From Innocence to Realism
BRAEMAN, JOHN
From Innocence to Realism THE PROTESTANT SEARCH FOR POLITICAL REALISM By Donald B. Meyer California. 482 pp. $6.75. Reviewed by JOHN BRAEMAN Department of History, Ohio State...
...Part of the difficulty is stylistic: An amalgam of theological and sociological jargon, a rambling and disjointed narrative, and some strained "literary" flourishes makes his book a trial to read...
...The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919-1941 is a study of an intellectual milieu in which a social gospel of liberal Protestantism flourished...
...A graver fault is the author's acceptance of neo-orthodoxy at its own evaluation...
...And in fact the anxieties and tensions of recent years have brought Niebuhr his great popularity among American intellectuals...
...At the end of the decade came the shock of depression at home and the threat of fascist dictatorship abroad...
...To one who shares his theology but lacks this emotional commitment, Niebuhr's politics appear meaningless...
...Rooted in traditional American innocence, that gospel raised basic political and social problems without, before World War II, facing long-neglected questions about human nature and the meaning of religion...
...But, focusing on the presentday scene, many scholars believe that this legacy of an earlier, more halcyon age has been discarded by Americans...
...Historians, political scientists and literary critics have also found innocence—optimism, faith in progress, perfectionism, moralism and the absence of guilt or doubt—to be the dominant motif in America's past...
...Following the perfectionist tradition of American Protestantism, they believed that man could become ideal, society could be redeemed and the body politic brought up to divine specifications...
...While rejecting their demands for a politics of absolute righteousness, he has retained their passion for social justice...
...According to Meyer, Niebuhr became the champion of a sophisticated theology and a realistic politics—of tough-mindedness about society, politics, history and, above all, about man...
...the historian cannot...
...The pursuit of justice does not require an ideal man...
...Intellectually, he repudiated the perfectionism of the social gospelists...
...Yet Niebuhr's theology is not really essential to his politics...
...Reviewed by JOHN BRAEMAN Department of History, Ohio State University The innocence of America, contrasted with European sophistication and decadence, has long fascinated this country's novelists...
...he sins by pretending to be absolute...
...Their confidence, however, was not based on a realistic analysis of the political forces in American society...
...Donald B. Meyer has studied the transition from innocence to realism in one group, a minority of politically inclined, liberal Protestant clergymen who provided much of the church's intellectual leadership between the two World Wars...
...But in dealing with politics, Niebuhr warned, the Christian should not expect that reality would conform to his own a priori standards of goodness and disinterestedness...
...Meyer has not seen neo-orthodoxy with sufficient historical perspective to assess its real intellectual character...
...its picture of man's limitations and the delusions of perfectionism is realistic enough...
...its achievement demands no inner revolution...
...It allows intellectuals reared in the evangelical tradition to be toughminded about the world without forsaking their religious heritage...
...Neoorthodox theology rests upon sound psychology...
...Labor and business remained mired in selfishness, the rank-and-file of the churches remained apathetic, even hostile, to the ideal...
...The 1920s proved sadly disillusioning to the men of the social gospel...
...His philosophy is suited to men who must struggle for freedom, in alliance with petty despots and feudal princes, with scant hope of final victory...
...A study which placed neoorthodoxy in its historical setting would make a significant contribution to our understanding of contemporary America...
...that they have been rudely awakened by the complexities and harsh realities of the 20th century...
...its attainment is possible in the world of here and now...
...Still, he has remained heir to their reforming zeal...
...The heart of the social-gospel evangel was its faith in the good man, and his capacity to make other men good...
...For Niebuhr, human perfection is impossible within the confines of history...
...Nor does Niebuhr's politics follow from his theology...
...Niebuhr himself has confessed that his religious thought was "a gradual theological elaboration of what was at first merely socioethical criticism...
...In this atmosphere of crisis, Reinhold Niebuhr set out to demolish the false shibboleths of sentimental liberalism, to break the "fusion of the pragmatic with the gospel," and to redefine the relation of religion to politics without compromising the nature of either...
...But why cloak these insights in the language of Christian doctrine...
...It safeguards the reform-minded against the charge of sentimentality, and permits the political insurgent to pursue his aims with the sophisticated realism of the political boss...
...The reason is clearly personal and is based on Niebuhr's commitment to historic Christianity and his own will to believe...
...The secret of neo-orthodoxy's current vogue lies less in its compelling intellectual strength than in the circumstances of the times...
...Strategy demands a calculation of power, a balancing of interest against interest...
...Capital and labor would be brought together simply by preaching a doctrine of class-transcending brotherhood and good will...
...Instead, he has aquiesced in its emotional appeal...
...They demanded an absolute conjunction of righteousness and power, and recoiled from partial measures, short-run expediencies and the give-and-take of politics...
...In 1919, the social-gospel Protestants viewed the future with confidence...
...Niebuhr's ideas about the inevitability of human tragedy and the futility of an ideal politics are strikingly relevant to the world of the cold war...
...Unfortunately, Meyer has not fulfilled the promise of his subject...
...For this failure the apologist can be forgiven...
...A belief in man's finitude could also be used to justify withdrawal from politics and acceptance of the status quo...
...Justice, not love, is the goal of politics...
...Niebuhr's neoorthodoxy revived the Christian doctrine of sin: Man is finite...
Vol. 45 • January 1962 • No. 1
