Sin

Abstract

Abstract This chapter traces the evolution of Niebuhr’s theological view of sin from his earliest work in liberal theology in the late 1920s through his major texts, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935), and his magum opus, the first volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man. These works address the traumatic events of the 1930s and 1940s: unjust war reparations from the Second World War, economic collapse, and the rise of European Fascism. The chapter ends with a reflection on the ‘changing perspectives’ Niebuhr brought to bear on his thoughts about sin and his reception by political philosophers in Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence (1965).