Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir [Paperback]

Thomas J. J. Altizer (Author), Mark C. Taylor (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0791467589 | ISBN-13: 978-0791467589

The eminent death-of-God theologian traces his lifelong search for a theory that is contemporary yet biblical.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Theologian Thomas J. J. Altizer became both famous and infamous as the chief spokesman for death-of-God theology in the 1960s. In the years that followed, he has created a theological tradition that has influenced all succeeding generations of theologians. Living the Death of God is Altizer’s theological memoir. Taking us from his transformation as a theological student to his present life of solitude, Altizer recapitulates the voyage to create a truly new theology. The memoir recounts each stage of this voyage, from being overwhelmed by Satan to a conversion to the death of God and an extensive and even ecstatic preaching of the death of God. However, this is the death of that God who is the wholly alienated God, a death realizing anew the crucified God or the apocalyptic Christ.

Written with Altizer’s characteristic elegance, this book is fascinating on its own account, but can also serve the reader as a companion or introduction to Altizer’s body of work.

"I like that Altizer has put so much of himself into the text. We readers are privileged to suffer the profound personal meaning of his theological voyage, through his sickness unto death and his ecstatic joy. Truly, he gives us access to the lived depth of his unparalleled and unique theological vocation. I could not put this book down and it haunted my imagination and thoughts. What a gift from a great man!" — David E. Klemm, coeditor of Figuring the Self: Subject, Absolute, and Others in Classical German Philosophy

"Thomas J. J. Altizer has achieved that which he has long sought—to render his highly sophisticated thinking accessible to a general reading audience." — Brian Schroeder, coeditor of Thinking through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J. J. Altizer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Thomas J. J. Altizer is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author of a number of books, including Godhead and the Nothing; The Contemporary Jesus; and History as Apocalypse (all published by SUNY Press); The Genesis of God: A Theological Genealogy; Radical Theology and the Death of God (with William Hamilton); The Self-Embodiment of God; and The Descent Into Hell: A Study of the Radical Reversal of the Christian Consciousness. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 191 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (May 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791467589
• ISBN-13: 978-0791467589
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,147,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Enough is enough, June 16, 2007

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This review is from: Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir (Paperback)

Years ago I read Altizer's The Gospel of Christian Atheism,. It was provocative but I lacked the background in theology, philosophy, history and literature to be able to assess it well. Also it led to no practical results for me.

Recently I read his The New Gospel of Christian Atheism: once again, a provocative book. If I was better equipped to evaluate it, it seemed only slightly more so. It was difficult to tell if Altizer was on to something that I would find in any way useful. Some references to Gnostic Christianity, an interest of mine, held promise I would find something in Altizer that would help me. Also his condemnation of Christiandom resonated with me.

Because this memoir was claimed as a clearer way to understand Altizer, I just read it. It is not, as it points out, a personal memoir but a "theological" memoir. They may have served as a warning. This book has been more baffling to me than those two books I'd read before by Altizer. He seems, at any rate, not to be an atheist at all, in any sense that anyone except perhaps himself might use the term. [Note 03/16/09: I'm foolish of course: it's only been in the past year from reading Altizer more as well as Tillich (a Christian atheist of a different kind it seems and Spong (the latter a Christian nontheist) that I understood better what it means to be a Christian atheist - and why I am.]

And that's the rub. Altizer seems to redefine key terms, and do so in a not very precise way, as part of his theologizing. He may be reaching for definitions he himself has not found yet. Or pointing toward that which may never be (and can never be) defined. It's hard to tell. He may seem provocative because he is raising good questions or he may be more lost than you or I. His writing is intoxicating. His apparent breadth of reading is formidable. His willingness to relate apparently unrelated concepts is intriguing. His comprehensibility seems, for me, almost none. I don't want to keep reading Altizer in the hopes eventually he will make sense. I'm suspicious that even a select group of scholars actually can make sense of him. I'm suspicious that even he can make sense of himself.

I would have preferred if Altizer had said more about Gnostic Christianity. He seems to recognize its power but, as with my other subjects, his allusions seem tantalizing but sketchy. Perhaps this is what I should expect from someone who has identified himself as a "theologian of Satan".

Altizer is not an atheist or a Christian. He is the first Altizerist, reinventing the apocalyptic , incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection into some obscure postmodern mythology whose sense will probably die with him. Others may try to follow him, recognizing as he does failings within Christiandom, but I suspect these others would be better off venturing off on their own but trying to communicate effectively with rest of us. Altizer's recent physical solitude may unfortunately be a reflection on his intellectual and spiritual solitude. He's too remote. He owes us some effort to speak to our condition and that means in ways we can understand. With me he has failed in that mission: you'll have to judge for yourself, perhaps I am missing something. If he had even been a little clearer as to his objections to Gnostic Christianity, I might have some way to connect with him, even if in disagreement. But as it is I'd had enough of Altizer.