Faith, Facts, and Fidelity: H. Richard Niebuhr's Anonymous God

Reinhold's younger brother H. Richard Niebuhr 'made his bones' with 1920s and 1930s books and articles that scathingly exposed American Protestantism's exceptional role in creating 'the gospel of a Christ without a cross', comfortable for the churches of the middle-clas...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Johnson, Stephen M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Equinox [2007]
In: Implicit religion
Year: 2007, Volume: 10, Issue: 1, Pages: 66-90
Further subjects:B Theology
B NIEBUHR, H. Richard (Helmut Richard), 1894-1962
B Social Sciences
B Protestantism
B Faith
B CHRISTIANITY & law
Online Access: Volltext (doi)

MARC

LEADER 00000caa a22000002 4500
001 1690554819
003 DE-627
005 20230831121158.0
007 cr uuu---uuuuu
008 200220s2007 xx |||||o 00| ||eng c
024 7 |a 10.1558/imre.v10.i1.4212  |2 doi 
035 |a (DE-627)1690554819 
035 |a (DE-599)KXP1690554819 
040 |a DE-627  |b ger  |c DE-627  |e rda 
041 |a eng 
084 |a 0  |2 ssgn 
100 1 |a Johnson, Stephen M.  |e VerfasserIn  |4 aut 
109 |a Johnson, Stephen M. 
245 1 0 |a Faith, Facts, and Fidelity  |b H. Richard Niebuhr's Anonymous God 
264 1 |c [2007] 
336 |a Text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a Computermedien  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a Online-Ressource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
520 |a Reinhold's younger brother H. Richard Niebuhr 'made his bones' with 1920s and 1930s books and articles that scathingly exposed American Protestantism's exceptional role in creating 'the gospel of a Christ without a cross', comfortable for the churches of the middle-class. As a believing Christian and rigorous theologian, Niebuhr also took quite seriously the challenges to personal faith posed by 'depth psychology' and the social sciences in general. Aware that even our finest ideas and deepest feelings are entirely contextualized ('we are in history as the fish is in water'), he wrestled throughout the 1930s for a 'critical faith' so empirically realistic that not even a Freud could persuasively reduce it to wishful thinking. Out of that struggle grew The Meaning of Revelation (1941), which fully anticipated and constructively responded to critical challenges that would half a century later be called post-modern and deconstructive. Sharply expressed in his World War II articles, Niebuhr's critically confessional understanding of revelation was so stark and powerful that it eventually scared off most of his liberal contemporaries. National and World Council of Churches fellows who owed him so much instead fretted that he 'no longer believes in the Christian God'. Indeed, his very Protestant understanding of 'historical faith' as realistic fidelity led to a 'radical monotheism' far more rigorous than Catholic Karl Rahner's 'anonymous Christianity', far more honest than most liberal Protestant church preaching ever since, and far more solidly grounding interreligious pluralism than some of that dialogue's leading exponents are yet ready to concede. As Catholic spiritual masters and evangelical Protestants have (differently!) confessed, faith is a saving 'grace' given by the Holy Spirit. As postmodernists have insisted, any rendering of such experience ('born again' or less dramatic, explicit or implicit) is a human, cultural 'construction'. Since such experience and constructions are personally and socially common, empowering and dangerous, implicit rediscoveries and explicit developments of Niebuhr's challenging insights are urgent. As John Hey puts it, 'critical believing is process-oriented'. Explicit or implicit, however, faith is more about our commitments than about its own nature. Truly postmodern theologians are committed to good faith's good works. In this, they follow Niebuhr's example. 
601 |a Richard 
601 |a Niebuhr, Richard R. 
650 4 |a CHRISTIANITY & law 
650 4 |a Faith 
650 4 |a NIEBUHR, H. Richard (Helmut Richard), 1894-1962 
650 4 |a Protestantism 
650 4 |a Social Sciences 
650 4 |a Theology 
773 0 8 |i Enthalten in  |t Implicit religion  |d Sheffield : Equinox, 2004  |g 10(2007), 1, Seite 66-90  |h Online-Ressource  |w (DE-627)481278389  |w (DE-600)2179936-2  |w (DE-576)256442428  |x 1743-1697  |7 nnns 
773 1 8 |g volume:10  |g year:2007  |g number:1  |g pages:66-90 
856 |u https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v10.i1.4212  |x doi  |3 Volltext 
936 u w |d 10  |j 2007  |e 1  |h 66-90 
951 |a AR 
ELC |a 1 
ITA |a 1  |t 1 
LOK |0 000 xxxxxcx a22 zn 4500 
LOK |0 001 3597116272 
LOK |0 003 DE-627 
LOK |0 004 1690554819 
LOK |0 005 20200220165216 
LOK |0 008 200220||||||||||||||||ger||||||| 
LOK |0 040   |a DE-Tue135  |c DE-627  |d DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 092   |o n 
LOK |0 852   |a DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 852 1  |9 00 
LOK |0 935   |a ixzs  |a ixzo  |a rwrk 
ORI |a TA-MARC-ixtheoa001.raw 
REL |a 1 
SUB |a REL