Friedrich Nietzsche

Over the last year, I have heard professors offer their opinions on who the movers and shakers of the intellectual, especially theological and philosophical, world are. Names such as Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, Blaise Pascal, Karl Barth, John Calvin and others come up. However, I think the biggest person who influenced the shift in the theological world was Friedrich Nietzsche.
One must first understand all the things that happened before Nietzsche. In the three centuries preceding his life, the Christian world was rocked by the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and various political revolutions, not least of which was the French Revolution. All of these events laid the groundwork for this German philosopher.
The first time I read Nietzsche I felt uneasy. He came off to me like a out-of-reach itch on one's back. It was there, and it was impossible to ignore, but it was hard to alleviate the irritation it caused. I remember that as I read him, I saw the logic and truth of a lot of his philosophical obeservations, up until he reached his conclusions. This I have found to be the greatest problem with Nietzsche--rather than fixing what many would term the social ills, he only exacerbates them.
Point in case: Nietzsche says that all men follow the will to power, therefore there is nothing which we should allow to stand in our ways on the path to power (a very Raskolnikov notion). Rather than seeing this terrible proposition and fleeing from it, society has embraced it. All means justify their ends. All terrible, destructive behaviors, so long as they provide good for the person performing the actions, are worth-while, no matter the cost physically, emotionally, morally, environmentally, spiritually, socially or economically.
Second point in case: Nietzsche says that Judaism and Christianity ruined traditional ethics and man must return to the "Aryan," conquering ideology of the Romans. Big, conglomerate corporations put small businesses out of work with no remorse. Certain countries, rather than striving for peaceful co-existence, force the surrender of their enemies through the possession of superior weaponry. Men abuse their wives and children if they think that their family members are "acting up."
Shouldn't preachers be preaching against this from the pulpit? Shouldn't they be discouraging the philosophies of a man who could very well be considered the antichrist? Shouldn't they be defending traditional Christian ethics? Shouldn't they defend Christianity's transformation of Eros? Shouldn't they discourage the will to power? Shouldn't they discourage the peasants from "dancing in the streets with satyr-like gyrations"?
Then comes the second attack from Nietzsche. Not only has he pervaded Christianity and shown that it is our true nature to be defunct, baseless creatures, but he has also declared, "God is dead, and we have killed him." He laughs at the believers. He openly tells us that the preachers and theologians are men who are trying to deny humans their true potential. And people have heard his cry. They have taken up the banner and chant in the streets that their is no God. They ask themselves, as Zarthustra questioned after speaking to the old prophet, "Can it truly be that this man has not heard the news that God is dead?" They preach against the Christians as a blight on humanity, much the way that Nietzsche has.
So there we have it. Those who proclaim themselves to be the Christians Nietzsche so violently hates are secretly his disciples. Those who proclaim his very words have still stuck to Christian ethics. The true disciple of Christ is becoming rarer and rarer, while the disciples of Nietzsche are ever amassing. So, despite the radical theological ideas of Bultmann, Reimarus, Aquinas, Zwingli, Schleiermacher, and von Balthasar, Nietzsche is the one to whom we should turn to discover the source of the modern world-view of theology and ethics.