The Reception of Nietzsche's Announcement of the ‘Death of God’ in Twentieth‐century Theorising Concerning the Divine

The cover of Time Magazine from April 8, 1966 asked the question ‘Is God dead?’ The article within, ‘Toward a hidden God,’ explored the meaning, roots, consequences and solutions to the ‘problem’ of secularism. In other words, Nietzsche hit upon a phrase which became an umbrella for all manner of phenomena and attitudes pertaining to the limitations and decline of religion, especially the relevance of God in late‐modernity. The particularly Nietzschean insight is that the death of God has implications for the highest values of which religion is emblematic but not synonymous. This article briefly outlines Nietzsche's notion of the death of God, focusing in the main on his published writings, before describing ways in which the idea of the death of God has manifested itself in the twentieth century in death of God theology, systematic theology and in post‐modern philosophy, critically assessing each theorist's reception of Nietzsche's announcement of the ‘death of God’ in turn.