How Christians have Killed God and Why They Must Resurrect Him

21 June 2011 | Landon Schnabel

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When Nietzsche wrote “God is dead” in 1882[1] he was not referring to a physical death. He was recognizing a change in worldview from theism to non-theism, a paradigm shift he called the “death of God.” Because Nietzsche saw the moral action of believers being the main function of their belief, this “killing” of God occurred, in Nietzsche’s understanding, through the hypocrisy and lack of ethics present among believers. In effect, God “lost whatever function he once had because of the actions taken by those who believe in him.”[2] While “God is dead” has popularized a man some see as a precursor to Nazism,[3] I want us to think about post-Holocaust spirituality. Since the Holocaust God’s followers have had to grapple with the “silence of God.” In humankind’s experience with God there have been the best of times and the worst of times; the Holocaust is certainly the worst of times. What had been a philosophical assertion became a reality: Christians killed God.[4]

Christians vicariously murdered God in the person of the Jew in the Holocaust, which was made possible by almost two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism.[5] Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Jewish author of Night (a book based upon his experience during the Holocaust), witnessed a hanging where a child was not heavy enough to die. He makes a powerful point in recounting his experience. “Behind me, I heard [a] man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows…’”[6] In Matthew 25, Jesus said that whatever is done to the least is done to him.

The Holocaust has forced all sincere believers in God, especially Jews, to question how he works. The belief before the Holocaust was largely that if you prayed, God would act in a saving way here and now. If you were a follower of God, you would be protected in some way. Post-Holocaust the Jews are trying to understand the “silence of God.” This is because it seemed that God was not there, even though he promised to always be with his people. Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, has decided that God is good and loves his people and thus must not be able to act. While many now reject the God of the Bible, some, such as Emmanuel Levinas, now see God in the Other. Through those who are suffering and the acts of those who help them Levinas sees God at work in the world. Thus if God’s followers are living out God’s presence in their lives, God exists. If they are not, the world cannot see him.[7]

Christians, many of whom still oppose postmodern thinking, created the need for postmodernism. As Abraham Herschel has said, “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”[8] The Holocaust drew the dividing line between modernism and postmodernism by showing where intellectual elitism and disregard for the Other leads.[9] Though some might not agree with him, Jacques Doukhan states unequivocally, building on Hans Küng, that the Holocaust “moved us from the modern era to our post-modern world.”[10] Therefore post-modern can be paralleled with post-Holocaust.[11] The Holocaust has taught humankind that you are wrong when you scorn others for who they are. But when you believe that God has sanctioned your hate of the Other, you create hell on earth.

In postmodernism people tend to be more concerned with meaning in life and having an experiential walk with Godthan with organized religion.[12] They are seeking relationship and purpose in life, both of which I believe Christianity at its best could fulfill better than any other option. Christianity, however, no longer has a position of authority that can demand respect.It is now in the position of the early church before Constantine. Now that it can no longer demand obedience, it must earn respect. Christians have been imparted with a vital mission of sharing God’s love with the world. Sadly, it might be easier to engage people today if the name “Christian” were dropped because of its past abuse. Spiritually seeking post-moderns might be more open to following “The Way,” the original name of Christ’s followers before organization and institutionalization.[13]

Jesus said his followers would be known by their love (John 13:35), and God is known to the world through the actions of his followers (see Romans 10:14). If Christians would carry out God’s imperatives they could alleviate poverty, make significant steps towards world peace and in countless ways preach the kingdom of heaven through their actions. Instead we have been selfish and oftentimes downright evil. And in the Holocaust we killed God. But when people have actually carried out the teachings of Christ, they have done amazing things (think, for example, of Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. and even of Gandhi who followed the teachings of Christ without ever becoming a Christian).

