STARTING WITH THEOLOGY

Reinhold Niebuhr challenged both liberalism and orthodoxy with “theological realism.” The American theologians who formulated “theological realism” did not expect to provide a conclusive argument for their beliefs, but they did offer what Niebuhr would call “a limited rational validation of the truth of the Gospel.” Niebuhr's contribution was both to show how closely this pragmatic theological realism could be related to other moral discourses, and to illuminate the specific difference that it makes to affirm that God is the center of meaning in a morally coherent universe.

Christian Realism concentrates on the assessment of specific political situations and social choices. It does not always speak explicitly of God. Larry Rasmussen observes that Reinhold Niebuhr “was at his very best in his ability to render a theological interpretation of events for a wide audience, as a basis for common action. But precisely because of the audience's diverse beliefs, Niebuhr often cast his case in ways which left his Christian presuppositions and convictions unspoken.” Both friends and critics have sometimes assumed that this means that the theology of Christian Realism is superfluous, a pious footnote to an analysis that can be accepted or rejected on its own terms. Political thinkers admired Reinhold Niebuhr's insights into the fundamental importance of power in democratic politics or his warnings to America not to take its own virtues too seriously, but many thought that these insights could stand on their own, without the theological dynamics to which they were linked in Niebuhr's mind. They have been called the “atheists for Niebuhr.”