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The Rumors of
God's Death
Have Been
Greatly Exaggerated
June
3, 2007
By Philip D. Ropp
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Is God Dead? When these words
appeared on the cover of Time on
April 8, 1966, a religious storm was loosed upon the cultural landscape
of the United States that has yet to subside. Trivia buffs will recall
that clever bumper stickers on cars were originally popularized by one
that read "My God's Not Dead -- Sorry About Yours." Even as a twelve year old boy, I
remember being struck by the abject absurdity of such an idea. When my
mother took me aside to explain to me that this was nonsense, I
reassured her that if God was dead, there would be no source of life...
no earthly existence. At this point in my life, I grieve the fact that
this wisdom displayed at twelve would so thoroughly desert me by the
time I was twenty.
For weeks and months, even years after this
controversy hit the American public consciousness, pastors of all but
the most "cutting edge" of the liberal Protestant churches had polished
sermons decrying this crazy idea. Congregations were reassured
that God was alive and well, and that this sudden storm of disbelief
was a media induced phenomenon that would be quickly quelled if the
faithful would just dig a little deeper when the collection plate came
around. In the liberal Protestant pulpits, those in the wealthy urban
and suburban areas, pastors that were local, even minor national
celebrities prided themselves on their avante garde and thoroughly modern
approach to religion. It became fashionable to puff oneself up as
if some great toad in clerical garb and speak in deep and
ponderous tones of Gawd, a
being of awesome majesty who
loved nothing so much as witty repartee
and a well turned phrase: The kind of God that
would be
absolutely delighted to join sophisticated worshippers in the
Fellowship Hall for cocktails and discussion of financial plans and
investment opportunities: A God of great taste whose abundant blessing
was evidenced in an opulent building, expensive artwork, and, most of
all, in a well heeled and genteel membership.
This genteel membership, to whom religion was more
a matter of tax relief than faith, kept these great men of God
comfortable and aloof of the controversies that swirled around the
seminaries, which they ignored. In turn, these grand churchmen
funneled great sums of money into the coffers of the big liberal
denominations, as they kept their congregations blissfully ignorant of
the radical and anti-faith theological trends that came ever more into
vogue during the tumultuous 1960's. This opened the way for a "Death of
God" movement to sweep through the liberal seminaries like an
intellectual forest fire. While the movement itself was actually rather
short-lived, it had the effect of reducing the stately oaks and
elms of traditional, believing Christian teaching to ash. The
Phoenix that arose from these ashes was a secularized, false
"intellectual" Christianity in the form of situation ethics, liberation
theology, radical feminism, eastern and pagan religious
thought, and the so-called "quest for the historical Jesus." This
"historical" Jesus is portrayed as a largely imaginary and totally
human personage that the charlatans that began the church -- those men
that
we revere as apostles -- transformed into the divine and saving person
of the Christ for their own selfish purposes. The scholars of the
day referred to this situation as the "loss of innocence." To the
contrary, it was an outright denial of the faith. And, sadly, it
remains with us unto this very day.
Where did such an abominable idea as the "Death of
God" come from? Out of the dark philosophical climate of the late
18th century came the concept of "nihilism." Nihilism is a
"philosophical
position which argues that the world, especially past and current human
existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth,
or essential value." The German philosopher and theologian,
Frederick Nietsche, denied Christianity as a false belief and
identified faith in Jesus Christ as a form of nihilism. In a work
from the mid 1880's entitled Thus
Spake Zarathustra, it was Nietsche who introduced the
concept of the death of God. At the same time, he launched a
vigorous attack on Christianity and democratic government as a
combination that spawned a mentality he called the "weak herd."
He argued instead for a "natural aristocracy" of the "superman," driven
by the "will to power" to achieve his rewards in this life rather than
in a nonexistent heaven. This superman is heroic, a man of merit
with the courage to rise above the masses and funnel his passions into
an exceptional capacity for creativity. The twisted minds of
Adolph Hitler and Heinrich Himmler would, instead, translate Nietsche's
thought into an exceptional capacity for destruction that would cost
the lives of tens of millions of people before the middle of the 20th
century had passed.
During the middle years of this last century, such
influential and widely read theologians as Rudolf Bultmann and Paul
Tillich contributed to the climate that was to spawn the "God is Dead"
storm. Bultmann regarded all supernatural and theistic elements
as mythological, and insisted that scripture had to be "demythologized"
if it was to speak any meaningful message to modern humanity. The
pragmatic Tillich reasoned that the only way to get to the reality of
God was to strip away the symbols that were used to describe him.
The only non-symbolic statement that could be made about God was that
he was being itself. As such, he is beyond essence and existence
and to argue that he exists is to deny him. It is more
appropriate to to say God does not exist.
