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I admit I did not have much interest in the question, nor much interest in the answer. It was clearly an attack on organized religion, especially Christian. A teen at the time, the whole argument seemed so esoteric. Too philosophical.
The Guardian goes on the say:
"Ultimately, the death of God movement fizzled after only a few years in the limelight. It turned out to be a last gasp of the liberal Protestant theology that was quickly losing ground in American culture and politics to a more literalistic evangelical tide."
Now, jump ahead to today and I find myself embracing a modified "God is Dead" philosophy. I was raised an Anglican. For me, God was Anglican. I had a friend who was evangelical. Some Sundays I took a break from attendance at my church and attended his. I also attended large, hall-filling evangelical events with my boyhood friend.
These events, so important to the Christian Missionary Alliance members and the Seventh Day Adventists folk plus others, were ignored by the Anglicans. The feeling seemed to be ignore the evangelicals and they will go away.
The Anglicans were wrong. The evangelicals did not go away. Rather than wither, the movement grew. We were foolish to have ignored it. Today, to an increasing extent, evangelicals rule. Today, the God I was raised to worship, the God of my Anglican Church, is, if not dead, awfully quiet.
I have relatives who are evangelicals. They send me Internet links to preachers they follow. They believe I will profit from listening to these evangelical preachers—if only I listen. Often, I don't. I find that I do not recognize their Jesus. My gut tells me these folk are misdirected, misinformed or worse, they are fakes, frauds, false prophets. Con men.
Anglicanism in my day sought a balance between scripture, tradition, and reason. This approach was far less dogmatic than that of the evangelicals today.
Literal interpretations of the Bible, encouraging believers to drill deep into The Book, only leads to confusion. At least, this is what I was told in the '50s. Listen to your minister, I was told. Otherwise, you will find yourself deep in confusion rather than faith. At best, evangelicals were debating the trivial; at worse, they were venturing into heresy territory.
For instance, the evangelicals, I knew, believed in the "end times." Many of the hall-filling events centred around the "end times" and the "rapture." According to my minister and his deacon, the end times was a misreading of the Bible. It was a heresy that just wouldn't die. It had been promised for a thousand years. Clearly, it had not happened and I was assured it wasn't likely to happen in my lifetime either.
Faith healing was another concept foreign to Anglicans. Faith healing was held in contempt by Anglicans as it was seen as profiting from exploiting the desperately ill. God gives us the strength to fight disease. Surgery fixes it. Given the choice between a faith healer, like Oral Roberts, or a surgeon like the one who repaired my badly worn heart, I go with the surgeon every time. If I thank God, it is only in passing.
My father had heart disease. Our minister offered spiritual and emotional support. His doctor offered nitroglycerine. Taking nitro relieved the pain better than prayer. That said, God did eventually end the pain. Dad died.
So, was my God cold? Indifferent? No, not in the least. The old God of the Anglicans was not into making a lot of promises that he would not keep. My God was a realist, a teacher, a leader . . .
The Anglican God, the Anglican Jesus, spoke of loving one's neighbour as one's self. Showing compassion and actively caring for those in need was a core belief. If I had to put God on the political spectrum, God would have been left of centre.
Let's look at a few religious hot-buttons. Let's compare today's evangelical God to the God of my youth.
Public Housing: Some evangelicals are wary of tax-dollar assisted public housing. I have a friend who falls into this category. A good example would be Scott Turner who runs HUD under Donald Trump.
Turner was an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, a prominent evangelical megachurch. As a Texas state legislator, Turner consistently voted against initiatives aimed at aiding the poor and expanding affordable housing. He called welfare "dangerous, harmful" and "one of the most destructive things for the family."
Sidebar: I was raised in a government subsidized Wartime Housing project. My father was a department store salesman. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. Although my dad always had a full-time job, he worked hard, his jobs paid very poorly. I don't believe he ever made more than $5000 in any given year. Often he made much less.
Today, I believe one of his great granddaughters is firmly against such government funded housing. Without public housing I wonder where my sister and I would have lived and how my parents would have kept their pride intact.
My God, my Jesus, was in favour of taxpayer-funded public housing.
Single Payer Health Systems: Contrary to what you may have read. Single Payer Health Systems are not socialist. It is a form of universal healthcare where the government pays for all covered healthcare while the providers are private. Think of it as healthcare insurance for all with no fine print. No loss of coverage due to preconditions.
Many evangelicals believe in personal accountability and self-reliance. If you can afford better healthcare, you should be able to have it. It is a multi-tiered, capitalist system. You get what you can pay for. Haven't got much money? You won't get much healthcare.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler found that many who lack insurance coverage in the United States die as a result. It is probably safe to say more than 70,000 Americans, aged 18 to 64, die annually from lack of healthcare.
One might think the number of Canadians dying from lack of healthcare would be zero. It should be but it isn't. The number is not as high as in the U.S. but thousands of Canadians still die annually because of failures in the Canadian healthcare system. Wait lists are so long that people die while waiting.
My Jesus, I believe, would opt for the single payer system. Based on the data I found, the average cost of a comprehensive health insurance policy for a family of four in the United States is approximately $24,301 per year. This amount is less if the payments are employer supported.
In comparison, Canadians only spend half of what Americans do, hence the healthcare problems. No money. I believe Jesus would be in favour of raising taxes in this instance. Canadians are getting a free lunch here, or at least a low cost lunch, and it shows. The taxes, of course, would be progressive.
Sidebar: I have had robotically-assisted open heart surgery for a leaking heart valve; I have had two pacemaker/ICDs implanted and I may well live long enough to get a third; I've had a broken hip repaired with a titanium implant; I've had lifesaving emergency minimally-invasive surgery for a totally obstructed bowl; And the list goes on. In the States, I would be have died.
