05-23-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
May 23, 2024
Since graduate school, I have found myself having an ongoing debate with Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 – 1971). He was a theologian and ethicist at Union Seminary in New York who challenged a lot of the naive theologies that allowed Nazi Germany and fascism to go unchallenged. Niebuhr was a realist, and though he believed in the ideal of love (agape), he concluded that human beings always reach for something less than love, sometimes purposefully and other times by perceived necessity. Niebuhr wrote, “Ultimately, evil is done not so much by evil people but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.” For Niebuhr, the ideal might be love, but we work in the realm of justice, attempting to create systems that hold in check sin and evil. He wrote, “The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.” At times, I have found Niebuhr’s realism (some would say that is not the most accurate way of describing his theology/ethics) overly pessimistic, lacking much hope beyond just keeping evil at bay. Though there are days when I look at the happenings around the globe and in my own backyard, and I wonder if my idealism and hope contribute to injustice continuing without interruption, as love often appears overrun by greed and the pursuit of merciless power. Yet, and I acknowledge that this might be a weak ‘yet,’ I still believe that the ways of love and hope, kindness and mercy, are the ultimate means by which the world will be transformed. With that said, I continue to converse with people like Reinhold Niebuhr and others who keep me, what some might describe as my naivety, having the hard conversation with the realities that gave rise to the Nazis and every other inhumane and brutal system in human history.

Holy God, I cannot let go of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and his unflinching commitment to the ideals of nonviolence, mercy in the face of hatred, and even praying for those who have done me harm. I can’t say I own them as faithfully as I should, but I believe they reflect your dream for this world, and as a follower of Jesus, I seek to make that dream a reality wherever I am living and breathing in the moment. Amen.

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