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Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir

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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.