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THEN AS NOW, WHY NIEBUHR?

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John PatrickDiggins, Why Niebuhr Now? (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011)

Daniel F.Rice, ed., Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009)

Daniel F.Rice, Reinhold Niebuhr and His Circle of Influence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2014

K. HEALAN GASTON*
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University E-mail: gaston@hds.harvard.edu

Extract

The literature on the life and legacy of the American Protestant thinker Reinhold Niebuhr has long been driven by questions about Niebuhr's continued relevance. Like other contributions to the recent “Niebuhr revival,” each of the three books under consideration here raises this question—John Patrick Diggins's Why Niebuhr Now? (2011) by offering a series of “sympathetic reflections” on Niebuhr's central claim that human beings are both creatures and creators of history (ix); Daniel F. Rice's edited volume Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited (2009) by inviting a cadre of top Niebuhr scholars to make the case for Niebuhr's relevance to a new generation; and Rice's own Reinhold Niebuhr and His Circle of Influence (2013) by contending that close attention to Niebuhr's formative relationships sheds light on his ongoing relevance.

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Type
Review Essays
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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