The Death of God Movement and the Holocaust: Radical Theology Encounters the Shoah

(Hardback)

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The Death of God theologians represented one of the most influential religious movements that emerged of the 1960s, a decade in which the discipline of theology underwent revolutionary change. Although they were from different traditions, utilized varied methods of analysis, and focused on culture in distinctive ways, the four religious thinkers who sparked radical theologyThomas Altizer, William Hamilton, Richard Rubenstein, and Paul Van Burenall considered the Holocaust as one of the main challenges to the Christian faith. Thirty years later, a symposium organized by the American Academy of Religion revisited the Death of God movement by asking these four radical theologians to reflect on how awareness of the Holocaust affected their thinking, not only in the 1960s but also in the 1990s. This edited volume brings together their essays, along with responses by other noted scholars who offer critical commentary on the movement's impact, legacy, and relationship to the Holocaust.

Reviews

"Stephen Haynes and John K. Roth have brought together 12 important scholarly essays on the death of God movement that not only review its contribution to theology three decades ago, but reinvigorate its confrontation with the Shoah, the abolute evil of the Holocaust. Essays by Thomas Altizer, William Hamilton, Richard L. Rubenstein, and the late Paul Van Buren return us to a special moment in the mid 60s when theology had moved from the Seminary to the front pages of the newspapers, and one spoke of God's death and man's coming of age. By supplementing these fascinating essays -- written for a conference that reunited the principles -- with essays by other theologians, some who were on the scene 30 years ago and some who were just beginning their careers, Haynes and Roth have given the death of God movement serious scrutiny."-Michael Berenbaum, President Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation Professor of Theology, The University of Judaism
"The late sixties were a time of cultural ferment, and the radical theologians wrote with an intensity, an authenticity, and a raw power rarely found in theology before or since. Their work broke out of the ghetto to which theology had been consigned and engaged the general public. This volume offers the opportunity to revisit that time and also to hear the current voices of the same thinkers as they too think back on those days. The book makes it clear that the issues they raised then have been more bypassed than resolved."-John B. Cobb, Codirector Center for Process Studies Claremeont, California
Comprising twelve chapters, each written by a respected scholar in the field of theological studies and the Holocaust, the book surveys the subject from every possible angle....Crisply written and sensitively organized, the book is a useful introduction to the subject and a virtual primer on current themes in academic theology.-Jewish Book Council
"Comprising twelve chapters, each written by a respected scholar in the field of theological studies and the Holocaust, the book surveys the subject from every possible angle....Crisply written and sensitively organized, the book is a useful introduction to the subject and a virtual primer on current themes in academic theology."-Jewish Book Council

Author Bio

STEPHEN R. HAYNES is Albert B. Curry Chair of Religious Studies at Rhodes College, where he has taught since 1989. He is founder and co-chair of the American Academy of Religion's Religion, Holocaust and Genocide Group, is a member of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, and serves as Director of the Rhodes Consultation on the Future of the Church-Related College. He has published several books, including Holocaust Education and the Church-Related College (Greenwood, 1997). JOHN K. ROTH is the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, where he has taught since 1966. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than 25 books, including Private Needs, Public Selves: Talk about Religion in America (1997) and From the Unthinkable to the Unavoidable: American Christian and Jewish Scholars Encounter the Holocaust (edited with Carol Rittner, Greenwood, 1997).