Reinhold Niebuhr was a very well-known and well respected American Theologian who conformed to Protestant school of thought . He was regarded as by some scholars as the one of the greatest Protestant theologians that United States of America saw after Jonathan Edwards .
His philosophies and teachings also had a significant impact on the political and economic policies that were being pursued by a country, especially USA1. He is regarded by many eminent people, especially the American politicians, to be one of the greatest philosophers of the recent times. For example, the current United States President Barack Obama has stated that Reinhold Niebuhr is one of his favorite philosophers and he takes away a lot from his teachings . Among the other eminent people following his principles are Dennis Healey, Jimmy Carter, George Kennan, etc3. However, Reinhold Niebuhr never regarded himself as a theologian2. He stated, “I cannot and do not claim to be theologian. . . . I have never been very competent in the nice
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He criticized the liberal theology and propagated the implications that the social context of Christian life and series of actions and events have. He was of the opinion that the teachings provided by Jesus and those contained in the other Christian scriptures, do not contain sufficient guidance for the people to lead their normal day-to-day social lives. In one of his important works titled “An Interpretation of Christian Ethics” he has written that in order to bring any kind of changes in the society, power is needed. On the other hand, people who possess power generally tend to act solely for their own interests. Therefore, all the appeals made by the poor and socially weak people will not be heeded until the victims acquire power of some