Hope, cynicism, and complicity: worldly resistance in Reinhold Niebuhr's criticism of Karl Barth
This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between hope, cynicism, and despair in the stakes of a well-known dispute between Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr accuses Barth, and those who adopt Barth's central doctrinal and political positions, of quietism: in the name of religious...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2016]
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2016, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 182-198 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Barth, Karl 1886-1968
/ Niebuhr, Reinhold 1892-1971
/ Hope
/ Cynicism
/ Despair
/ Social reform
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| IxTheo Classification: | KDD Protestant Church NCC Social ethics NCD Political ethics |
| Summary: | This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between hope, cynicism, and despair in the stakes of a well-known dispute between Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr accuses Barth, and those who adopt Barth's central doctrinal and political positions, of quietism: in the name of religious perfectionism, such Barthians are not disposed toward incremental but necessary social reforms. For Niebuhr, this is a sure sign of “Barthian pessimism,” the despair that results from a conscience oversensitive to the absolute demands of God's righteousness. This paper seeks to show that a certain form of Barthian political theology is defensible as an ethical disposition since it need not fall victim to the helpless despair that Niebuhr fears, and simultaneously that a defensible account of what I call “total complicity” reflects the self-awareness and self-criticism that often become deformed into cynical despair and reshapes them toward repentant engagement with the world. |
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| ISSN: | 1462-317X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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