ABSTRACT
Niebuhrism may be defined as uniting material social improvements with a return to traditional religion. No wonder Niebuhrism has its left-wing and right-wing deviationists. At the point where both invite sarcasm by racing beyond their master's gospel, the former may be labeled the Extroverted Progressers, the latter the Introspective Brooders. Mr. Reinhold Niebuhr's "vital center" equally distrusts a dictatorial public statism, and what he calls the "sometimes quite inordinate powers and privileges" of private wealth. Used more seriously, reform and original sin are valid norms. It is not Niebuhr's fault if they get jargonized as the pet toys of every playboy of the Western World. Fashionableness is the ambush endangering the noble and beautiful spiritual message of Reinhold Niebuhr. There are three type of accidental confluence that includes progressivism, artiness, and pseudo-religion. The magic word "social reform" automatically titillates their progressive weeklies. The magic words "irony" and "ambiguity" set their literary quarterlies purring.
