brother of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr taught for several decades at Yale Divinity School. Both brothers were, in their day, two important figures in the neo-orthodox theological school within American Protestantism. His theology (together with that of his colleague at Yale, Hans Wilhelm Frei) has been one of the main sources of postliberal theology, sometimes called the "Yale school". He influenced such figures as James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, Gordon Kaufman, and Wendell S. Dietrich.
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Niebuhr was born in Wright City, Missouri, the son of Gustav Niebuhr, a minister in the Evangelical Synod of North America. He graduated from Elmhurst College in 1912, and Eden Theological Seminary in 1915. He would later obtain a master's degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1918, and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1924. He started his working career as a reporter in Lincoln, Illinois in 1915 and 1916. He was ordained a minister in the Evangelical Synod in 1916, and served with that body in St. Louis, Missouri, through 1918. (The Synod merged in 1934 with the German Reformed Church in the United States; the subsequently formed Evangelical and Reformed Church united in 1957 with the Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ.) While living in St. Louis, he was a member and leader in Evangelical United Church of Christ in Webster Groves, Missouri, and taught at Eden Theological Seminary from 1919 to 1924 and from 1927 to 1931. Between 1924 to 1927, he was the President of Elmhurst College. He taught at Yale from 1931 to 1962, specializing in theology and Christian ethics.
Niebuhr was concerned throughout his life with the absolute sovereignty of God and the issue of historical relativism. He considered Karl Barth and Ernst Troeltsch to be his main influences. He accepted from Barth and neo-orthodoxy the absolute transcendence of God. He believed that God is above history, that he makes commands upon human beings, and that all history is under the control of this God. Niebuhr borrowed often from Paul Tillich's notion of God. He was comfortable describing God as Being-itself, the One, or the Ground of Being. In this regard, Niebuhr held something of a middle ground between the dogmatic, confessional theology of Karl Barth and the philosophically oriented neo-liberalism of Paul Tillich.
Niebuhr was also concerned with historical relativism. While God may be absolute and transcendent, human beings are not. Humans are a part of the flux and movement of the world. Because of this, the ways in which God is apprehended are never permanent. God is always understood differently by people at different times in history and in different social locations. Niebuhr's theology shows great sensitivity to the ways in which expressions of faith differ from one religious community to another. His thought in some respects anticipated latter-day liberal Protestant concerns about pluralism and tolerance. However, in The Kingdom of God in America (1937), he also criticized the liberal social gospel, describing its message as, "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."[1][2]
Niebuhr was, by training, a Christian ethicist. In this capacity, his biggest concern was the way in which human beings relate to God, to each other, to their communities, and to the world. Niebuhr's theological ethics can be described as relational. His greatest ethical treatise is The Responsible Self, published shortly after his death. It was intended to be the seed of a much larger book on ethics. His sudden death prevented his writing this work. In The Responsible Self, Niebuhr dealt with human beings as responding agents. Human beings are always "in response" to some influence, whether another human being, a community, the natural order or history, or, above all, God.
His most famous work is Christ and Culture. It is often referenced in discussions and writings on a Christian's response to the world's culture. In the book, Niebuhr gives a history of how Christianity has responded to culture. He outlines five prevalent viewpoints: