Ever Hear of Feuerbach? That’s Why American and European Christianity Are in Such a Funk

by Mark Ellingsen

Publisher:

Cascade Books

, 2020

Overview

Christianity is in decline in North America and Europe. Polls indicate that in the US the fastest-growing segment of the American population is the religiously unaffiliated (the so-called Nones). Why is this happening? Mark Ellingsen calls our attention to a previously overlooked reason--the flawed theology and Christian education material used in most mainline churches. These approaches forfeit the transcendence of God. They logically fall prey to the claim of German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (and his student Karl Marx) that Christianity is nothing more than a bunch of teachings that human beings have made up. Insofar as this is a message the public has been hearing, little wonder Christianity in America and Europe is losing ground!
Though his main concern is to get church and academy talking about this problem and to prod us to do something about it, Ellingsen proposes a way out of this mess. Drawing on insights from the neo-orthodox, postliberal, progressive evangelical, and black church traditions, he offers a proposal that succeeds in making clear that God is more than how we experience him. He invites readers to explore with him the exciting possibility that a theological use of the scientific method could be employed to make a case for the plausibility of Christian faith.

Praise for Ever Hear of Feuerbach?

Mark Ellingsen’s provocative book documents the way that mainline religious traditions have embraced Feuerbach’s materialistic assessment of life and the future. Against that accommodation, Ellingsen believes that other religious options still very much alive (Karl Barth, African American, some careful evangelicals) effectively promote views of God as transcendent and humans as real sinners capable of real redemption. Ellingsen, who has many times shown how forcefully a historical Lutheran perspective can speak to contemporary issues, has done it again with this timely and important book.

——Mark Noll, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

Mark Ellingsen has provided a highly readable account of how atheism emerged from within the ranks of the Christian faith by modern theologians who made experience the foundation of theology.

——Laurence W. Wood, Frank Paul Morris Professor of Systematic Theology, Asbury Theological Seminary

The church, Mark Ellingsen convinces us, is in a ‘funk.’ The only way out of this situation is to face it head-on theologically and hope for healing. This began, the good doctor informs us, with Ludwig Feuerbach. What Feuerbach started was addressed by Barth, but we have let this go on undiagnosed for too long. The doctor is offering a prescription: this lucid, insightful book. Take it; read it; digest it. The situation is critical. The road to recovery awaits.

——Marc Jolley, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Mercer University

Product Details

• Title: Ever Hear of Feuerbach? That’s Why American and European Christianity Are in Such a Funk
• Author: Mark Ellingsen
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Print Publication Date: 2020
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Pages: 146
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781532649646, 9781532649639, 1532649630, 9781532649622, 1532649622, 1532649649
• Resource ID: LLS:9781532649646
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T17:19:30Z

About Mark Ellingsen

Dr. Ellingsen, teaches core courses, Church History I and II, as well as courses on Augustine, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, and Reformed Theology. He has special interest in the pre-modern era (especially Augustine), Wesley, religion-science dialogue (including ecology and spirituality) as well as theological hermeneutics. His publications include fourteen books and over three hundred articles. Some of his most recent publications are Reclaiming Our Roots, Vols. 1 and 2; The Richness of Augustine: His Contextual and Pastoral Theology; The Integrity of Biblical Narrative: Story in Theology and Proclamation; Jesus’ Vision of a Fun, Free Life, Not Driven By Purpose; and When Did Jesus Become a Republican? Rescuing Our Country and Our Values from the Right: Strategies for a Post-Bush America and the (including and )