supplemental material

Below is a link if you’d like to purchase  Radical Theology and the Death of God. In addition to this, I’ve enclosed a link to a five-week course I taught on essays from the book Radical Theology and the Death of God. The course is available to everyone signed up to the Blaze level of my Patreon.

reflection

Altizer is a difficult and esoteric thinker, who is one of the most important theological figures of the 20th century. While he largely disappeared into obscurity after the 1960’s, he continued to produce important work until his death. Work that may one day reestablish him as a thinker of world historical importance.

It was difficult to find something from Altizer to include in Atheism for Lent, because so much of his work requires a background in philosophy to properly understand. But today’s short essay - written near the beginning of the Death of God movement of the 1960’s - fits well with yesterdays reflection, in that it captures an unwavering desire to go as deeply into the profane destruction of religion as possible. Further than most of the critics of religion knew was possible to go. 

Like Bonhoeffer’s prison writings, this essay is less about what is to come, and more about the need to move forward. The essay is all about a movement into the future, a movement that takes seriously developments in history in which we experience a deeper and deeper loss of the religious.

The notion of Kenosis remained a central motif of Altizer’s work. Indeed it could be said to provide the key to understanding his entire project. The idea of the self emptying of God into the world and onto the Cross was, for Altizer, a high point in history that captured something about the dynamic nature of reality. 

Looking back from the foot of the Cross, we can see this symbol reflecting a cosmological truth. For we can see the universe itself as a radical act of explosive self-emptying into everything that exists. Looking forward from that event, we can see it repeated in the world of science, which underwent its greatest developments as it lost God as a principle of explanation. Beyond that, Altizer saw this Death of God in Christ reflected on an existential level in the 19th and 20th century, when the idea of God faded as a necessary support for meaning and morality. For Altizer, all these are reflected in the image of the Crucified God. 

So, to identify with the Crucified God means to embrace this ongoing Kenotic hymn as it reverberates throughout history. The theological vocation involves going as far into that death is it is possible to go. For Altizer, it is only by undergoing this courageous decent into the profane, that we shall encounter the sacred.

Altizer’s writing is often bombastic, apocalyptic and difficult to penetrate, but it arises out of a profoundly systematic vision of the incendiary vocation of theology. A vocation that has the power to transform the world.

Willing the Death of God

Thomas Altizer (1927 – 2018) was one of the most significant representatives of Radical Theology. Radical Theology represents one of the most innovative, provocative and fertile theological movements of the 20th century. While the ideas behind the movement had long been discussed within the academy, it burst onto the public stage in a dramatic way in the 1960’s.

While the movement exploded onto the public scene in a spectacular fashion, it disappeared almost as quickly. Since that time, Altizer was largely sidelined by the academy. Yet he continued to write provocative, difficult and innovative work right up to his death. The question remains as to whether he will have a mere footnote in the intellectual life of the 20th century, or eventually be hailed as one of its most prophetic and innovative children.

One of Altizer’s most well known books was a collaborative work - with William Hamilton - called Radical Theology and the Death of God. For todays reflection, I’d like you to read the essay ‘America and the Future of Theology’ from that work. I’ve included a link to the whole book. But, if you’t use the download, I’ve also included a link to the book that is available online.