The Gospel Of Christian Atheism
November 11th, 2009 | 
Author: 
For the more metaphysical among us a good read would be The Gospel of Christian Atheism by Thomas J.J. Altizer. This book gave me an interesting and very different perspective on atheism when I was still a college student. You can see it here if you’re interested.
In the sixties, this somewhat unconventional theologian pioneered a new view on the ‘death of God’ concept first proposed by the famous philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Whereas Nietzsche tried to exemplify a figurative “God” of being “killed” as a metaphor for religion gradually losing to naturalism, Altizer takes the concept to a more literal dogma.
According to Altizer, the God of Christianity committed an act of self-destruction by incarnating himself as Jesus Christ, who we subsequently crucified. This idea is at odds with my own views, but he does proclaim the importance of Jesus as a central figure or a Messiah to humanity.
Although Altizer has a different view on Christian philosophy, his Christrocentricity might portray his emphasis on the importance of the moral philosophies of Jesus Christ. So, although Altizer’s “annihilation of God” theory might sound a bit crazy to some, in the Gospel of Christian Atheism he does give a very interesting view on the centrality of Jesus to atheists of his kind.
I would recommend this book to folks interested in a more philosophical debate about the importance of Christ in people’s lives. As mentioned before, it can be found here. Enjoy.
Posted in 
I found my way to your blog via many searches. I hadn’t heard of Christian atheism before, and I must say it’s given me whiplash. I was discussing with my mother the other day where I stand, and if I’d had this term in mind it would have helped. I look forward to reading more. Thank you for starting this blog. By the way, I live in Santa Clara with my husband and 2 year old daughter. Peace.
Hi Kathryn, hope this blog can help you in future discussions with your mother. What stand point would she have? Like most atheists, Christian atheists sometimes have trouble explaining their own stand point. We started this blog to explain our version of Christian atheism.
Looking forward to reading your comments in the future
I really think Altizer would be totally at odds with your version of Christian atheism. I don’t even really understand why you have to hold onto the idea of ‘Christian’. If all you want from Jesus is his teachings, then why even bother with Jesus? I don’t think his moral teachings were by any means unique, and Paul completely agreed with me. Hence, Paul focused the entirety of his evangelism on crucifixion and resurrection, not on the teachings. Our modern day values are really just a secularization of the Christian values anyway. I’m just baffled why one would think Jesus’ moral teachings are the most important. Historically, it was of course the Kingdom that drove his ministry, but if you emphasized on the ‘here and now’ of the Kingdom you do injustice to the ‘to come’ of the Kingdom.
Furthermore, I suspect the Jesus you embrace is the liberal Jesus offered by folks Crossan and Borg. What do you with all of the apocalyptic passages in the the Gospels? Many other scholars like Ehrman and Allison focus on Jesus as the eschatological prophet preaching the coming reign of God. It’s easy to take those aspects of Jesus all people can embrace (distribution of wealth, enemy love, nonviolence), but how do you understand statements like “I have come to bring fire!”, “Peace, not sword”, “Anyone who does not hate, mother, father, children…is not worthy of following me”? Not to mention Mark’s Jesus is crazy.
Sorry, sword not peace, my bad.