Richard John Neuhaus (May 14, 1936–January 8, 2009) was a prominent writer and Christian cleric (first in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, then the ELCA and later the Catholic Church).
He moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees from Concordia Seminary in 1960.
[1] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other Neuhaus was first an ordained pastor in the conservative Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
From 1961 to 1978, he served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, a poor, predominantly black and Hispanic congregation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
In the late 1960s he gained national prominence when, together with Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he founded Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam.
He was a supporter of the movement to reestablish, in Lutheranism, the permanent diaconate (deacon) as a full-fledged office in the threefold ministry of bishop / presbyter (priest) / deacon under the historic episcopacy (office of bishop), following earlier actions of the Catholics in the Second Vatican Council and the churches of the Anglican Communion (including the Episcopal Church in the US).
[13] In 2005, under the heading of "Bushism Made Catholic," Neuhaus was named one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" by Time magazine.
[14][15] Nonetheless, theologian David Bentley Hart reminded his readers that "words like absolutist are vacuous abstractions when applied to" Neuhaus.
"[16] Neuhaus controversially defended disgraced Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, in the pages of First Things.