An Exception to Exceptionalism: A Reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Vision of "Prophetic" Christianity and the Problem of Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy
@article{Thompson2007AnET, title={An Exception to Exceptionalism: A Reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Vision of "Prophetic" Christianity and the Problem of Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy}, author={Michael G. G. Thompson}, journal={American Quarterly}, year={2007}, volume={59}, pages={833 - 855} }
This essay addresses the issue of religion and foreign politics in the United States and interrogates the presumed congruency between conservative Protestant religion and American exceptionalism. By examining Reinhold Niebuhr's approach to U.S. foreign policy around the critical period of World War II and the early cold war, it will seek to demonstrate that Niebuhr's "prophetic" theology acted as a critical lever against the cultural prism of cold war nationalism, even while his politics were…
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