Niebuhr is renowned for his unflinching honesty concerning issues of social ethics, specifically, love and justice. His influence is great both inside and outside the Christian church. Now 64 of Niebuhr's important pieces about the problems of humanity and society are compiled in this single volume.

Theologian, ethicist, and political analyst, Reinhold Niebuhr was a towering figure of twentieth-century religious thought. Now newly repackaged, this important book gathers the best of Niebuhr’s essays together in a single volume. Selected, edited, and introduced by Robert McAfee Brown—a student and friend of Niebuhr’s and himself a distinguished theologian—the works included here testify to the brilliant polemics, incisive analysis, and deep faith that characterized the whole of Niebuhr’s life.“This fine anthology makes available to a new generation the thought of one of the most penetrating and rewarding of twentieth-century minds. Reinhold Niebuhr remains the great illuminator of the dark conundrums of human nature, history and public policy.”—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.“Sparkling gems. . . brought from the shadows of history into contemporary light. Beautifully selected and edited, they show that Niebuhr’s fiery polemics and gracious assurances still speak with power to us today.”—Roger L. Shinn“An extremely useful volume.”—David Brion Davis, New York Review of Books“This collection, which brings together Niebuhr’s most penetrating and enduring essays on theology and politics, should demonstrate for a new generation that his best thought transcends the immediate historical setting in which he wrote. . . . [Brown’s] introduction succinctly presents the central features of Niebuhr’s life and thought.”—Library Journal

“[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—President Barack Obama Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace. “The supreme American theologian of the twentieth century.”—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Times “Niebuhr is important for the left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism. His thought offers a much better understanding of where the Bush administration went wrong in Iraq.”—Kevin Mattson, The Good Society “Irony provides the master key to understanding the myths and delusions that underpin American statecraft. . . . The most important book ever written on US foreign policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, from the Introduction

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) was one of America's foremost twentieth-century religious thinkers and social critics. As pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, he became deeply interested in social problems. He was Professor of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary, remaining there until his retirement. Ultimately, he abandoned his liberal Protestant hopes for the church's moral rule of society and became a Socialist activist. Moral Man and Immoral Society is Niebuhr's eloquent argument for the church's involvement in social reforms as well as a platform for his beliefs that men are sinners, that society is ruled by self-interest, and that history is characterized by irony, not progress.

A definitive collection of writings by the theologian and public intellectual who was the conscience of the American Century “One of my favorite philosophers,” remarked Barack Obama about the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) in 2007. President Obama is but one of the many American political leaders—including Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King Jr.—to be influenced by Niebuhr’s writings. Throughout the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, Niebuhr was one of the most prominent public voices of his time, probing with singular style the question of how to act morally in a fallen world. This Library of America volume, prepared by Niebuhr’s daughter, is a collection of four indispensable books—Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic (1929), Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944), and The Irony of American History (1952)—and other essays, sermons, and lectures. Notable entries include Niebuhr's world-famous Serenity Prayer, plus his writings on Prohibition, the Allied bombing of Germany, apartheid in South Africa, and the Vietnam War—many of which are collected here for the first time. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

This book, by Reinhold Niebuhr, is a collection of religious essays composed in the mid-20th century, focusing on the phenomenon of the United States growing both more secular and more religious at the same time.

Reinhold Niebuhr, the most significant North American theologian since the eighteenth century, has decisively influenced the shape of Christian thought and action in the United States for much of the twentith century. Niebuhr addressed social and political issues from the perspective of "Christian Realism." This was his blend of liberalism, shrewd social analysis, and elements within the Augustinian tradition. His legacy continues to be influenced through his writings and the work of many of his distinguished students. Larry Rasmussen's introductory essay and notes on the selected texts set Niebuhr in his historical context, chart the development of his thought and indicate the significance of his theology in the development of Christian theology as a whole.

Does Civilization Need Religion? sets out from the fact that religion's inability to make its ethical and social resources available for the solution of the moral problems of modern civilization is one, and the neglected one, of the two chief causes responsible for its debilitated condition. It is convinced that if Christian idealists are to make religion socially effective they will be forced to detach themselves from the dominant secular desires of the nations as well as from the greed of economic groups. It aims to show that though neither the orthodox nor the modern wing of the Christian Church seems capable of initiating a genuine revival which will evolve a morality capable of challenging and maintaining itself against the dominant desires of modern civilization's needs, there are resources in the Christian religion which make it the inevitable basis of any spiritual regeneration of Western civilization. Does Civilization Need Religion? maintains that the task of redeeming Western society rests in a peculiar sense upon Christianity, which has reduced the eternal conflict between self-assertion and self-denial to the paradox of self-assertion through self-denial and made the Cross the symbol of life's highest achievement. It is persuaded that the idea of a potent but yet suffering divine ideal which is defeated by the world but gains its victory in the defeat must continue to remain basic in any morally creative worldview.

Renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr began his career as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan, where he served from 1915–1928. Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic is Niebuhr's account of the frustrations and joys he experienced during his years at Bethel. Addressed to young ministers, this book provides reflections and insights for those engaged in the challenging yet infinitely rewarding occupation of pastoral ministry. With a foreword from Jonathan Walton on Niebuhr's enduring insights into the challenges and relevance of pastoral ministry, this powerful book remains as useful today as it was last century.