justjohnson93's review against another edition
5.0
Well, hot take time after a re-read: This is my favorite book I have ever read. Or I should say top 3-5 book ever, as I have made that claim at least three other times (Goblet of Fire, New Seeds of Contemplation, Inheritance). A portion of my particular love for this book undoubtedly stems from the congruence of Niebuhr's context at the time of this writing to my own context in the present: A young minister straight out of seminary working at a small, low-church Protestant congregation in a midwestern industrial city full of economic and racial tensions. He began at age 23 at an evangelical Lutheran church in Detroit in 1915, I began at age 22 at a Church of Christ in St. Louis in 2016, almost exactly a century later. I readily relate to a whole slew of his experiences like not knowing what to say at his first funeral, running out of sermon ideas, learning more about ministry from the older ladies in the church than from any book, being disappointed by the church's lack of dialogue on the ongoing social issues of the day, etc. Nevertheless, this book would be a gem for just about anyone interested in congregational life and ministry, the overlap of Christianity and social and political matters, morality/ethics/virtue, etc. It's also quite short and very funny. That Niebuhr later walked back much of what he wrote in this early memoir and heavily shifted away from its youth idealism to the "Christian realism" he essentially founded only makes the read all the more fascinating. These leaves from an early notebook of a tamed cynic, who just happened to become the most influential American theologian in the twentieth century, are a true treasure.
"It is no easy task to deal realistically with the moral confusion of our day, either in the pulpit or the pew, and avoid the appearance, and possibly the actual peril, of cynicism. An age which obscures the essentially unethical nature of its dominant interests by an undue preoccupation with the application of Christian principles in limited areas, may, as a matter of fact, deserve and profit by ruthless satire."
"It is very difficult to persuade people who are committed to a general ideal to consider the meaning of that ideal in specific situations...Why doesn't the church offer specific suggestions for the application of a Christian ethic to the difficulties of our day? The answer is that such a policy would breed contention...If the church could only achieve schisms on ethical issues! Then they would represent life and reality. Its present schisms are not immoral as such. They are immoral only in the sense that they perpetuate issues which have no relevancy in our day."
"Critics of the church think we preachers are afraid to tell the truth because we are economically dependent upon the people of our church...I think the real clue to the tameness of a preacher is the difficulty one finds in telling unpleasant truths to people whom one has learned to love...I'm not surprised that most budding prophets are tamed in time to become harmless parish priests."
"It is no easy task to deal realistically with the moral confusion of our day, either in the pulpit or the pew, and avoid the appearance, and possibly the actual peril, of cynicism. An age which obscures the essentially unethical nature of its dominant interests by an undue preoccupation with the application of Christian principles in limited areas, may, as a matter of fact, deserve and profit by ruthless satire."
"It is very difficult to persuade people who are committed to a general ideal to consider the meaning of that ideal in specific situations...Why doesn't the church offer specific suggestions for the application of a Christian ethic to the difficulties of our day? The answer is that such a policy would breed contention...If the church could only achieve schisms on ethical issues! Then they would represent life and reality. Its present schisms are not immoral as such. They are immoral only in the sense that they perpetuate issues which have no relevancy in our day."
"Critics of the church think we preachers are afraid to tell the truth because we are economically dependent upon the people of our church...I think the real clue to the tameness of a preacher is the difficulty one finds in telling unpleasant truths to people whom one has learned to love...I'm not surprised that most budding prophets are tamed in time to become harmless parish priests."
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