Langdon Brown Gilkey

"For those living in the 1930s and 1940s who endured the devastation of the Depression, racial and social unrest, and the two World Wars ending in the Holocaust, the question of how to carry on the struggle for justice in a world seemingly filled with self-interest and evil became all-consuming. Many turned for an answer to the realistic, yet also optimistic, political and ethical writings of Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971).". "As the eminent theologian Langdon Gilkey demonstrates in this book. Niebuhr was able to provide such a persuasive answer because his social understanding was a theological understanding, one accomplished by viewing human being in relation to God as well as in its political and economic relations. This "Biblical" understanding of human nature, while acknowledging the often deep ambiguity and hypocrisy of the real historical world, also revealed a divine hand guiding that history. To Niebuhr, it is God's participation in history that gives it meaning and a promise of fulfillment, and presents believers with the possibility of a social realism that maintains its moral nerve rather than succumbing to cynicism or despair.". "On Niebuhr provides the first systematic treatment of Niebuhr's mature theology in relation to his political theory and the crises of the 1930s and 1940s by a scholar who both understands the theology deeply and knew Niebuhr personally. The book begins with a look at Niebuhr's early political writings, then moves to Niebuhr's later understanding of human nature and history. On Niebuhr also presents a moving account of the role that Niebuhr's thought played in Gilkey's own experience as a prisoner of war and in his subsequent life's work. The result is an indispensable book for the many students and admirers of both these religious thinkers."--BOOK JACKET.

"Creationism on Trial is Langdon Gilkey's blow-by-blow account of his experiences as a witness for the ACLU at the 1981 creationist trial in Little Rock, Arkansas. This courtroom drama between state-supported "creation science" fundamentalists and ACLU-supported scientists, theologians, and liberal teachers was an engrossing spectacle at the time and has been much talked about since. Gilkey, a renowned theological writer, brings to life principal characters and entertaining anecdotes from the trial and effortlessly translates the abstract religious concepts of the case into digestible language. Highlighted by a new introduction that takes into account new directions in the creationism debate, this book will once again provoke discussion in classes of theology and religion."--BOOK JACKET.

Culture and religion have always been closely interrelated. Every religion expresses itself in the forms of its cultural setting, and every culture reflects a "religious substance," that is, exists out of an ultimate point of view or set of beliefs. Thus a cultural analysis is relevant to the understanding of any given religious tradition, and correspondingly a theological analysis is relevant to the understanding of any given culture. That these assertions apply to and illuminate modern culture as well as ancient and premodern cultures is demonstrated in this book, which may thus be regarded as a "theology of culture." Society and the Sacred exemplifies the broad learning, the theological acuity, and the commitment to human liberation which have made the author's Naming the Whirlwind and Reaping the Whirlwind — classics of religious thought in our time. In the first part of the present volume, Langdon Gilkey analyzes from a wide range of perspectives modern culture as an historical entity facing the thread of its own imminent demise, hence the subtitle "Toward a Theology of Culture in Decline." He then examines the scientific, technological, industrial "heart" of contemporary culture and exposes the dilemmas which these new aspects of modern life have engendered. In the last section he explores the interface of different cultures and the different religious traditions which have animated them.