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Christian atheism is a form of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
that rejects the theistic claims of Christianity, but draws its beliefs and practices from
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
' life and teachings as recorded in the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
s and other sources. Christian atheism takes many forms: * Some include an ethics system. * Some are types of cultural Christianity. * Some Christian atheists take a theological position in which the theistic belief in the transcendent or interventionist
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
is rejected or absent in favor of finding God totally in the world (
Thomas J. J. Altizer Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer (May 28, 1927 – November 28, 2018) was an American university professor, religious scholar, and theologian, noted for his incorporation of Death of God theology and Hegelian dialectical philosophy into his body o ...
). * Others follow Jesus in a godless world ( William Hamilton). * Hamilton's Christian atheism is similar to
Jesuism Jesuism is a belief system considering itself to be the true representation of the teachings of Jesus and contrasts itself from the teachings of mainstream Christianity.Owen J. Flanagan. ''The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World.'' ...
.


Beliefs

Thomas Ogletree, Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies at
Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...
, lists these four common beliefs:Ogletree, Thomas W. The Death of God Controversy. New York: Abingdon Press, 1966. # The assertion of the unreality of God for our age, including the understandings of God which have been a part of traditional Christian
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...
. # The insistence upon coming to grips with contemporary
culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
as a necessary feature of responsible theological work. # Varying degrees and forms of alienation from the church as it is now constituted. # Recognition of the centrality of the person of
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
in theological reflection.


God's existence

According to Paul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the word God itself is "either meaningless or misleading". Van Buren contends that it is impossible to think about God and says:
We cannot identify anything which will count for or against the truth of our statements concerning 'God'.
The inference from these claims to the "either meaningless or misleading" conclusion is implicitly premised on the verificationist theory of meaning. Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.Lyas, Colin. "On the Coherence of Christian Atheism." ''The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy'' 45(171): 1970.
Thomas J. J. Altizer Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer (May 28, 1927 – November 28, 2018) was an American university professor, religious scholar, and theologian, noted for his incorporation of Death of God theology and Hegelian dialectical philosophy into his body o ...
is a well-known Christian atheist who is known for his literal approach to the death of God. He often speaks of God's death as a redemptive event. In his book ''The Gospel of Christian Atheism'', he says:
Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead, that the death of God is a final and irrevocable event and that God's death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity.Altizer, Thomas J. J. ''The Gospel of Christian Atheism''. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966.


Dealing with culture

Theologians including Altizer and Colin Lyas, a philosophy lecturer at
Lancaster University , mottoeng = Truth lies open to all , established = , endowment = £13.9 million , budget = £317.9 million , type = Public , city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster , country = England , coor = , campus = Bailrigg , faculty ...
, looked at the scientific, empirical culture of today and tried to find religion's place in it. In Altizer's words: He goes on to say that our response to atheism should be one of "acceptance and affirmation". Colin Lyas stated:


Separation from the church

Thomas Altizer has said:
e radical Christian believes that the
ecclesiastical {{Short pages monitor * ''
Asimov's Guide to the Bible ''Asimov's Guide to the Bible'' is a work by Isaac Asimov that was first published in two volumes in 1968 and 1969, covering the Old Testament and the New Testament (including the Catholic Old Testament, or deuterocanonical, books (see Catholic ...
'' by
Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
*'' Atheism in Christianity'' by
Ernst Bloch Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...
* Christian agnosticism *
Christ myth theory The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact". Alternatively ...
* Demythologization *
Lloyd Geering Sir Lloyd George Geering (born 26 February 1918) is a New Zealand theologian who faced charges of heresy in 1967 for teaching that the Bible's record of Jesus' death and resurrection is not true. He considers Christian and Muslim fundamentali ...
*
God-Building God-Building is an idea proposed by some prominent early Marxists in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Inspired by Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, the concept had some precedent in the French Revolution ...
* '' God Is Not Great'' by
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
* '' Jefferson Bible'' *
Jewish atheism Jewish atheism refers to the atheism of people who are ethnically and (at least to some extent) culturally Jewish. Contrary to popular belief, the term "Jewish atheism" is not a contradiction because Jewish identity encompasses not only relig ...
* Materialism and Christianity * Nontheist Friends *
Nontheistic religion Nontheistic religions are traditions of thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism, others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied and plays significant roles in ...
* Postchristianity * Robert Jensen * Robert M. Price * Sea of Faith *
Spiritual but not religious "Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as the sole or most valuable ...
*
Spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase ...
* ''
The God Delusion ''The God Delusion'' is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist, ethologist Richard Dawkins, a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford and, at the time of publication, the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science ...
'' by
Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ...


References


Further reading

* * * Hamilton, William, ''A Quest for the Post-Historical Jesus'', (London, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1994). . *


External links


Atheists for Jesus
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200220001331/http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/ , date=2020-02-20 Religious atheism Christian secularism
Atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
Christianity and other religions
Atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
Death of God theology Christian radicalism Catholic culture