How I discovered I was wrong about the origin of the Serenity Prayer

[rug]

(Date unknown) Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, then dean emeritus of New York's Union Theological Seminary. Religion News Service file photo.

May 15, 2014
Fred Shapiro
(Fred Shapiro is an associate library director and lecturer in legal research at Yale Law School and editor of “The Yale Book of Quotations” from Yale University Press. This is an abridged version of an article that appeared in the April 28 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

(RNS) In 2008 I made the front page of The New York Times by asserting that the greatest American theologian of the 20th century probably did not originate the most famous and beloved prayer of the 20th century.

The theologian was Reinhold Niebuhr. The prayer was the Serenity Prayer, commonly quoted as: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Its adoption by Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs has propelled it to worldwide renown. I now am able to report that I have uncovered new evidence establishing to a high degree of confidence that Niebuhr did originate the Serenity Prayer.

My initial assertion questioning Reinhold Niebuhr’s priority engendered considerable controversy and was strongly contested by Niebuhr’s daughter, the eminent publisher Elisabeth Sifton.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/15/commentary-discovered-wrong-origin-serenity-prayer/

"This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor."

Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics, Charles Scribner's Sons (1932)

[hrmjustin]

1. I love that prayer. it is just so simple.

I also love the jesus prayer by the orthodox.

[rug]

2. Too bad some don't get it.

[hrmjustin]

3. Unfortunately yes.

[okasha]

4. Teh Stoopid never sleeps.

[hrmjustin]

5. The disruption never ends.

I knew that some woukd not leave us alone.

[okasha]

6. For a long time, my feeling about such people

has been that if someone has a burning desire to show the world he's a jackass, it's not my job to try to stop him.

Respond if necessary, yes.

Interfere with his self-revelation, no.

[hrmjustin]

7. That is a great way of looking at it.