Niebuhr

Niebuhr, name of 2 U.S. brothers, leading Protestant theologians. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an active socialist in the early 1930s. After World War II he turned back to traditional Protestant values, relating them to modern society in his “conservative realism.” His Nature and Destiny of Man (2 vols., 1941–43) greatly influenced American theology. Helmut Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) Niebuhr taught at Yale Divinity School (1931–62) and wrote on ethics and the history of Christian thought in such books as The Kingdom of God in America (1937) and Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (1960).

See also: Theology.