Primary Scripture: Acts 17:22–28
Supporting Scriptures: Mark 15:33–39; Luke 17:20–21; Matthew 25:31–46; 1 John 4:7–12

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” — Acts 17:28

Introduction: What If Nietzsche Was Right?

There may be few sentences in modern philosophy more famous—or more misunderstood—than Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration:

“God is dead.”

Nietzsche was not claiming that somewhere in heaven an immortal supernatural being had suddenly suffered cardiac arrest.

He was announcing a cultural earthquake.

The old world of unquestioned religious certainty was collapsing.

Modern science had transformed our understanding of the universe.

Historical criticism was transforming our understanding of Scripture.

Philosophy was questioning inherited metaphysics.

Religious pluralism was making Christians confront an uncomfortable reality: billions of sincere human beings experience the sacred without using Christian language.

And the suffering of history made the traditional picture of an all-controlling God increasingly difficult to defend.

Nietzsche’s proclamation therefore raises a disturbing question for Christians:

What happens when the God we inherited becomes unbelievable?

Do we abandon Christianity?

Do we pretend the questions do not exist?

Or could the death of one understanding of God actually open the door to a deeper faith?

Today I want to suggest something provocative:

Christianity may not need to be rescued from the death of traditional theism.

Christianity may need to pass through it.

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I. Which God Has Died?

Before mourning the death of God, perhaps we should ask:

Which God?

The old man above the clouds?

The cosmic policeman?

The supernatural accountant keeping track of every failure?

The celestial dictator controlling every event?

The God who supposedly sends earthquakes, chooses winners of wars, gives one person a parking space while another person dies of cancer, and condemns billions of human beings because they were born into the wrong religion?

If that God is dying, perhaps Christianity should not rush to perform CPR.

Perhaps some gods need to die.

The Bible itself repeatedly destroys idols.

An idol is not merely a statue.

An idol is anything finite that we mistake for the Infinite.

And theological ideas can become idols too.

The medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart prayed the astonishing prayer:

“I pray God to rid me of God.”

Eckhart understood something profound.

Our ideas about God are not God.

Our doctrines about God are not God.

Our images of God are not God.

Our favorite Bible verses are not God.

The word God is not God.

At best, these things point beyond themselves toward Mystery.

So perhaps the first step toward finding God after traditional theism is allowing some of our gods to die.

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II. Tillich: God Beyond the God of Theism

The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich saw this crisis coming.

Tillich rejected the idea that God should be understood simply as the greatest being somewhere in existence.

If God is merely one being among other beings—even infinitely bigger and stronger—then God has been reduced to another object.

Tillich instead spoke of God as the Ground of Being.

God is not merely something that exists.

God is the depth from which existence itself arises.

And Tillich used an extraordinary phrase:

“the God above the God of theism.”

Think about that.

The God beyond the God we thought we understood.

When our theological pictures collapse, Mystery does not collapse with them.

When our doctrines become inadequate, Reality does not disappear.

When our certainty dies, the depth of existence remains.

This sounds surprisingly close to Paul’s sermon in Athens:

“God… dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”

And then:

“In him we live, and move, and have our being.”

God is not simply somewhere.

God is the depth within which every somewhere exists.

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III. Bonhoeffer: Christianity Without the Religious Crutch

Then came Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually executed in 1945.

Writing from prison, he began imagining what he called a “religionless Christianity.”

Bonhoeffer recognized that modern humanity was becoming increasingly capable of explaining the world without inserting God into every gap in our knowledge.

People once invoked God to explain thunder.

Then meteorology developed.

God explained disease.

Then medicine developed.

God explained planetary movement.

Then astronomy developed.

If God survives only inside the gaps of human knowledge, science will gradually squeeze God out.

Bonhoeffer therefore rejected what later became popularly called the “God of the gaps.”

He asked whether Christianity could exist without using God as an emergency explanation for whatever we do not yet understand.

That question remains explosive:

Can we live before God without constantly using God to explain the world?

