Lydia Hosto Niebuhr: The Buried History of an Evangelical Matriarch

This biography is about an immigrant’s daughter who remained in the shadows of her father, husband, sons, and daughter. But it is also about the theological tradition—German Evangelical Pietism—that shaped her and that she helped to shape. That tradition is also hidden—or buried—for its tendency to embarrass modern sensitivities. As such it remains deeply misunderstood. Grounded in the history of the Prussian Union and the pietism of the free mission houses of Germany, it is evangelical in a way that is unrecognizable and bears little resemblance to the evangelicalism of the twenty-first century. In its pietism, it exudes an irenic approach to theological and doctrinal differences, in a way that is altogether misunderstood. It is focused on peacemaking and deeds of loving and just action in the world, rather than theological precision. The sad history of this tradition is that like the story of Lydia—both have been buried in the religious landscape of twentieth-century American Protestantism. It is time that the story of Lydia Hosto Niebuhr be emancipated from a church history that has minimized the story of many of its most important giants simply because they were born at a time when their stories were less valued than the men they supported and the sons they birthed and nurtured in the church. The biography of Lydia Hosto Niebuhr corrects and recalls what has been buried and hidden, and in doing so offers an alternative to the polarization of the political and religious fields of the United States. Read more