CNN did a piece a few days ago talking about how Obama’s favorite philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr, helped shaped Obama’s first year in office. It sure did! Niebuhr was a Marxist who preached social justice in defense of redistribution of wealth. In the 1930’s, he was a prominent leader of the militant faction of the Socialist Party of America.
Funny how they couldn’t have done a piece like this in 2007 when we were all getting to know Barry, the chosen one. Instead, all we heard about Obama was how great of a speaker and how cool and collected the guy was. Oh and he was a champ at reading a teleprompter. But what did he actually believe? What values did he hold? Which thinkers did he admire?
Finally CNN does some actual reporting:
Obama called Reinhold Niebuhr his favorite philosopher, but few know about the controversial pastor today.
In the summer of 1943, when Adolf Hitler’s armies marched unchecked across Europe, a pastor in a remote New England village decided to write a prayer.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” he began, “the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
It is now known as the Serenity Prayer. It’s been adopted by 12-step recovery programs and cited in numerous self-help books. Yet few people know who wrote it. His name is Reinhold Niebuhr, and he was a Protestant pastor in the mid-20th century whose words tended to unsettle people, not offer comfort.
“The greed of capitalism and the business class was huge in his mind,” Crouter says. “It had to be combated.” …
“He criticized Christian idealists who thought force was never justified and who believed that the law of love was a simple solution to social and political problems,” Copeland said. “At times, power must be challenged by power.”
Niebuhr distilled his view of human nature in his monumental book, “Moral Man and Immoral Society.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cited the book in his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.” Former President Carter is also an admirer of Niebuhr’s.
People are capable of doing good, but groups are driven by “predatory self-interest,” Niebuhr wrote.
“As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other,” Niebuhr wrote. “As racial, economic and national groups, they take for themselves, whatever their power can command.” …
In a 2007 interview, Obama explained to David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, what he learns from Niebuhr.
He called Niebuhr his “favorite philosopher,” Brooks wrote.
“I take away,” Brooks quoted Obama as saying, “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief that we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense that we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naive idealism to bitter realism.” …
Obama, a student of the civil rights movement, declared that he was a “living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence.” Yet force is necessary at times, he said.
“A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies,” Obama said. “Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” …
It’s interesting that Niebuhr urged the US to enter WW2 against the assertion of his fellow Christian pacifists who claimed non-violence was the only way to peace. At least he got something right.
Sweetness and Light also points out this interesting nugget about Obama’s spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright from From p. 153 of ‘Dreams From My Father’
[E]ventually [Wright had] entered Howard, then the University of Chicago, where he spent six years studying for a Ph.D. in the history of religion. He learned Hebrew and Greek, read the literature of Tillich and Niebuhr and the black liberation theologians. The anger and humor of the streets, the book learning and occasional twenty-five-cent word, all this he had brought with him to Trinity almost two decades ago.
Should we not be surprised about Obama’s rhetoric and actions knowing that he followed the lead of people like Reinhold Niebuhr, Jeremiah Wright and Saul Alinsky? It paints a picture more clear than ever about Obama’s agenda for this country.
(Thanks to Kyle for the tip)
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- Video: Rev Wright defends comments in first interview
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