“The Social Sources of Denominationalism” by H. Richard Niebuhr
Richard Niebuhr gets less attention in evangelical circles than his older brother Reinhold. The two were born to a modernistic Lutheran pastor in Missouri, earned degrees from Yale, and became noted neo-orthodox thinkers.
In Social Sources Richard argued that sectarianism within Christianity is caused by social, economic, and political pressures. For example, he pointed to Weber’s thesis about the Protestant work ethic in order to argue that the capitalist spirit aided the advance of Calvinism. Niebuhr also believed that socio-economic tensions contributed to a class division between “respectable” middle class churches, like the Lutherans and Calvinists, and lower class Anabaptists and Methodists. (more…)
