Good riddance to the leader of the "Death of God" movement

I missed this item when it occurred several months ago; as reported by Jim Haught of the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, March 23, 2019:

A once-notorious Charlestonian — a Stonewall Jackson descendant who caused a national religious storm in the 1960s — has died with little notice.

Theologian Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer was so controversial in his heyday that he received numerous death threats and hate letters. When he appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show,” the audience erupted in such anger that a curtain was lowered, the band played loudly to drown out shouts, and Dr. Altizer was smuggled out a back door to safety.

The West Virginian led the radical “Death of God” movement after World War II. He contended — oddly, I think — that God created the universe, then poured himself totally into Jesus and died at the Crucifixion. God’s spirit diffused throughout humanity, and He no longer existed as a deity.

“Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent,” Altizer wrote in one of his books, “The Gospel of Christian Atheism.” In another, he said: “We must recognize that the death of God is a historical event: God has died in our time, in our history, in our existence.”

Son of a Charleston lawyer, Altizer graduated in 1944 from Stonewall Jackson High School — named for his celebrated ancestor who fought for slavery in the Civil War. He earned a doctorate in the history of religions at the University of Chicago, then became a professor at Emory University at Atlanta.

While at Emory, his lectures, writings and books triggered such hostility that demands flared for his dismissal. But Emory refused, saying he had academic freedom to express his conclusions.

Time magazine wrote a cover issue about him, emblazoned “Is God Dead?” Altizer was called “the bad boy of theology.” He advocated “godless Christianity” and wrote: “The Christian today is called upon to say no to God because God himself has ceased to be present in history.”

During that period, Dr. Robert Emery was chairman of religion and philosophy at the University of Charleston (then Morris Harvey College). In a Gazette interview, he agreed with some controversial ideas then advocated in what was called “the new theology” — partly overlapping Altizer views. The professor expressed doubts about the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, heaven, hell and other supernatural dogmas.

Public uproar and angry letters to the editor followed the interview. Baptists held a statewide meeting to denounce Dr. Emery. The Charleston college — which then pledged to help students “attain Christian maturity” with “a firm faith in God” — ousted the professor. Charleston Unitarians formed a committee seeking his reinstatement, to no avail.

Dr. Altizer later went to the State University of New York. After retirement, he lived at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where he died Nov. 28 of a stroke at age 91.

Upon his death, fellow theologian Jordan Miller commented: “By some accounts, he was the most hated man in America for a year or so.” Dr. Miller said Altizer “believed that God became a human being and died.”

In the 1960s, I was the Gazette’s religion reporter, covering such upheavals. Those were stormy times.