by Andrew S. Finstuen. This unconventional study by Finstuen (Pacific Lutheran Univ.) presents "a curious trinity" of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich, examined in relationship to one another through the prism of original sin. For each, the doctrine was the interpretive principle by which to reach a wide audience of "ordinary Protestants" in the post-WW II "age of anxiety." Keeping all these components together and focused is a delicate balancing act, but under Finstuen's skillful management of well-researched primary and secondary sources, the final product is an insightful and informative monograph. Finstuen perceptively describes the study's religious and cultural context, persuasively demonstrates that original sin was the underlying doctrinal cohesion among the three figures, and presents their individual and collective influence as diagnosticians of the human condition. Key to his analysis of the period and figures under study is the distinction between a "theological revival" that encouraged the independence of Christian faith from culture and a "captive revival" that encouraged the assimilation of faith into the culture. Niebuhr, Graham, and Tillich led the theological revival that set them against the prevailing ethos of optimism and conformity, and they, along with the "ordinary Protestants" of the era, emerge from this study in a new light. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty/researchers. --Choice (Check Catalog)
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