IS GOD DEAD?
Is God dead? That’s what Nietzsche thought. In his Thus spoke Zarathustra he wrote”,
“I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH (Capitals in the original) and believe not those who speak unto you of super-earthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.
Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dread-fullest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!”
Wow! Nietzsche holds nothing back! He truly despises those ‘heaven’ preachers and their earth-detesting sermons. No wonder his words were twisted and, of course, ignored. His passion for the earth and its occupants cost him dearly. He loved horses, was a cavalry officer in the Habsburg army. When he saw a poor horse whipped to death, he embraced the dying animal, ‘lost his mind’ and never again spoke for 12 years, until his death in 1900.
Nietzsche himself was slated to become a minister in the Lutheran church, like his father and his two grandfathers, one even a bishop there. Steeped in Bible knowledge and a thorough knowledge of classical literature – he became a professor at the age of 22 – this brilliant man saw the basic theological fraud of Protestantism, the heaven heresy, which lead him to abandon a clerical career, seeing not heaven as the goal, but the new earth. That’s why he shouted, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH. He sensed that a church that worships heaven has a God who is dead. And that applies to much of current day Christianity, and, sorry to say, lies at the very root of the environmental crisis.
God is not dead.
Well, I can tell you that God is not dead, even though, in a sense, he is dying. I mean that literally. Readers of my blog know that I am a great admirer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that young theologian who became a martyr for Christ when he was hanged on the explicit instruction of Hitler, weeks before the end of World War II. Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her important book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an introduction to his thought, concludes that, “What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one, and the perception of life that has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God”.
Actually, this makes eminent sense: Take Bach, the greatest composer of all times. Two of his three wives died on him: he had 20 children, many who did not survive. He probably was a hard taskmaster, living for his work as kapellmeister, composer, church organist, choir director. We don’t much care about his personality: we only know him by his works, his beautiful music: that’s how we still admire him (1685-1750). We must see God also that way, because, as he is beyond knowing, we must love him by his works: John 3: 16, if “God so loved ‘the cosmos’ that he offered his beloved Son to buy it back from evil,” shouldn’t we do the same? Believing that fundamental truth gives us Life Eternal.
Bonhoeffer was not alone. Richard Elliott Friedman in his intriguing book, The Hidden Face of God, comes to an identical conclusion, even though he poses it as a question mark. This professor of Hebrew and Bible translator, concludes this masterpiece with, “There is some likelihood that the universe is the hidden face of God”. (The emphasis on ‘is’ is his.)
On the Reformed scene there is J. H. Bavinck who wrote that salvation of the person and salvation of creation go hand in hand.
Aspects of Christianity and Jewry are united on this score, and so are Roman Catholics.
Not only are there Jewish and Protestant sources identifying God with his creation, there are ever louder voices in the Roman Catholic Church proclaiming identical views. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is the most outspoken one. The title of his most famous book is Le Milieu Divin. The title says it all. In connection with ‘the coming of the kingdom’ he writes, “But in fact how many of us are genuinely moved in the depth of our hearts by the wild hope that our earth will be recast?” (Emphasis his). He speaks with great longing for The New Earth to come.
Of course, this is not real news for many: songs often speak louder than sermons. In “This Is My Father’s World”, we have that line, “He speaks to us everywhere.” Creation IS God’s Word, and as Pere Teilhard writes, ‘It is Divine”, is Holy.
Sister Ilia Delio, founder of the Omega Center, sees the New Creation as the heart of Christianity. With a double doctorate in Pharmacology and Theology, she is an ardent promotor of Teilhard’s New Creation beliefs.
Is God dead? If our life is dominated by ‘going to heaven’, then, indeed, God is dead, leading to a totally distorted Christianity: “Poisoners are they!” The Bible tells us that the stagnant Jewish Theology, centering on Temple worship, killed Jesus because he flouted their rules and regulations. When Jesus died on the cross, the heavy curtain in the Temple, separating the Holies from the Holy of Holies, ripped from top to bottom, a clear signal that a new era of worship had begun: away from organized religion and heralding freedom, where humans could become fully human, not bound by church dogmas and outdated rites and rules and clerics.
Yet, still today, much of churchy Christianity worships a god who, basically resides within the walls of a building featuring a spire that points to heaven. Its adherents worship a book, the Bible, whose very words in Psalm 119: 105, tell us that it is “a lamp for our feet and a light for our path:” a means, not an end. However, the church has made that lamp the sole source of wisdom, staring into that light that it has become blinding, not only ignoring creation, but purposely harming it, killing the God=Creation in the process.
Sister Delio of the Franciscan order, points out the difference between Pantheism and Panentheism. In Pantheism we see everything -pan – as god -theos, while in Panentheism we see God in everything: that’s how we have to go through life, especially now in Pandemic time: not a return to the pre-pandemic era which got us where we are today, but progressing to a post-pandemic time, where we live, try to live, seeing God in everything.
In the Lord’s Prayer, that plea with the Creator God to speed up the coming of the New Earth, the first line is HALLOWED BE THY NAME. That has nothing to do with God’s name, whether it is Jehovah, Yahweh, Lord, Adonai or whatever, but has everything to do with God’s signature on all that lives and moves and has a being, thus making every species HOLY.
And the church?
nbOh, oh, touchy subject. Look at it this way: Just as Christ’s death ensured new life, God’s death in creation promises the same: a NEW creation. where “there is no altar”, says Revelation 21. That’s why, frankly, I don’t see a future for the church in its present form: its basic premise – buildings, offices – has become outdated. If it is ‘heaven-oriented’, even half-heartedly, God and the church are dead, not worth supporting. Communion of saints will continue, of course, directly engaged in ‘new’ earth-centered, holistic activities, which, by the way, will lead to greater non-church participation. That this will make preachers superfluous, is an extra bonus. The funds freed can be used to promote human responsibility in honoring creation by example, in green eating, in carbon-free living, and, of course, in praying without ceasing for the Kingdom to come, and effectively working toward that goal.