Critic: ‘You Are Not’

It was a jolly day when bishops were occasionally asked to comment on bathing beauty contests, the existence of Santa Claus, the FBI and other worldly causes. But times have changed. Now the phone rings and a sinister voice identifies himself as a part of the news-media establishment.

“We’re doing a wrap up on Black Power for celibacy or Vietnam or nuns’ new habits or draft card burners. Care to comment? Sometimes (when someone else has already said it better) I don’t. Sometimes (when I think I have something to say) I do.

A Lively Interview

Recently the splendid educational TV station at the University of Georgia did a 30-minute story on Dr. Thomas Altizer of Emory University and the response to his message that God is dead. Adroit splicing and good questions helped produce a half-hour that handled a difficult theme very well.

Dr. Altizer spoke, so did Mr. Atwood, Emory’s president, Rabbi Rothschild, several Protestant clergy and I were accorded time. The fundamentalist reaction was emotional. Admittedly no one had a chance to come to grips with the real issue, but Channel 8 highlighted the matter, and treated everyone’s opinions with respect. I was quoted fairly and coherently, but it occurred to me that some readers might like to read my notes. Here they are:

Young And Fervent

Dr. Altizer speaks with a voice tuned to the student generation, especially to those confident that “the enemy” is everyone over 30. He talks like an evangelist, appalled and dismayed at the heartlessness of men. He asks fresh questions about man’s most tireless search --- to find his own meaning.

His present importance lies in these virtues -- he is young, fervent and searching. At this stage in his career, his rank as a theologian is still to be won. He seems to pinpoint the death of God as a historical event. But as Dr. Marty says, When did it occur? Where? How? Who were the witnesses? Again, why is God “dead” and Jesus Christ alive and still an inspiration to Altizer and his colleagues, Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Van Buren. Christ said He was the Son of God -- if God has ceased to be, are not Christians following a madman.

Certainly Dr. Altizer is speaking of a vital theme (Has God meaning?) but his speculators seem to leave most people confused and depressed and this includes Hamilton who calls Altizer’s vision “logically imprecise” and Van Buren who says he simply cannot understand him. Has obscurity replaced charity as a prerequisite for theologians? More Of An Event

Dr. Altizer appears as an evangelist with the pessimism of an old-time revivalist and the optimism of a crusader technology. Since he has a theological tiger by the tail, he may outgrow this secular evangelism and be forced by thinking, reflecting, praying to become more mature. He has the questions and enough boldness to grow into a Barth or a Tillich of the 1970’s. But right now, he is more of an event than a theologian. His image owes much to the New York Times and Time magazine (which discovered him) and to the questioning of our times which he reflects.

What is the impact of Altizer and other radical theologians on Christians and Jews and traditional theists in their beliefs, history, culture and social usage? In my opinion, he is stimulating both the religious realist and the practical atheist among us. There are those realist who see God’s reflection in the world He created; in justice, humility and courage, in other words in their fellow man. Altizer tends to sharpen their insights and widen their compassion because he treats them as though they did not matter. He faces them with the question -- can they, children of the living God, be less concerned about humanity than the children of a God reputed to be dead?

For the “practical atheists” who still call themselves religious, Altizer throws down a flat challenge, “Put your money where your theology is.” The great American proposition, as Father John Courtney Murray expresses it is, “Religion is good for the kids, but I’m not religious myself.” This is simply not good enough. These practical atheists would loudly deny Altizer’s brand of no God (anymore) yet they are living dangerously close to it.

Strange Bedfellows

Christianity has had many strange allies, unwilling and unwitting. The “death-of-God” theologians may turn out to be such bedfellows. Dr. Altizer’s questions may force church-going Americans to inventory their souls. Galileo and his honest work in science was such an experience for the Church. So was Marx in his human pity and Freud in his explorations of the subconscious, in each case, the churches had to rethink their positions.

God will not die at once, nor by sections. But sections of Christians may let him die the hardness of their hearts or in the cold indifference of their churches. Dr. Altizer may have come to the aid of Christianity just in time.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta