SOURCE: "How Philanthropic Is Henry Ford?" in Love and Justice, edited by D.B. Robertson, Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1957, pp. 98-102.

Niebuhr was an American theologian who worked and wrote extensively on applying the insights of Christianity to the analysis and solution of social problems. A pastor in Detroit at the time the following essay was written, Niebuhr wrote many books, including Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932), Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History (1937), The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941-1943), and The Structure of Nations and Empires: A Study of the Recurring Patterns and Problems of the Political Order in Relation to the Unique Problems of the Nuclear Age (1959). In the following essay, he compares the myth of Henry Ford—particularly regarding the extent of his philanthropy—with Ford's actual behavior. Niebuhr concludes that the myth reflects little more...