Hanging in the Teen Center for years was a group photo of a
mission trip we took to New York City in the summer of 1990. Above our heads
sprawled in graffiti lettering was the slogan, “God is Dead.” We had driven by
it every day as we returned home after a children’s program in the park. While
I hadn’t noticed it myself, the teens had and were adamant that we have our
photo taken under it. I suppose it was their way of saying, “No, He isn’t, and
we are living proof.”
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher who
popularized the “God is Dead” idea in the late 1800’s. He wrote on religion,
morality, contemporary culture and philosophy. Existentialism and postmodernism
continue to be impacted by his teaching as he radically questioned the value and
objectivity of truth.
It’s interesting how insight can be gleaned from someone as
atheistic and as bent against God as Nietzsche. Once he approached a group of
Christians with this reprimand, “Yuck, you make me sick.” Some in the group
asked him why to which he responded, “Because you redeemed don’t look like the
redeemed. You’re as fearful, guilt-ridden, anxious, confused and adrift in an
alien environment as I am. I’m allowed. I don’t believe. I have nothing to hope
for. But you people claim you have a Savior. Why don’t you look like you are
saved?”
Ouch!
1 Comments:
At Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:47:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Reading this reminded me a something a friend said to me once when we were in a group of ungodly people and I really couldn't understand why they talked about the things that they did. His response "they talk about what they know." Nietzsche, while neither of us were there, saw what he wanted to see. My father while in one of his drunken states once said to me after I said something to him about his drunkenness "that isn't very Christian like". My thought was maybe, but how is the ungodly to judge the godly? What was my picture of a Christian before I became one? Only if we could live to that standard now. I would love to be perfectly holy in all that I do like I thought a real Christian should be. I wish that I was intolerant to sin and how sick would I then make the world and the unbelievers in it. Or maybe I should just wear a cross on my neck or a t-shirt so that people would know I am saved.
ray
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