Perhaps Christian maturity means refusing to turn God into a cosmic problem-solving machine.

God is not the answer we insert whenever science says, “We don’t know yet.”

God is deeper than our unanswered questions.

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IV. The Cross and the Weakness of God

Then we come to the center of Christianity:

Jesus hanging upon a cross.

Listen carefully to his cry:

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

That is not the voice of easy religious certainty.

That is abandonment.

Silence.

Darkness.

Jesus does not escape suffering through supernatural privilege.

He enters it.

Christianity therefore places something extraordinary at its center:

a crucified God.

Traditional ideas of power tell us that power means control.

Caesar has power because Caesar commands armies.

Empire has power because empire can force obedience.

But Jesus hangs powerless before empire.

And Christianity dares to say:

Look there for God.

Not upon Caesar’s throne.

Upon the cross.

That changes everything.

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V. Death-of-God Theology

During the twentieth century, some theologians took this insight to radical conclusions.

Thinkers associated with Death-of-God theology, including Thomas J. J. Altizer, asked whether Christianity itself contained the seeds of the death of traditional supernatural theism.

Altizer’s conclusions were much more radical than most Christians would accept.

But his question remains worth hearing:

What if Christianity is not fundamentally about escaping Earth to reach a supernatural God somewhere else?

What if the movement of Christianity is toward radical incarnation—toward God becoming present within history, material existence, human relationship, suffering, and transformation?

John’s Gospel says:

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

Christianity does not begin with humanity escaping matter.

It announces divinity becoming flesh.

Perhaps the direction of Christian spirituality is therefore not:

Earth → Heaven

but:

Heaven → Earth.

“Thy kingdom come.”

Where?

“On earth as it is in heaven.”

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VI. Caputo: God Does Not Exist—God Insists

Then we arrive at philosopher and theologian John D. Caputo.

Caputo gives us perhaps the most provocative formulation of all:

“God does not exist; God insists.”

At first hearing, that sounds like atheism.

But Caputo is playing with the philosophical meaning of existence.

He does not want God reduced to a supernatural object existing somewhere beyond the universe.

Instead, God is a call.

An event.

A promise.

An insistence.

God calls.

But God does not coerce.

Justice calls.

Love calls.

Mercy calls.

Hospitality calls.

Forgiveness calls.

The kingdom calls.

But none forces itself upon us.

And this is what Caputo calls the weakness of God.

Not weakness meaning failure.

Weakness meaning non-coercive power.

God does not operate like Caesar.

God does not force creation into submission.

God calls creation toward possibility.

And then waits for our response.

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VII. Perhaps Jesus Already Told Us This

Listen again to Jesus.

He does not say:

“You will recognize my followers because they have developed the correct metaphysical theory of God.”

He says:

“By their fruits ye shall know them.”

And Matthew 25 becomes even more radical.

Jesus identifies himself with hungry people.

Thirsty people.

Strangers.

People without clothing.

Sick people.

Prisoners.

And then says:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these… ye have done it unto me.”

Where is God?

Jesus points toward the hungry person.

Where is God?

The stranger.

Where is God?

The prisoner.

Where is God?

The suffering neighbor.

We keep staring upward.

Jesus keeps pointing sideways.

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VIII. Christianity After Theism

So what would Christianity look like after traditional theism?

It would be less obsessed with proving God and more committed to embodying love.

Less concerned with defending heaven and more concerned with transforming Earth.

Less interested in deciding who is going to hell and more interested in asking who is going hungry.

Less obsessed with religious boundaries and more committed to radical hospitality.

Less certainty.

More wonder.

Less domination.

More service.

Less empire.

More table.

Less fear.

More love.

And perhaps Christianity after theism could finally hear the astonishing sentence:

“God is love.”

Not merely:

God has love.

Not merely:

God commands love.

But:

God is love.

That means wherever genuine love erupts into the world, something sacred is happening.

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IX. The Atheist Who Answers God

And here is where things become wonderfully strange.

Perhaps someone can reject belief in God while nevertheless responding to what we call God.

