In this important new work, Martin Halliwell focuses on the tensions between the two dimensions of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought: his political role as a radical social critic and the conservative drift of his religious beliefs. Halliwell concentrates particularly on his attempts to justify the role of the religious critic in a secular age by tracing his thought back to European and American traditions of religious individualism. In order to better examine Niebuhr's philosophy, Halliwell positions him in a series of debates on political, religious, ethical, and cultural themes with other public intellectuals such as John Dewey, Paul Tillich, W. H. Auden, George Kennan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In doing so, the book reassesses the role of "dialogue" in Reinhold Niebuhr's thought and the important contributions that Reinhold Niebuhr made to twentieth century American culture.

"At once sympathetic but critical, [Halliwell] presents Niebuhr and American society in all their complexity." - CHOICE

"This is a marvelous book, generous in information, reflection, and the very dialogue that the author believes Reinhold Niebuhr so honored and practiced. Halliwell takes us deeply and valuably into Niebuhr's dialogues with some of the key figures of his long intellectual life." - Journal of American History