We have created a world in which people do not believe in God not because of who he is, but because of what his followers have done. Belief has followed action. The death of God occurs first in the wrong action of believers, and then in the loss of belief in Christ caused by these actions. As James said, faith without works is dead.[14] Not only will this killing of God make it impossible for those on the outside to believe, but many of those on the inside will also be in for a surprise. If they do not show God’s love to others by caring for those in need, they will have said “God is dead” by their actions and will no longer have a God to call on to save them.[15]

If only the spiritually (and physically) hungry of the world could see the love of God alive in his people. A quote attributed to Gandhi shows what would happen if this happened: “If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India [and the world] would be Christian today.”[16] If we want to show God to the world we need to admit and ask forgiveness for our mistakes, submitting ourselves a humble process of transformation. Paul says this in Philippians 2:5-8(TNIV): “In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: Who, being…God, did not… [use this] to his own advantage; rather, he… humbled himself… to death…” so that the world could see God.[17] Instead of following Christ’s example and dying to self, some Christians have killed the idea of a Christian God in the eyes of the world by exalting self. Christians must die to self and live the Word if the world is to see God alive.

Landon Schnabel is a recent graduate of Walla Walla University. He is currently a student at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.

[1] Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft or The Gay Science, (1882) section 125. The phrase also made it into later Nietzsche publications including the well-known Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

[2] Rex Welshon, The Philosophy of Nietzsche, (McGill-Queens, 2004), 40.

[3] Hitler adopted Nietzsche’s Übermensch (“Superman” or “Overhuman”) to apply to a master race. The Nazi’s used Nietzsche for philosophical underpinning in a similar way as they used Luther for theological support of what they did. Though in some ways Nietzsche would have disagreed with them, there was some ground for [the] appropriation of Nietzsche” by the Nazis. William Shirer, The rise and fall of the Third Reich: a history of Nazi Germany, (Simon and Schuster, 1990), 100. For example, as William Shirer also writes, “In Hitler’s utterances there runs the theme that the supreme leader is above the morals of ordinary man… Nietzsche thought so too.” Shirer, 111.

[4] Though Christians were not the only ones to blame, they certainly were not innocent. Though some Christians worked on behalf of the Jews (for example, Dietrich Bonheoffer and Corrie ten Boom), most in Nazi Germany were either involved with Hitler’ regime in some way or complacent. Marvin Wilson writes that “it is to the shame of Christians everywhere that the established Church did so little to prevent or protest the slaughter.” [Marvin Wilson, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, (Eerdmans, 1989), 101.] This lack of opposition unfortunately includes Adventists and what was written in Adventist publications, some of which was pro-Hitler. Hitler was going to clean up the nation and they were happy for it, at least at first (he was a vegetarian and held other “clean living” habits). On the mixed record of Adventists in Germany at this time see Erwin Sicher, Seventh-day Adventist Publications and The Nazi Temptation, Spectrum 8 (March 1977), 11-24, and Jacques Doukhan, ed., Thinking the Shadow of Hell: The Impact of the Holocaust on Theology and Jewish-Christian-Relations, (Andrews University Press, 2002). “The few non-Jews who courageously risked their lives to save Jews” are commemorated by “a tree-lined walk called the "Avenue of the Just" (i.e., the righteous Gentiles)” in Jerusalem. Wilson, 101.

[5] “We must emphasize in conclusion that the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Though it was devised in a country with an enviable reputation for brilliant culture and intellectual sophistication, the seeds of anti-Semitism had been planted much earlier. The Holocaust represents the tragic culmination of anti-Jewish attitudes and practices which had been allowed to manifest themselves—largely unchecked —in or nearby the Church for nearly two thousand years.” Wilson, 101.

[6] Elie Wiesel translated by Stella Rodway, Night (Bantam Books, 1982), 62.

[7] See Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (Springer, 1979), 78-79 and others.

[8] Heschel, A.J., The Prophets (Harper Collins, 1962), 19. Though not all Christians supported the Holocaust or even knew it was happening, the fact that it happened in an “advanced” Protestant country gives us cause to evaluate all that we do. It forces to us see the worth of others and to accept pluralism at least to the point that we would never kill other people because they do not share our beliefs. Today it is usually nations operating on a modern or pre-modern mindset that enact genocides or kill people just because of who they are.

