The one in Robbins's 1944 book, based on the text that Niebuhr himself handed to Robbins, is closer to the AA version.) At first, AA did not know of Niebuhr's connection with the prayer and did not attribute it to anyone. (Niebuhr's preferred version, according to his daughter, was the one that appears at the beginning of this article. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.The wording of AA's prayer, still used today, is as follows: The prayer gained fame when, during World War II or soon after, Alcoholics Anonymous ran across it and adopted it as a keystone of the 12-step program. The USO distributed the booklet to hundreds of thousands of servicemen, according to Niebuhr biographer Richard Wightman Fox ’67GRD. It had first appeared under his name in 1944, after a friend and neighbor - Howard Chandler Robbins, who had heard Niebuhr use it in a church service - asked permission to include it in a Federal Council of Churches book for army chaplains and servicemen. Niebuhr apparently did not publish the Serenity Prayer himself until 1951, in one of his magazine columns. But it also appears possible, indeed plausible, that the great theologian was unconsciously inspired by an idea from elsewhere. It is entirely possible that Niebuhr composed the prayer much earlier than he himself later remembered. The formula of the Serenity Prayer, it is now clear, was circulating before 1936, or at least five years before Niebuhr's family has said he composed it and used it. Now, new evidence from historical newspaper databases has changed our understanding of its history. Niebuhr himself, when questioned about the prayer, was unassuming - he modestly conceded the possibility that he had assimilated its concept from some earlier, forgotten source - but made clear that he believed he had originated it. The prayer has long been the target of doubts about its authorship, though many of those doubts were ill-founded. once said, "Reinhold Niebuhr was the greatest man I knew." Yet he is perhaps best known to the general public because of the "Serenity Prayer." Morgenthau called him "the greatest living political philosopher of America," and Arthur M. He was an extraordinary and prolific writer and thinker whose ideas continue to shape liberal Protestantism today. Reinhold Niebuhr ’14BDiv, ’15MA, who died in 1971, was a theologian of towering importance who deeply influenced the political life of his time and courageously opposed Nazism in a period when most in his church backed U.S. It has given inspiration and solace to millions of people and has been very prominently employed by Alcoholics Anonymous. Billy Pilgrim hung it on his office wall in Slaughterhouse-Five Bill Clinton ’73JD invoked it repeatedly when he campaigned for the presidency. -Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (1943)Īt least in the English- and German-speaking worlds, this is undoubtedly the most famous prayer originated in modern times, probably the only prayer ever to rival the Lord's Prayer in popularity.God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. One would be hard pressed to identify a Protestant theologian who has had more impact on contemporary reflections on our public responsibilities as Christians.”-Eds.Īt the beginning of this millennium, the editors of the World Almanac selected what they thought to be "the most memorable quotes by Americans in the last 100 years." One of their ten most memorable quotes was the following: Thomas Ogletree, the Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies, says, "His exceptional achievement was that he brought a thoroughly theological framework to bear upon the principles of liberal democracy. Oxford, Yale, and Harvard awarded him honorary degrees. neutrality in World War II, and denounced both McCarthyism and Soviet communism. He spoke out early against Nazi anti-Semitism, opposed U.S. He advocated a "Christian realism" that criticized the tendency of the church to see "the sins of individuals but never the sins of society": Christian ethics, he held, compel political engagement. Niebuhr taught at Union Theological Seminary for most of his professional life. Niebuhr acquired, says Gene Outka, the Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics at Yale, "a national and then an international following, as a preacher of uncommon power, the author of numerous books and articles, and a social and political activist.” It rates just a page and a half in Richard Fox’s 1985 biography, less in Charles C. The Serenity Prayer, so well known to the public, hardly figures in Reinhold Niebuhr’s considerable reputation as a theologian and political thinker.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |