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11 The American Protestant Theology Bonhoeffer Encountered Gary Dorrien I have been asked to speak about American theology in the 1920s. Who was the most distinguished American theologian of the 1920s? It was not Walter Rauschenbusch,1 who died in 1918. It was not Henry Nelson Wieman2 or Reinhold Niebuhr,3 who were just getting started in 1930. Harry Emerson Fosdick4 was famous by then, but nobody regarded him as an important 1. Walter Rauschenbusch, 1861–1918, minister, Second Baptist Church, New York, prof. NT interpretation, Rochester Theological Seminary, 1897–1902, prof. church history there, 1902–18; principal works: Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1907), For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening (Boston: Pilgrim, 1910), Christianizing the Social Order (New York: Macmillan, 1912), Dare We Be Christians? (Boston: Pilgrim, 1914), The Social Principles of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1916), A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917)—Dictionary of American Religious Biography, ed. Henry Warner Bowden, adv. ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977), hereafter DARB, 375f. 2. Henry Nelson Wieman, 1884–1975, prof. of philosophy, Occidental College, 1917–27, prof. philosophy and religion, University of Chicago Divinity School, 1927–47; active retirement, 1947–75; principal works: Religious Experience and Scientific Method (New York: Macmillan, 1926), The Wrestle of Religion with Truth (New York: Macmillan, 1935), The Source of Human Good (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), Man’s Ultimate Commitment (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1958), and Intellectual Foundation of Faith (New York: Philosophical Library, 1961)—DARB, 509f. 3. Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892–1971, Evangelical and Reformed minister, Detroit, 1915–28; assoc. prof. philosophy of religion, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1928–30 and prof. of applied Christianity there 1930–60; editor, Christianity and Crisis, 1941–66; principal works: Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic (Chicago: Willet, Clark & Colby, 1927), Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner, 1932), An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1941–43), The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), The Structure of Nations and Empires (New York: Charles Scribner, 1959)—DARB, 332ff. 4. Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878–1969, minister, First Baptist Church, Montclair, NJ, 1908–15; parttime instructor, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1908–15, prof. of practical theology there, 101 theologian. The correct answer is Douglas Clyde Macintosh,5 who taught for many years at Yale, who blended Chicago School empiricism and evangelical liberalism, and who convinced Niebuhr, inadvertently, that getting a doctorate in theology would not be worth the trouble. The 1920s were not an interesting period for American theology, but that does not mean that Bonhoeffer was right about theology in this country.6 In Germany, theology was dramatic, controversial, and abounding in the language of crisis. The first name for the Barthian revolt was “crisis theology.” It was a reaction against the slaughter and destruction of World War I, the prowar boosterism of liberal German theologians, and the conceits of bourgeois culture. Karl Barth, writing in 1920, declared that before the kingdom of God could become real to modern Christians, “there must come a crisis that denies all human thought.” German theologians from Schleiermacher to Harnack conveyed the impression of being comfortable with God and proud of their sophistication. Crisis theology was about shattered illusions and the experience of emptiness before a hidden God. Nothing like that occurred in the United States, until the 1930s. American theologians did not have to interrogate the trauma, humiliation, disgrace, and colossal destruction of a world war fought on their native ground. The U.S. tried to stay out of the war; liberal Protestant leaders campaigned against intervening; and after America entered the war, most Social Gospel leaders 1915–34; assoc. minister, First Presbyterian Church, New York, 1919–25, Park Avenue Baptist Church (Riverside Church after 1931), 1926–46; active retirement, 1946–69; principal works: The Manhood of the Master (New York: Association, 1913), The Meaning of Prayer (Boston: Pilgrim, 1915), The Modern Use of the Bible (New York: Association, 1924), The Secret of Victorious Living (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934), On Being a Real Person (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), Living These Days: An Autobiography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), A Preaching Ministry: Twenty-one Sermons Preached by Harry Emerson Fosdick at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, 1918–1925, ed. David Pultz, foreword and...

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