author
Reinhold Niebuhr
1892–1971
A major American theologian and public thinker, he brought faith into direct conversation with politics, justice, and the hard limits of human nature. His clear-eyed moral realism shaped religious debate far beyond the church.
2 Audiobooks
Leaves from the notebook of a tamed cynic
by Reinhold Niebuhr
About the author
Born in Wright City, Missouri, on June 21, 1892, Reinhold Niebuhr became one of the most influential Protestant thinkers in the United States. He studied at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School before serving as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit from 1915 to 1928.
His years in industrial Detroit deeply shaped his writing. Confronted by labor conflict, inequality, and the pressures of modern urban life, he moved away from easy optimism and developed the approach later known as Christian realism—a way of thinking that took both moral ideals and human selfishness seriously.
In 1928 he joined Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he taught for more than 30 years. Along with books such as Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man, his commentary on public life made him a leading voice in 20th-century American religion and ethics. He died on June 1, 1971.