The next logical step was to do away with the
theological double-talk and proclaim the death of God. This was
first accomplished in 1957 by a theologian named Gabriel Vahanian in a
book entitled, appropriately enough, God
is Dead. Vahanian's book offered no systematic theological
expression to describe the death of God, but insisted that modern
humanity's widespread acceptance of atheism was symptomatic of the
reality that the Christian understanding of God had lost
relevance. In short, God himself had not died, but the Christian
idea of God had.
Thomas J J Altizer believed that God had
actually died. In the early and mid 1960's, Altizer emerged at
the
center of the God is dead storm by arguing that God became immanent in
the human person of Jesus and died in Christ at the cross.
Altizer claimed that the church invented the doctrines of resurrection
and ascension to put God back in heaven, but in the 20th century
discovered that he did not exist. He called upon modern
Christians to "will" the death of God by denying his transcendence and
accepting his immanence within the world around us. This concept
of God's immanent presence in the physical world is hardly new.
It is called "pantheism" and is one of the most ancient and primitive
forms of religious expression.
Understandably, Altizer's theology drew a
great deal of professional criticism from scholars and theologians, but
due to its sensational and highly controversial claims, it also drew
lots of attention from the secular press. This resulted in feature
articles in Time in 1965 and
1966, the latter of which appeared at Easter, and resulted in the
famous "Is God Dead?" cover. Altizer became the defacto ringleader of a group of
young, radical theologians that called themselves "Christian atheists"
and a legend was born. His name became a household word
synonymous with "God killer." I met Altizer at the Society of
Biblical Literature/American Academy of Religion Convention in Chicago
in 1976. He was hawking a new book and was very gracious.
The most striking thing about Altizer was his small stature; he stood
about five-feet-four inches tall. As we were waiting to be
introduced, my theology professor, Dr. Ron Massanari, leaned over and
whispered, "Wouldn't you expect the man that killed God to be taller?"
This stuff really is this ridiculous,
and it would all be laughable if it were not for the fact that
this kind of "junk" theology and psuedo-history is being taught in both
liberal Protestant and also Catholic
seminaries as if it is literally the
truth. This
kind of religious education is no longer based on the truth of the
Gospel message of Jesus and how to proclaim it to a world that thirsts
for the saving grace of Christ. Liberal religious education is
about denying and suppressing the Gospel message in favor of the
numerous agendas pushed by a generation of educators that have been
raised up in an academic world in which God has been proclaimed dead
and anything goes. In this world, economic liberation has
replaced eternal salvation, feminism and gay and lesbian "rights" have
supplanted the traditional family, the prayers of the Gnostics
and pagans have replaced traditional Christian prayers, and a
mythical and effeminate "historical" Jesus stands in place of the
mystical and eternally transcendent Christ. If the institutions
that
support and promote this kind of thing as "Christian" education are not
the abomination that maketh desolate of which our Savior warned us,
they will certainly do until the real thing comes along. Saint
Paul warned us that God will not be mocked, and so it would seem that
the axe of Saint John the Baptist is laid to the root of the
tree. And we pray, "Deliver us from evil."
Now this does, indeed, sound pretty bleak.
Yet, I am here to tell you today that we have come together to
celebrate and rejoice in the Lord. And so we shall, for we know
that God is in no ways dead, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,
has taken our sins upon himself, and is risen from the dead, that we
might live with him in heaven where he rules at the right hand of God
the Father for ever and ever. This is the truth of the
Gospel, and those of us that God has blessed by writing it upon our
hearts know that it is eternally true and can never be taken from
us.
This Gospel message is found in the Word of
God, the
Bible. It is Wisdom and his name is Jesus, and so we heard him
speak to us today from Proverbs: "...then was I beside him as his
craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the
while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the
human
race." This is no mere mortal man: It is the Lord, and, as
Paul tells us, "...we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith." And so "we
boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even
boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven
character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not
disappoint..." And, so, we too boast in our afflictions,
"...because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
Jesus said to his first disciples, "I have much
more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now." And we
answer him today, "We have been told that God is dead, what more
is there to bear?" The Spirit of truth has come and guides us to
all truth and declares to us the things that are coming. Because
we see have seen these things that are coming, we know that Christ is
near, at the very gate, and so we rejoice because we know our Savior
draweth nigh and God will glorify him and he will glorify us. We
rejoice because when the world, or even the church, poses the question,
"Is God Dead?" We know the answer: "Maranatha! Come Lord
Jesus!"
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Prv
8:22-31
Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.
"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."
Ps
8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
R. (2a) O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name
in all the
earth!
When I behold your heavens, the work of your
fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place —
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all
the earth!
You have made him little less than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
putting all things under his feet:
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all
the earth!
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all
the earth!
Rom
5:1-5
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Jn
16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."
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