The theologians of the death of God - part 2

 (este post está também disponível em Português)

"In the theology of the death of God we find a christological concentration without precedence in the history of christian theology. Jesus hinders God who died and substitutes him. He is the true God. The God of transcendence, of creation, of divine attributes died inside our empirical, experiential, pragmatic and immediate culture. The God who identified himself with our situation, with our darkness and angst, this one is the divine God and he is called Jesus of Nazareth. [...] God in Jesus made himself weak and impotent in the world. [...] The God which the atheism in the name of evil of this world was questioning was the almighty God, infinite, Creator of heaven and earth, Father and cosmic Lord. In Jesus Christ God himself assumed the evil and absurd. He identified himself with the problem and solved it, not theoretically but through life and through love. Therefore only this God is the God of the christian experience. It is not anymore an eternal and infinite solitary but one among us and empathetic with our pain and our angst for the absence and latency of God in the world. 

  As shown, here not only a christological concentration happens, but also a reduction of the reality of Jesus Christ. Jesus of whom the gospels testify cannot be adequately understood without an explicit reference of God. It is true that  in him there was also an experience of the death of God. But that does not ever mean that he hindered God or even liberated all men of all divinity. He acted in his name. He announced the Kingdom as the Kingdom of God and taught us to call him Father and taught us to feel like his beloved sons. To deny that would be to reduce christology to mere phraseology."

 Fragment from the book "Jesus Christ Libertador", L. Boff, ed Vozes, ISBN 978-85-326-0640-2, p. 210. Free translation by Gustavo Frederico.

   I find it interesting to see how the writer does not run away when speaking about atheism. He does not take a shortcut appealing to dogmas with the intent of fighting atheism. On the contrary, he takes the longer path: to understand the question, its speakers and to comment after. I miss this kind of care in the evangelical circle, which a priori seems to reject the thoughts that at first sight seem to threat their fundamentals.

    Even if Boff here is not explicitly speaking about Liberation Theology, I notice how he affirms a transcendent spirituality. In this point we cannot say that Boff, as a voice in Liberation Theology, is not in favour of a spirituality.