[9] In the name of progress and the development of the Übermensch (Superman) the Nazis sought to rid the earth of those who would hold back humanity’s success. They believed they were right and had a disregard for the “other” that led them to horrific medical testing for the sake of knowledge. They were intellectually advanced and may have been the most “modern” state in the world. However, postmodernism has taught us that scientific knowledge being intellectually elite does not make any group of people more valuable than any other.

[10] Jacques Doukhan, Thinking in the Shadow of Hell: The Impact of the Holocaust on Theology and Jewish-Christian Relations (Andrews University Press, 2002), x. See also Hans Küng, Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (Crossroad, 1992), 588-590.

[11] The generation that came to age in the 1960s was the first to experience their formative years in a post-war environment.

[12] See Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Pocket, 1997).

[13] Acts 9:2 shows that “The Way” was the original name of the followers of Jesus. It’s in Acts 11:26 that we see followers of the Way were first called “Christians” in Antioch. Jesus says in John 14:6 that he “the way and the truth and the life.” The name “Christian” was at first applied by non-followers of the Way and was a derision, but was eventually adopted by the followers of Christ as they increasingly became a movement separate from Judaism.

[14] See James 2:14-19. Really, please do!

[15] See the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.

[16] Though it seemed that Gandhi revered Christ he could not bring himself to become a Christian. The following quote is also attributed to Gandhi: “I'd become a Christian if I ever met one.”

[17] Though I have shortened this passage for the sake of brevity, read the whole section (Philippians 2:1-11).

Nathan Hellman - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 14:27

Landon,
I am reminded of Paul's advice to the Ephesians to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Eph. 4:1). Advice the church must heed instead of being presumptuous that we are the remnant, and coasting through the motions of Christianity. I saw a video a few years ago of Bono giving an address at the presidential breakfast, where he said that far too often Christians ask God to bless their work– instead they should look for where God is already at work and get involved.

Thanks Landon.

Tom Zwemer - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 14:56

Here in the deep South, tradesmen and retailers often try to market themselves or business with
some sort of banner, label, or symbol indicating they are Christian. I have learned to my sorrow--that is a big mistake to place any level of confidence in their skill or product. The ethics of such behavior should be warning enough. Tom Z

Elaine Nelson - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 15:01

It was Gandhi who said "I like your Chfrist., I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

"If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further."

It is those who claim to be Christians who killed Christ, and it may be that it will take agnostics and atheists to reveal him anew. Most of the atrocities of this world have been committed in the name of religion but "God has no religion".

Elaine

Carrol Grady - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 17:48

I like your thought about it being Christians who have made God "dead," by denying Him in their lives.

Your line, "Now that it (Christianity) can no longer demand obedience, it must earn respect," is something that our church heirarchy should be learning.

Aage Rendalen - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 19:17

I would argue that Christians have had little to do with the secularization of Western culture. Who cares if uncle George is a bad Christian or a minister flames out of the ministry. The church as an institution has had much more to do with it than individual Christians.

In Europe Protestants and Catholics alike in the 20th century turned away from a church that was perceived to be a reactionary force that was hostile to the emerging labor movement and its socialist agenda. People were fighting for the right to organize and thereby get their fair share of the wealth they helped to create. Almost everywhere the church, allied to conservative political parties, opposed this very necessary struggle. The church wanted peace and quite, and had grown comfortable with the Victorian era's social darwinism, and when socialists reacted by declaring themselves anticlerical and atheists, it settled the matter. I grew up with working class uncles and aunts and parents who took immense pride in the achievements of the Scandinavian labor movement. Not one of them went to church. I was in high school before I met somebody my age who went to church.

In the United States there was no "church" allied with the Establishment. The separation of church and state, so much decried today by some conservatives, is probably the most important reason why religion still is an important factor in many people's lives. If the Christian church in the US becomes a subsidiary of a party or a movement that works against the values and interests of the common people, it will eventually pay a hefty price. Hypocrisy, as they say, is the compliment vice pays to virtue, and although it evokes disgust in everybody, I doubt it has any more impact on other people's faith than somebody's infidelity has on their view of marriage.

