Demythologizing Messiah From Albrecht Ritschl to Richard Dawkins

Abstract

The authors analyze the development of the cultural and theological image of Jesus from Albrecht Ritschl and the early days of Cultural Protestantism to the modern New Atheism movement. The image of Jesus in Richard Dawkins’ writings is a logical conclusion of the abandonment of the messianic idea, as dictated by specific Christ–culture dynamics that H. Richard Niebuhr described as “Christ of culture.” Following Niebuhr’s idea, the authors follow the evolution of this model across the illustrative examples of Ritschl, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Gordon Kaufman, and Richard Holloway, demonstrating how the
“Christ of culture,” if consistent, leads to atheism.