He attacked utopianism as ineffectual for dealing with reality, writing in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944), 'Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.' Niebuhr's realism deepened after 1945 and led him to support American efforts to confront Soviet communism around the world. Starting as a minister with working-class sympathies in the 1920s and sharing with many other ministers a commitment to pacifism and socialism, his thinking evolved during the 1930s to neo-orthodox realist theology as he developed the philosophical perspective known as Christian realism. described Niebuhr as 'the most influential American theologian of the 20th century' and Time posthumously called Niebuhr 'the greatest Protestant theologian in America since Jonathan Edwards.'

foreign policy.' The historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History 'the most important book ever written on U.S. The latter is ranked number 18 of the top 100 non-fiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years.

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