Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Blaðsíða 46

possible” into an ethical norm that could then become a “simple possibility in
history.”8 Indeed, his whole career as a public theologian could be understood
as a protest against the sentimentality inherent in the liberal tendency to make
the Gospel into the Law. From the early Moral Man and Immoral Society to
the late Structure of Nations and Empires, Niebuhr demonstrated the folly
of applying the ethic of agape love directly to the struggles for power in the
world.9 Doing so, he argued, led to political irresponsibility. In international
affairs it led to pacifist tendencies and in domestic affairs it issued in blindness
toward the necessity of countervailing power.
Niebuhr’s arguments are essentially Lutheran in character. Though ex-
pressed in different language, they are anchored in the paradoxical vision’s in-
sight into the dialectical relationship between the radical love of God in Christ
and the realistic pursuit of earthly justice, between Gospel and Law. Indeed,
I believe Niebuhr to be the greatest practitioner of two-kingdoms thinking in
modern religious history. Many of his great contributions to the development
of Christian realism are drawn from the paradoxical vision, though he would
no doubt resist being claimed for the “Lutheran attitude.”
Niebuhr’s warnings have gone unheeded in much of American Christian-
ity. The mainline churches rushed headlong toward sentimentalism in foreign
policy debates. They demanded “nuclear freezes” even in the midst of So-
viet arms build-ups. They believed that forgiving love and “turning the other
cheek” were Christian responses to power politics. In domestic affairs, they
commend compassion without accountability.
All this is not to say that Christian love has no relevance to public life.
Rather, it operates as both motivation and ideal in the Christian life, which
creatively integrates the two-fold reign of God. But expressing agape love is
no simple matter; it is indirectly related to the norms that govern political and
economic life. As Niebuhr has it, agape love judges all lesser efforts, serves as a
goad to higher achievement, helps discriminate among options and is a source
for repentance and humility.10 Further, such love can never be triumphant in
8 Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation ofChristian Ethics (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), p. 103 ff.
9 Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner’s, 1960) and The Structure of Nations
andEmpires (New York: Scribner’s, 1959).
10 Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, pp. 62ff.