Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971)

Reinhold Niebuhr was the most prominent Christian intellectual in the United States during the middle half of the 20th century. Born on June 21, 1892, in Wright City, Missouri, to a theologically inclined family of German immigrants, he was raised in Lincoln, Illinois, and among his siblings were the Yale ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr and Hulda Niebuhr, Professor of Christian Education at McCormick Theological Seminary. Educated at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological Seminary, and Yale University Divinity School, Niebuhr was ordained a minister in the German Evangelical Synod of North America in 1915.

From 1915 to 1928, he served as the minister of the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, where his experiences as pastor to working-class automobile industry laborers led him to become an outspoken critic and ...