Christian atheism

Christian atheism is a belief system in which the God of Christianity is rejected but the teachings of Jesus are followed.
==Beliefs==
Thomas Ogletree, an assistant professor of Constructive Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, lists these four common beliefs:
#the assertion of the unreality of God for our age, including the understandings of God which have been a part of traditional Christian theology
#the insistence upon coming to grips with contemporary culture as a necessary feature of responsible theological work
#varying degrees and forms of alienation from the church as it is now constituted
#recognition of the centrality of the person of Jesus in theological reflection Ogletree, Thomas W. The Death of God Controversy. New York: Abingdon Press, 1966.
==God's existence==
According to Paul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the word God itself is “either meaningless or misleading”. He contends that it is impossible to think about God. Van Buren says that “we cannot identify anything which will count for or against the truth of our statements concerning ‘God’”. 
Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.Lyas, Colin. "On the Coherence of Christian Atheism." The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 45(171): 1970. Thomas J. J. Altizer is a well known Christian atheist who is known for his literal approach to the death of God. He often speaks of God's death as a redemptive event. In his book The Gospel of Christian Atheism he speaks of how “every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead, that the death of God is a final and irrevocable event, and that God’s death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity”.Altizer, Thomas J. J. The Gospel of Christian Atheism. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966. 
==Dealing with culture==
Theologians looked at the scientific, empirical culture of today and tried to find religion's place in it. In Altizer's words, “No longer can faith and the world exist in mutual isolation… the radical Christian condemns all forms of faith that are disengaged with the world”. He goes on to say that our response to atheism should be one of “acceptance and affirmation”.
Colin Lyas, a Philosophy lecturer at Lancaster University, stated that “Christian atheists are united also in the belief that any satisfactory answer to these problems must be an answer that will make life tolerable in this world, here and now and which will direct attention to the social and other problems of this life”. 
==Separation from the church==
Altizer has said that “the radical Christian… believes that the ecclesiastical tradition has ceased to be Christian”. 
He believed that orthodox Christianity no longer had any meaning to people because it did not discuss Christianity within the context of contemporary theology. Christian atheists want to be completely separated from most orthodox Christian beliefs and biblical traditions.Altizer, Thomas J. J. and William Hamilton. Radical Theology and The Death of God. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.,1966. Altizer states that a faith will not be completely pure if it is open to modern culture. This faith “can never identify itself with an ecclesiastical tradition or with a given doctrinal or ritual form.” He goes on to say that faith cannot “have any final assurance as to what it means to be a Christian”. Altizer said, <“We must not, he says, seek for the sacred by saying ‘no’ to the radical profanity of our age, but by saying ‘yes’ to it”. They see religions which withdraw from the world as moving away from truth. This is part of the reason why they see the existence of God as counter progressive. Altizer wrote of God as the enemy to man because mankind could never reach its fullest potential while God existed. He went on to state that “to cling to the Christian God in our time is to evade the human situation of our century and to renounce the inevitable suffering which is its lot”.
Hamilton explains that “In the time of the death of God, we have a place to be. It is not before an altar; it is in the world, in the city, with both the needy neighbor and the enemy”."The ‘God is Dead’ Movement." Time 1965:
 
==The centrality of Jesus==
Jesus, although not seen as divine, is still a central feature of Christian atheism. Most Christian atheists think of Jesus as a wise and good man, accepting his moral teachings but rejecting the idea of his divinity. Hamilton said that to the Christian atheist, Jesus is not really the foundation of faith; instead he is a “place to be, a standpoint”. Christian atheists look to Jesus as an example of what a Christian should be, but they do not see him as a God. 
Christian atheists criticize orthodox Christians for not living in the world, for not being connected to the rest of humanity. Hamilton wrote following Jesus means being “alongside the neighbor, being for him”, and that to follow Jesus means to be human, to help other humans, and to further mankind.
== By Denomination ==
=== Roman Catholic ===
Catholic atheism is a belief in which the culture, traditions, rituals and norms of Catholicism are accepted but the idea of the existence of God is rejected. European philosopher Gustavo Bueno, main author of materialism philopsophy, projected arguments for the non-existence of divinity. "The Catholic Church have saved the Reason in the history of Europe. The belief in God is something metaphysical, the Church is something historical. One must have reality and know the significance of the Church in the history."La storia della “guerra” che la sinistra di Zapatero ha innescato alla ricerca del potere (in Italian)
==See also==
*Don Cupitt
*Thorkild Grosboll
*Charles Maurras
==Further reading==
*
*
==References==
== External links ==
* Gustavo Bueno on Youtube (in Spanish)
* Christian Atheism blog
Category:Atheism
Atheism
Category:Christian interfaith and secular relations
Atheism
Category:Death of God theology
es:Ateísmo Cristiano
pt:Ateísmo Cristão
sv:Kristen ateism