Social Action

Without question, there is a need for social action. The injustices and the needs in the world around us call us to action. At the same time, social action is daunting. The social realm is a place of conflict and intense drama. Progress in the social realm does not come cheap.

So, how can we think about this extremely important yet extremely challenging field of endeavor while at the same time keeping our heads and not sliding into injustice ourselves? Reinhold Niebuhr believed that the Christian faith offered the perspective that we need in order to keep us involved, keep us from despair, and keep us from being consumed. Here is a summary of Niebuhr’s theological vision for social action. Under each point, I have offered a suggestion for its benefit for social action.

[Read a longer version of this article here]

Part 1 – Human Social Potential and the Human Social Problem

1.1. The Proper Way for Humans and Society to Function

God did not create human beings to exist in their current state of individual and social disfunction. God created human beings good and in a good society. This goodness was rooted in acknowledging their place as creatures in God’s universe. Humans are able to see a long way off but limited in their ability to change what they see. By a faith trusting God with what they could not change, they would be able to exist in tranquility, creativity, harmony, and productivity.

This trust in God would serve as a foundation for community. God created humans as social creatures. Freed from the need to establish their own significance or security, they could serve their communities. As they served others, they would be “drawn out of themselves to become their true selves” (The Children of Light & the Children of Darkness, 56).

Benefit: understanding we are social beings at root and created for social harmony.

1.2. Anxiety Tempts Humans to Sin

Humans are amazing creatures in that they can see far beyond their current situation, but they can only effect a small portion of it. Seeing this gap produces anxiety. The question is, what will they do with this anxiety? Will man be able to “accept his finiteness and to admit his insecurity”? (The Nature & Destiny of Man, 1.150). Or, will he attempt to “regard himself as the go around and about whom the universe centers”? (ibid., 1.124). Humans’ great abilities and yet their limitations tempt them to seek a greatness that is beyond them in order to overcome their limitations. This is a temptation to give themselves an outsized place in the universe that manifests itself in seeking an outsized place in the human community. This is the temptation of the human situation, but there is always “the ideal possibility that faith would purge anxiety of the tendency toward sinful self-assertion” (ibid., 1.182).

Benefit: understanding that social problems are not simply rooted in recalcitrant wills. They are also rooted in the anxiety of the human situation. Continue reading “A Theology of Social Action”

Introduction

Why should anyone care about Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971, not to be confused with his brother, H. Richard)? For any Christian who desires to be involved in social problems, Reinhold Niebuhr provides a unique perspective that challenges our complacency and provides great wisdom on how and how not to engage in society. Niebuhr explains Christian theology in a way that challenges everyone to seek after greater justice and love. At the same time, his teaching encourages great humility in our endeavors because of the universal taint of every endeavor with our own sinfulness and pride.

Reinhold Niebuhr was certainly a theologian, but he was a theologian who was always interested in social problems. He wanted to apply his theology to the world for his own political activity and the instruction of others. In that way, his theology is unique because it is so oriented toward social problems without being triumphalistic or partisan. On the other side, his analysis of social problems is unique because of his theological perspective.

[Note: Read a shorter version of this article here]

Niebuhr’s Thesis: Man’s Nature Limits Society’s Possibilities
Niebuhr’s basic idea is deceptively simple: human beings are what they are. For Niebuhr, this means that human beings are free and creative but also beset by anxiety over their limitations and tempted to an egotism or pride that claims status and prerogatives far above what is their due. Of course, human beings often do not claim to do this. They deny it, even to themselves. So, there is always a measure of self-deception in their actions. Niebuhr explains that in spite of the new situations of the modern era, the self has not fundamentally changed. He says: Continue reading “Wisdom from Niebuhr: A Theology of Social Action (Long Version)”

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