And trends in secular or religion-less Christianity were found in others, including Bonhoeffer in part (even if he was misused by the death of God crowd). Nietzsche of course had famously said that “God is dead” in Thus Spake Zarathustra written back in the 1880s. Says Frame: “If we agree (with liberalism and neo-orthodoxy) that God is too transcendent to be described in words, or too immanent for his acts and words to be distinguished from those of nature and man, then what do we have but a dead, or non-existent God?” John Frame notes how this movement was the logical outcome of these bigger theological streams, which accounts for their inherent weaknesses. They more or less all acknowledged that the very concept of God in the modern world is incoherent, and we must resign ourselves to living in a world in which God cannot be known, if he even exists at all. There were in fact various theologies of the death of God, and not just one. Their thinking all came out of the previous several centuries of theological liberalism and neo-orthodoxy. There were a number of key figures in this short-lived school of thought, and they had different emphasises and understandings of what this secular religion was all about. Given what a time of cultural and social upheaval the 60s was, it is perhaps not surprising that this theological movement flourished during this period.Īnd given that one of its leading proponents has just died, it may be a good time to look at this movement a bit more. It was basically a movement that was born, lived and died in the 60s. Plenty of trendy fashions in theology are all the rage for a brief period of time, only to quickly disappear from the scene.Ĭonsider one such short lived theological fad: the death of God movement. In an age of cheap intellectual thrills and rampant theological illiteracy, there are all sorts of flash-in-the-pan theological trends which are all very temporary.
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