Imagine an atheist who feeds hungry people, welcomes refugees, protects LGBTQ youth, visits prisoners, cares for the Earth, opposes racism, forgives enemies, and devotes their life to reducing suffering.

Then imagine a Christian who loudly proclaims belief in God while exploiting the poor, despising outsiders, humiliating minorities, and accumulating power.

Which one is closer to the Kingdom?

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan should make us nervous about answering too quickly.

Theologically speaking, perhaps the atheist can deny the noun while answering the verb.

They may reject the word God while responding to the call carried within that name.

Meanwhile religious people can confess God with their mouths while refusing God with their lives.

Jesus himself warned:

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

That should permanently cure Christianity of confusing religious language with faithfulness.

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X. Faith Without Certainty

What then becomes of faith?

Faith becomes something deeper than intellectual certainty.

Faith becomes trust.

Commitment.

Courage.

Participation.

Paul Tillich called faith ultimate concern.

Kierkegaard emphasized risk.

The mystics spoke of entering the cloud of unknowing.

Caputo speaks of responding to the event.

And perhaps we can finally admit:

We do not know.

We do not know exactly what happens after death.

We do not know why existence exists.

We do not know whether our theological language accurately describes ultimate reality.

We do not know whether Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, humanists, atheists, or anybody else possesses the final vocabulary for Mystery.

But uncertainty does not prevent us from loving.

We can feed someone without solving metaphysics.

We can forgive without understanding the universe.

We can resist injustice without knowing what heaven looks like.

We can create beauty without proving eternity.

We can love without certainty.

And perhaps that is faith.

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XI. Resurrection After the Death of God

Christianity contains a strange rhythm:

death,

silence,

and resurrection.

Good Friday destroys certainty.

Holy Saturday gives us an empty silence.

Only afterward comes Easter.

Perhaps modern Christianity is experiencing its own Holy Saturday.

Some traditional pictures of God are dying.

Church institutions are changing.

Old certainties are disappearing.

People increasingly identify as spiritual but not religious.

Some leave Christianity entirely.

We could respond with fear.

Or perhaps we could recognize the pattern.

Death does not always mean the end.

Sometimes death creates space for resurrection.

Perhaps Christianity must lose some things in order to rediscover Jesus.

Perhaps we must lose certainty to rediscover wonder.

Lose domination to rediscover service.

Lose religious superiority to rediscover hospitality.

Lose empire to rediscover the cross.

Lose the celestial dictator to rediscover the God who is love.

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Conclusion: After God Comes God

So:

Can Christianity survive the death of theism?

I believe it can.

But perhaps Christianity should not merely survive.

Perhaps it can be transformed.

After the God of fear—

comes Love.

After the God of domination—

comes the Servant.

After the God who controls everything—

comes the Mystery who calls everything toward possibility.

After religious certainty—

comes faith.

After exclusion—

comes the open table.

After empire—

comes the Kingdom.

And after God—

perhaps, strangely enough,

comes God.

Not the God we captured in our doctrines.

Not the God we placed safely above the clouds.

Not the God used to frighten children or justify power.

But the God who happens whenever love becomes flesh.

The God who insists when justice calls.

The God who whispers through mercy.

The God who arrives disguised as the stranger.

The God encountered in bread shared with hungry people.

The God whose kingdom is already among us.

And perhaps our task is no longer to prove that this God exists.

Perhaps our task is much more difficult.

We must give the call somewhere to exist.

Let justice take flesh in our hands.

Let mercy take flesh in our relationships.

Let hospitality take flesh around our tables.

Let peace take flesh in our communities.

Let love take flesh in our bodies.

Because the question after the death of traditional theism is no longer merely:

“Do you believe in God?”

The question is:

“What is insisting upon you in the name of God—and will you answer?”

The hungry are calling.

The Earth is calling.

The rejected are calling.

Justice is calling.

Mercy is calling.

Love is calling.

The Kingdom is calling.

God insists.

May we answer:

Here I am.

Amen.