Is God Dead?

An informal survey of theologians and monotheistic religious thinkers reveals a few major themes, each of which reflects the way the world—and the otherworldly—has evolved over the course of 50 years.

The rise of pluralism and diversity has forced American believers of different stripes to engage one another. That means confronting a world full of other people who believe different things about what is supposed to be, in the case of the Abrahamic religions, one God. This issue arose this year at Wheaton College, when a professor at the evangelical school was suspended after stating that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.So the question might be something like, “Is that you, God?”

On the other hand, just as World War II and civil rights were part of the death-of-God movement, the disconnect that has always hovered at the edges of faith—how can an omnipotent God exist in a world with so much misery and injustice?—continues to press religious thinkers to grapple with how to sustain faith while living a mortal life.

Finally, others see all that suffering and wonder not only why believers are not acting to stop it, but whether God is at fault. That’s a sentiment that William Hamilton himself hinted at in a 1985 interview, that maybe God didn’t die but that “the wrong people have him and he should be killed.”

The civil rights movement was just one of many real-world events that made the question seem apt. In 1966, it wasn’t so easy for Americans to believe that a beneficent God was actively steering the lives of man. After years spent battling evil abroad, American Christians watched as Godless communism drew its sinister curtain across the world. And at home, with its million daily inhumanities, their own nation oppressed citizens due to the color of their skin.

“As always, faith is something of an irrational leap in the dark, a gift of God,” TIME explained back then. “And unlike in earlier centuries, there is no way today for churches to threaten or compel men to face that leap; after Dachau’s mass sadism and Hiroshima’s instant death, there are all too many real possibilities of hell on earth.”

Those “atrocities of the 20th century” weren’t the only ingredients in the mix, says Peter Manseau, author of the new history of American spirituality One Nation, Under Gods. There was also news—whether of Muhammad Ali’s joining the nation of Islam or of the War in Vietnam—that forced Americans to think about religions other than Christianity, and a counterculture that encouraged questioning assumptions.

Looking back, there’s another fact in the story that stands out even more as an artifact of the time: survey results showed that 97% of Americans believed in God. The number of God’s devotees has been shrinking ever since. In 2014, Pew found that only 63% of Americans believed with absolute certainty. (Gallup numbers were roughly the same, if you include the “fairly certain” respondents as well.)

Among those concerned with the state of religion in America today, one of the most pressing topics is the “rise of the nones”—the increasing number of people who may identify as spiritual, but claim no religion of their own.

And yet, even as Americans belief in God declines, religion retains a powerful hold. Its presence is felt throughout politics, education and pop culture. And the two sides of this story are not unconnected. Religion can no longer be assumed, goes one theory, and thus it doth protest.

“Nobody would ask whether God is dead [today],” says Rabbi Donniel Hartman, author of the new book Putting God Second. “You can’t understand three-quarters of the conflicts in the world unless you recognize that God is a central player.”

For some people, however, the question has never changed. There are radical theology Facebook groups; an admin of one of them, Christopher Rodkey, a 39-year-old United Church of Christ pastor in Dallastown, Penn., is putting together a 50th-anniversary edition of Hamilton and Altizer’s 1966 book of essays. And Ross Hamilton, Don’s older brother, believes there’s still enough interest in his father’s work to merit a documentary.

And Thomas Altizer is still hard at work.

When I caught the nearly-90-year-old theologian by phone, he was in the middle of writing about death. His subject matter has not changed, but the world has. Theology is relegated to the margins. Radical thought is less welcome. God, for better or worse, is not up for debate. He still proclaims his apocalyptic theories, but the ecstasy he felt in 1966 is gone.

“All the things that were crucial to me in the ’60s are now gone,” he says. “I’m not saying this is a bad time, but I think it’s a rather empty time—empty of the joy that we once celebrated.”