To See Responsibility from Below: Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, and Racism

Abstract

This article analyzes and compares the theologies of Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr regarding race and racial injustice. It examines the ways both theologians responded to the racial crisis in America, and Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany, in patterns consistent with their own divergent accounts of moral responsibility. The article argues that Bonhoeffer's theology of the responsible life offers deeper ethical resources than Niebuhr's for responding to the contemporary realities of White supremacy. Yet, while celebrating Bonhoeffer's contributions, it concludes by drawing on criticisms of Bonhoeffer from feminist and womanist thinkers to press this notion of acting responsibly in light of white supremacy beyond Bonhoeffer and offering one concrete example of an institution attempting to do that work.