Richard Niebuhr was brought up in a German American family with deep roots in the intellectual world of Europe. He breathed in the American atmosphere of change, activity, progress and capitalism, all of which called for an activist response to social injustice.
I selected Richard Niebuhr as an exemplar and trailblazer into modern culture because he combined the cataphatic (with image) and apophatic (without image) modes of spiritual life and thought. These technical terms from spiritual theology were not used by Niebuhr nor are they normally used by moral theologians, especially those practicing fifty years ago. Nonetheless, applying these terms from spiritual theology may revitalize Niebuhr's thought and position it in the context of spiritual theology.