Marginal Christianity

Entry into the City John August Swanson The gathering clouds, the many soldiers, the kinetic energy of the painting, create a sense of foreboding, that something is about to happen to Jesus. Likely not good. The following reflection seems apropos for this Good Friday. A God Torn to Pieces: Good Friday, Nietzsche, and Sacrifice By Adam Ericksen 4 -16-2014 Friedrich Nietzsche is a favorite whipping boy among Christians. It’s difficult to blame my fellow Christians for this. After all, Nietzsche is known for many provocative anti-Christian statements, but his most provocative statement might be that “God is dead.” And yet, in his latest book A God Torn to Pieces: The Nietzsche Case , philosopher Guiseppe Fornari makes a claim that is just as provocative: “In the end [Nietzsche] was much closer to Christ than many who would claim to be Christians.” Wait …Nietzsche was closer to Christ than many Christians? How could that be? Niet...

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a line in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that many have taken as an epitaph on the tombstone of the Christian God: “God is dead . . . And we have killed him.”  While much ink has been spilled debating precisely what Nietzsche might have meant by this claim, I want to suggest that this putative epitaph can also be taken as an epigram indicating what happens every time God comes to us and draw us back to him. “God is dead . . . And we have killed him.”  This is not only a sociological, historical event in Nietzsche’s sense but also a theological statement of God’s characteristic way of acting in a fallen and rebellious world.  Or, in other words, this statement can be taken as one version of a theology of the cross. Think Isaiah 53 and the torture and death of the Suffering Servant which results in making “many” righteous.  And think Jesus who lived out this prophecy.  And think the slaughtered Lamb who unrolls the scroll of history in...