Like nihilism and existentialism, the idea of "Death of God Theology" is not so much a coherent school of philosophy as it is a trend or mood in modern theology. It argues that there needs to be a transformation from a Christian to a "post-Christian" theology. This theology is supposed to be, in the words of F. Thomas Trotter, "anti-metaphysical, earnestly moral, and hopefully secular."
What would become a slogan was originally a metaphor. In The Joyful Science, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about a man wandering in search of God, who finally says:
- "Where has God gone? I shall tell you. We have killed him — you and I. We are all his murderers... God is dead. That which was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. There has never been a greater deed."
Nietzsche's philosophy is in many ways based upon the idea of the death of god — because there is no god, there are no transcendent values, no transcendent morals, and no transcendent purpose. Religions like Christianity only serve to keep some people in power over other people and to weaken us, preventing us from creating out own values, morals and purpose. When a person is able to break free of repressive systems and assumptions, he has the chance to become an übermensch.
This was the starting point for "Death of God Theology," a movement which was popular among some theologians during the 1960s and 70s. Developed from the work of people like Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul Tillich, it was argued that the notion of a personal God was simply outdated and irrelevant in a modern, technologically and scientifically advanced society. They did not become Nietzscheans, although a few did adopt the label "Christian atheists."
One of the first works which can be counted as standing explicitly in this new tradition was Honest to God, written in 1963 by John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich. In it, he argued that there was not God "out there" but rather one which is really the "ground of all being." Because traditional theism had become both irrelevant and incoherent, it was necessary to develop theological and religious beliefs which would apply to the modern world. In particular, they argued that Christianity itself needed to undergo significant changes.
The idea of a "Death of God" and even "Christian Atheism" was made popular among the general public through Time magazine which carried a cover story all about the Death of God. In this story, interviews with hundreds of theologians conducted by dozens of correspondents revealed that many theologians and religious leaders were doubting the veracity of theism, but were nevertheless committed to continuing with theology — even with the theos.
Also known as radical theology, this Christian perspective never attracted a huge following and ultimately faded from the scene relatively quickly. That doesn't mean that it had absolutely no influence at all — many liberal theologians today studied with a number of the early Death of God theologians and teachers.
As a matter of fact, it would be a mistake to argue that there was a single "Death of God" theology; in reality, there were many "Death of God" theologies, each dependent upon the particular teacher or theologian. This great dependence upon individual teachers probably played a role in its demise — once those teachers disappeared from the scene, so did much of the interest in what they had to say.