Aage

Run Forest Run - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 21:31

Me likes this Landon guy, thanks for having me over for Sabbath dinner many years back, I am proud of you and HOPE to hear and see more. Camelback still is my favorite climb when there.

Nathan Huggins - Tue, 06/21/2011 - 22:31

No Elaine it will take real CHRISTians to reveal to the world the character of Christ not atheists or agnostics, your Bible can tell you this simple fact. But hey, dont let the most basic truths of scripture get in the way of your fallacious broad brush strokes of Christianity.

Sirje Walkowiak - Wed, 06/22/2011 - 04:02

Great article. How does the SDA, official call for "revival and reformation" going to bring God back to life? The polarization of Christian religion; and the SDA retreat into itself, seems to be thrusting the knife deeper into the God that Christ introduced to humanity.

If others know God by what Christians portray, what are they learning from AD-ventists? What are Adventists learning from Adventism? Is the SDA focus being broadened or minimized? Are we becoming more inclusive, opening God's arms wide open to "whosoever," or are we drawing inward, circling the wagons and drawing lines in the sand?

The SDA chruch lives in fear. It's only fear that drives people into seclusion and narrowness. It can't afford to be open and accepting because it doesn't trust its own belief system - that it can sustain belief and grow loyalty just by being. It has to demand and punish to survive. The freedom of each individual to meet and know God personally can't be trusted because of what that might say about the beliefs that grow out of the tradition that was, itself, the product of freedom and faith. When that same freedom and faith isn't being extended to subsequent generations, the tradition becomes restrictive, chocking the life out of the church.

Graeme Sharrock - Wed, 06/22/2011 - 16:55

Along with Eli Weisel, I trust the thought and interpretative stance of Simone Weil, who stated:

"The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment...is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God." (Gravity and Grace)

Weil made it possible, after the noisy clamor of the French Revolution and strident Nazism, for us to understand the absence/silence of God as redemptive for humans.

If that idea seems impossible or naive, then think of the compassionate therapist who withholds her own thoughts and agenda in order to facilitate the growth and self-realization of her patient. SIlence creates space for the Other to be, yet within a relationship of grace.

It may be true that the unresolved moral dilemnas of an all-good and all-powerful God contributed to the decline of God's credibility in the face of disasters natural and man-made (Voltaire). but it is a false God who died.

Paul Tillich was right: it is only the God "beyond God" who is worthy of universal human respect.

Graeme

billman - Thu, 06/23/2011 - 00:50

Aage

If the separation of church and state may be the most important reason why religion is a factor in peoples lives in the USA, what is the explanation for religion not being a part of peoples lives in Australia and New Zealand, despite there being no alignment between church and state.

Just wondering

pat travis - Thu, 06/23/2011 - 09:45

It seems to be that Rome and "certain religious leaders" killed lterally God/Christ because He said unless they beleived in Him they would die in their sins. Jn.8:24.Rome , of course was party because there was no justice and the move was for "harmony" of the masses. I would venture despite Ghandi's assertion he was offended by the same message that He was a sinner in need of repentance and acceptance of Christ.

The classical misunderstanding of Christianity is to look at the believer rather than an individual confrontation and response to Christ. After all it is "sinners" that Christ came to save not the righteous. Why would one expect to see the perfect reflection in these sinners?

Only Christ was that holy thing.

Should we desire to more reflect Christ? Yes. Is that our primary message? No,

" He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.Lk.24:46-48.

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we DO NOT preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” a made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of God in the FACE OF CHRIST. " 2 Cor.4:3-6.

That message is the offense to unbelievers...and I suggest the rest are multiple strawmen for unbelief. The offense of the cross remains for both moderns and postmoderns.

