Spirituality Page

Today is Good Friday. Christians commemorate the death of the historical Jesus of Nazareth on the cross.

In the Christian Philippines, some folks imitate the manner of the death of Christ. They even nailed themselves to crosses. That's the expression of their spirituality. To die with Christ is the only way to achive the death to self that they're seeking.

According to the Christian tradition, Christ was God. And God was Christ. In the first few verses of the Gospel of John it reads, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning... The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Thus, accordingly, the Word was Jesus Christ, the God-incarnate.


When Jesus died, God died. That's a simple syllogism: Jesus Christ is God; and Jesus Christ died; therefore, God died. God was dead.

In his classic philosophical writing Thus Spake Zarathustra, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche presented the idea of the death of God. After the meeting between Zarathustra and a wandering saint, Nietzsche's character suddenly realized, perhaps the old saint did not know, that God was dead. Then Zarathustra went to town.

"God died," preached Zarathustra, "and we are God's murderers." The townfolks detested Zarathustra; they hated the new unorthodox realization of the death of God.

Then Nietzsche used a powerful metaphor of a corpse that Zarathustra caught while fishing. Zarathustra put the corpse on his shoulder and carried it with him across the town. A buffoon kicked him out of town, and thus Zarathustra had to go to the forest, to the place where he came from.

Zarathustra became a laughingstock to the townfolks because of the corpse that he carried with him, but as he slept in the middle of the forest beside the corpse, he had a sound and peaceful sleep.

The metaphor was clear: God is dead because of our faith. God is dead because of orthodoxy. We killed God by the attributes that we give to her. We robbed God of freedom to be herself because of the dogma that we invented. Christianity killed God because it suppressed God through Christian doctrine and theology.

When you say that God is dead before people with orthodox convictions, you will be made a laughingstock. When the early followers of Jesus Christ believed that Jesus was God and he died for the sins of humanity, they became objects of scorn. When Christianity became organized enough, Christians invented the trap to be used to murder God.

To say that God is dead is to express your thoughts against orthodoxy. Once you become unorthodox, you will be hated. The unorthodox English teacher John Keating in Dead Poets Society was loved by his students but disliked by the people around him.

Now I have this realization: Going beyond orthodoxy induces sound and peaceful sleep. God is dead, and I killed God by my ideals. Thus, there it becomes necessary to resurrect her.



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