REINHOLD NIEBUHR REVISITED

Among the political commentators who responded to the self-critical essays and anti-war demonstrations in the aftermath of the destruction of the famous twin towers of the New York City's World Trade Center September 11, one quoted Reinhold Niebuhr as having said that even those with some guilt are entitled to self-defense. This simple truth stimulated me to find out more about this Reinhold Niebuhr, an American theologian and philosopher. He was born in 1892, son of a theologian father he greatly admired and emulated.

Niebuhr studied at Eden for a year and then entered Yale Divinity School, receiving B.D. and M.A. degrees within two years. In 1915, the mission board of his denomination sent him to Detroit as pastor where he served for 13 years. The congregation numbered 65 on his arrival and grew to nearly 700 when he left. He was popular with automobile factory workers because he was sympathetic to their plight and supported their attempts to unionize. For a time he was a socialist, but he became disillusioned with it in 1939, just before the start of WWII.

Niebuhr's support of self-defense was used in response to those who wanted to hesitate about launching an all-out war against the evil of terrorism, those who suggested that we were partly to blame for the trouble in the Middle East and that our foreign policy mistakes in the past made it inevitable that this would happen, and that maybe we had it coming. Similarly, Niebuhr acknowledged that the Allies had made some mistakes in the aftermath of WWI, in many details of the Versailles Treaty, ending the war.

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. The writers critical of our anger to the terrorists justify their criticism of our war against terrorism as their way of expressing their patriotism. Just as patriotism can be misguided, so can focussing on our faults rather than those of an evil enemy, be misguided.

In this respect, some of the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr just before the attack on Pearl Harbor are amazingly appropriate today. What he said at that time were prescient and relevant in this time of renewed battle between the forces of civilization and barbarism. His words ring true in the inescapable logic of a rational theologian.

Those of us who remember WWII know that before Japan attacked America, the average citizen was against our involvement in the European war in 1939. Britain was under siege and London was being bombed. In secret meetings with Churchill, Roosevelt was apprized of the eventual danger to America and the free world, and so he insituted the Lend-Lease Act as a way to aid England while we were still not at war. The more rabid isolationists, some of them supporting what Hitler was doing, were against Lend Lease, and so Niebuhr argued for aiding our ally, Britain and against the high-sounding rationale of the isolationists.

This was in a journal called, "Christianity and Crisis," in October of 1941, entitled, "Repeal the Neutrality Act" (of 1939). He said that in the guise of morality (staying neutral and being a non-combatant) the Neutrality Act "... is one of the most immoral laws that was ever spread upon a federal statute book."

"Its immorality was accentuated by the misguided idealism that was evoked in its support. The essence of immorality is the evasion or denial of moral responsibility. When a man refuses to recognize his obligations as a member of a community, when he isolates himself from the affairs of his community, and acts as a completely unrelated individual, he is an immoral man. Morality consists in the recognition of the interdependence of personal life. The moral man is the man who acts responsibly in relation to his fellows, who knows the duties that communal life requires, and who is willing to accept the consequences that these duties impose."

Recognizing that air travel brought Europe and America closer together, and the fact that the United States and Great Britain were allies in WWI, he said that America and Europe are now becoming members of one another. Now the fact is that the entire globe is shrunk and we are all members of a 'global village,' and like the title of that great book of photographs, we are in "The Family of Man." The terrorist act shook our complacency and informed our naîveté and we must realize that for better or for worse, we are all in this whole world together, and just as it was in WWII, we are in a war of civilization versus barbarians, whose weapons are no longer primitive and blunt, but technologically advanced. North America is no longer immune from attack. No one is anymore.

Niebuhr was gifted with plain language. He railed against "do-nothingness" in the interests of peace. He said it was not moral, but "escapism." "It is pure escapism in a world where nations can escape no longer from the ethical consequences of their interdependence.... the Christian ethic demands that we turn and face the world."

"When a great fire has broken out in a small town, responsible citizens who are in a position to do something about it do not draw their shutters, lock their doors and crawl under their beds. To do so would be to forfeit forever moral authority in their community. The Christian ethic requires these citizens to go out on the street and do whatever may be necessary to help their fellows bring the fire under control."

If this great and brilliant humanitarian were alive today, he would have included Judeo-Christian and Muslim morality and he would have said that these principles are the true basis for all the world's great religions, including secular humanism.

Dr. Bloom is a psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Park and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry. He welcomes comments to his email address: vbloom@comcast.net