The "German church" was a church only in name that had left it's core, I suggest by it's years of the German religion school and a focus on negating scriptural authority, doctrine and a NAZI focus on "Positive Christianity.". Thus the call by Bohoeffer and others to return to the basic confessions of Christianity and the "confessing church." There were many professed Christians who assisted the Jews.

regards,
pat

Aage Rendalen - Thu, 06/23/2011 - 13:32

Billman
I imagine that's a function of Anzac history of which I'm fairly ignorant. If religion never took hold in these countries, the presence or absence of a state church would not have been a relevant factor.

In the US people such as George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards and nineteenth century revivalism had an enormous religious influence on the American population. Americans at the outset were not very religious, in spite of the fact that colonization was spearheaded by people such as William Penn and the William Bradford of strong religious convictions. Once people moved out of the coastal strip into the interior, they lived largely outside the reach of religion. Eventually religion caught up with them, and people embraced it as their own chosen faith, not as a government decree. That's where separation of church and state becomes relevant. My native country of Norway was christened by force in the eleventh century and assigned a Protestant creed by government decree in 1537. In 1804 the government arrested a hugely popular lay preacher, Hans Nielsen Hauge, and let him rot in prison for seven years for having preached without a government license. And, as mentioned before, when industrialism arose, the state church stood on sidelines and did little or nothing to allay the suffering of its victims. Year after year of religion being associated with the government and the powers that be, ended up alienating not only Scandinavia but much of Europe from the Christian church. Religion, to survive, needs to be a cosa nostra--our thing.

Aage

Carmen Lau - Fri, 06/24/2011 - 18:44

Thank you for posting this essay. Have a reinvigorating Sabbath.

Roy Binghy - Tue, 06/28/2011 - 08:07

Some may argue, believers have long been in the business of creating God in the first place. So if they've killed him - or them - they ought to know how to re-create him - or them.
Get the book: http://www.holditpreacher.com

Royo
Is it really written?

Prof LPM - Tue, 06/28/2011 - 08:19

I have a favorite quote about whether God created Man or vice versa. I first saw it attributed to Voltaire but I have since found it listed as a very old Yiddish proverb:
=
IF TRIANGLES HAD A GOD, HE WOULD HAVE THREE SIDES.

Prof LPM - Tue, 06/28/2011 - 08:30

Anyway I think most people who believe in God believe He is a lot like a human being only a lot grander, seeing everything and knowing everyting and able to do everything He wants to do, but still with various feelings and thoughts that somehow resemble ours.
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One of my grandkids once asked me what is the difference between God and Santa Claus, since for both of them we are told: "He sees you when you're sleeping; He knows when you're awake; He knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for Goodness' Sake."
=
And Heaven is still "up." If we want to know where, we just have to pinpoint the exact time and place of Jesus' ascension, figure out which way the axis of the world was aimed at that instant, and (according to the time of day) which part of the sky was Jerusalem facing. Once we calculate the direction, all that's left is the distance - how far in that direction is Heaven. But maybe Jesus fooled the Disciples by zooming upward till he was out of sight and then switching directions and zooming off some other way in the true direction of Heaven.
=
(Read "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven," by Mark Twain.)

Prof LPM - Tue, 06/28/2011 - 09:01

Hey guys I may sound cynical but (believe it or not) I'm not trying to sneer or imply that your comments are trivial.
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My point is, these same questions have been debated for a long time, maybe at least since Isaiah.
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But that doesn't mean there's no longer anything to be said on these topics. My hope would be that some new insights can be derived from the high-tech, 21st century context, to shed more light on these venerable questions.

David rossin - Sun, 07/17/2011 - 15:48

ive been around christians and believe your statment is correct, to many christians ? do not have jesus in there lives i hope that God is who he said he is and those who proclaime him without substance will inheriite what there jugde others to be

Fr. Jim - Thu, 11/17/2011 - 08:21

Aage, you might want to remember the name of the party. The National Socialist German Workers Party. It is said the they were brown on the outside, but red on the inside. Europe turned from the faith and where did it get them?