An Introduction to Radical Theology: The Death and Resurrection of God, and: Gods after God: An Introduction to Contemporary Radical Theologies (review)

It may be that to call oneself a radical theologian is a badge of honor of sorts. The recent resurgence of liberal theology might suggest that a radical theology is post-liberal—but then again, there is such a thing as post-liberal theology in the United States, and it is actually fairly orthodox. In England there is the radical orthodoxy movement, as well, which is an even sexier theological conservatism that chooses to be conversant with Derrida.

Trevor Greenfield’s An Introduction to Radical Theology represents what is often called radical theology in England. For Greenfield, radical theology is steeped in the Nietzschean trope of the death of God, broadly defined as a theological, social, cultural, and sociological phenomenon. “Broadly,” he writes early in the book, radical theology “can be characterized as a movement that has taken theology from the real to the non-real,” that is to say, “from certainty to uncertainty.” Radical theology denies a supernatural, transcendent deity in favor of something else (29). Radical theologians might disagree upon what that something else is, but the root of a radical Christianity is the shift implied in Nietzsche’s madman offering up the requiem in the tombs of God posing as churches.

What follows is a history of this radical theology movement, as interpreted by Greenfield, that begins with the Enlightenment and moves forward, briefly through American radical theology, then to Bishop John Robinson—famous for his Paul Tillich–inspired Honest to God (1963). Calling Robinson’s theology a “responsible” one, Greenfield interprets Robinson as calling for a paradigm shift away from supernatural conceptions of God, in favor of a “non-supernatural,” “non-mythical,” and “non-real” deity (93). The discussion then turns to Episcopal priest Don Cupitt, New Zealand theologian Lloyd Geering, and the American Episcopal Bishop John Spong.

More compelling is Greenfield’s final chapter, which seeks to define radical theology as a moral necessity and reclamation of the wisdom literature tradition. Simply stated, he argues that radical theologies point toward a world theology that seeks true dialogue in a post-9/11 world. Non-radical theologies have shown their inability to engage a true dialogue, so it seems to follow that radical theology is in a unique position, having stripped itself of the certainty of truth in one’s local religion to engage responsibly an alien religion. As wisdom literature, Greenfield agues, radical theology interrupts the social order of the status quo by stating truths that blaspheme what popularly passes for Christianity—especially in the institutional church. As evidenced by the shema—that is, the “Hear, O Israel” scriptural imperative—“the subtext” of this “objective command,” he writes, “is delivered not in exclamatory fashion, but rather by narrative and aphorism, and, as we have observed, not to the community, but to like-minded individuals” (168).

A death of God-centered radical theology, which seeks to be both a kind of wisdom literature and the facilitation of a world theology, must demythologize Jesus “away from the cosmic redeemer back towards the human teacher.” What does this mean? “So what we have in essence is an atheistic tradition that follows in the Wisdom teaching of a charismatic man,” a Jesus “informed by encounter with Eastern traditions” (170). Although it is not clear to this reader what such a religion is, there certainly remains here a space for a constructive theology around an atheism where Jesus is an essential teacher in conjunction with other religions. The remaining Jesus message has for Greenfield a transformative power; in fact, the most important contribution of radical theology, it is argued at the closing of the book...