Quote

A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Reinhold Niebuhr
Age: 78 †
Born: 1892
Born: June 21
Died: 1971
Died: June 1
Ethicist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
University Teacher
Wright City
Missouri
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Church
Ties
Society
Divorce
Upon
Standards
Right
Birth
Think
Marriage
Prohibit
Thinking
Control
Enforce
Within
Secular
Community
Conception

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
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The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
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Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.
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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
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Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive. And there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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We judge the Russians because they're living under despotism and we don't like it, but we've gotten into a fix now where we're living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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No nation can say, 'We will capitulate to tyranny rather than accept a speculative fate - to accept an absolute fate in alternative to a speculative one' - no nation can do that.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Man is both strong and weak, both free and bound, both blind and far-seeing. He stands at the juncture of nature and spirit and is involved in both freedom and necessity.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
Reinhold Niebuhr