Social Ethics Discourse for Evangelicals: Getting to Know Reinhold Niebuhr's Thoughts through the Serenity Prayer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36421/veritas.v20i1.419Keywords:
Reinhold Niebuhr, Self-transendence, Social Ethics, Pacifism, Christian Realism, Sin, Love, Justice, The Serenity PrayerAbstract
Social ethics is not a major topic that is often discussed among evangelical Christians. Therefore, the assumption is that evangelical Christians tend to be pessimistic about situations globally and avoid issues of social ethics. This article offers a discourse on social ethics for evangelical Christians by introducing Reinhold Niebuhr’s thoughts. The serenity prayer is used as a method to frame Niebuhr’s thoughts. In Niebuhr’s view, man has a paradoxical reality. He is a sinful man who has limitations in exercising the pure love that Jesus taught. On the other hand, he is an image of God who can self-transcendence and think creatively to create newness in his life. Responding to this paradoxical reality, Niebuhr gave suggestions to build a realistic (dialectical) social ethics foundation that does not fall into an attitude of excessive optimism, let alone fall into an attitude of pessimism that tends to be fatalistic.
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