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1.

The epigraph is from Brian Brock and Bernd Wannenwetsch, The Malady of the Christian Body: A Theological Exposition of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, vol. I (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016), 33.

2.

This and the following citations in this paragraph come from Jonathan Turley, “Viewpoint: In this impeachment, people only heard what they wanted to,” BBC News, 6 February 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51389540?fbclid=IwAR18DUe1l1aFAOg7 u-r0oGl4NUal-DVqRK6n2DR9IjvUdmQh1BLD8ZDddtY (accessed 7 Feb 2020).

3.

Søren Kierkegaard, Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, Vol. I, A–E, ed. and trans. Hong and Hong (London: Indiana University Press, 1967), 306; cited in Écoute, 34.

4.

Coakley made this remark during the presentation of Sarah Coakley, “Redeeming human nature according to John of the Cross: an early modern confrontation with ‘darkness,’” paper presented at Redeeming the Human conference of the Society for the Study of Theology, Durham University, 4–6 April, 2016.

5.

Michèle Le Dœuff, “Equality and Prophecy” (paper presented at the Power of the Word International Conference V—The Prophetic Word: Poetry, Philosophy and Theology in Conversation, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, September 13–16, 2017).

6.

The constitution of these thinkers as a “generation,” the distinction between these terms, and the “golden age” remark are elaborated in Why, discussed in chapter 4. Following Angermuller, I use “structuralism” to denote these thinkers as they were received in France in the sixties and seventies. The reader unfamiliar with this thought may opt to read chapter 4 before the rest of this book.

7.

Here is a short list of some anglophone academic theologians, with at least one publication interacting in one way or another with these French thinkers: David Brown, Continental Philosophy and Modern Theology: An Engagement (London: Blackwell, 1987, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2012); “Durham Cathedral as Theology” (paper presented at Redeeming the Human conference of the Society for the Study of Theology, Durham University, April 4–6, 2016); Graham Ward, Barth, Derrida, and the Language of Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 2008), and Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory, Studies in Literature and Religion (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996, 2000); Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, coll. Contemporary Challenges in Theology, 1998); John Milbank, with Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? Short Circuits (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009); with Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2010); Slavoj Žižek and Boris Gunjević, God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2012); Paul S. Fiddes, “The Story and the Stories: Revelation and the Challenge of Postmodern Culture,” in Paul S. Fiddes, ed., Faith in the Centre: Christianity and Culture. (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, with Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), 75–96; Brian Brock, Christian Ethics in a Technological Age (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010); Miroslav Volf and William H. Katerberg, The Future of Hope: Christian Tradition Amid Modernity and Postmodernity (Grand Rapids; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004); Kathryn Tanner, “Tradition and Theological Judgment in the Light of Postmodern Cultural Criticism,” in Tradition and Tradition Theories: An International Discussion, ed. Siegfried Wiedenhofer (LIT Verlag, 2006); David Toole, “Of Lingering Eyes and Talking Things: Adorno and Deleuze on Philosophy Since Auschwitz,” Philosophy Today 37, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 227–246; Mary McClintock Fulkerson, “‘They Will Know We Are Christian by Our Regulated Improvisation’: A Postmodern Take on Ecclesial Identity,” in The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Graham Ward (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 265–79; with Susan J. Dunlap, ed. Graham Ward, “Michel Foucault (1926–1984): Introduction,” in The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997), 116–23; Laurel C. Schneider, Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity (London: Routledge, 2007); Catherine Keller, Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014); Jonathan Tran, Foucault and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2011); James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000, 2012); Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996).

8.

Mary McClintock Fulkerson, “Ethnography in Theology: A Work in Process,” in Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 116.

9.

Ibid, 123.

10.

Ibid, 129.

11.

This statement highlights what seems to me to be a general characteristic of the Lived Theology project: the idea of ‘lived theology’ seems both to presuppose and necessitate a separation between theological discourse as a mode of intellectual reflection on the one hand, and daily life on the other. Without this separation, the project’s aim would be more easily assimilable to theological ethics.

12.

On ‘structuralist,’ see note 6 above.

13.

“I Am a Fighting Atheist: Interview with Slavoj Žižek,” conducted by Doug Henwood, Introduction by Charlie Bertsch, in Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, no. 59 (2002), https://bad.eserver.org/issues/2002/59/zizek. For examples of Žižek’s writings on Christianity, see Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, Short Circuits (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009); The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for? (London: Verso, 2000, 2001); see also The Metastases of Enjoyment, Radical Thinkers (London: Verso, 1994, 2005), 38–51. Some arguments in this section are treated in Jacob Rollison, Revolution of Necessity: Language, Technique, and Freedom in the Writings of Jacques Ellul and Slavoj Žižek (New York: Atropos Press, 2016).

14.

Žižek, The Fragile Absolute, 1–2.

15.

Cf. Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf, 3.

16.

See Rollison, Revolution of Necessity, chapter 3.

17.

All citations in this paragraph are from John D. Caputo, review of The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?, ed. Creston Davis, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: An Electronic Journal, no. 2009.09.33, https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-monstrosity-of-christ-para dox-or-dialectic/.

18.

For a dissenting view on Caputo’s statements about Žižek’s use of Christianity, see Adam Kotsko, Žižek and Theology, (London: T&T Clark, 2008), most concisely on pages 4–6.

19.

Žižek and Gunjević, God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse, 22.

20.

James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 25.

21.

James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation, 6.

22.

Ibid., 7–8.

23.

Faire, 20.

24.

Entretiens, 24.

25.

Reason, 171. Earlier, Ellul “fail[ed] to see how Heidegerrian vocabulary and thought add anything to the perfectly clear explanation which the Bible itself gives us.” Freedom, 295.

26.

On structuralists as outsiders, see Why, especially 20–39.

27.

Pensée, 275–285. Several works including dissertations (and my Revolution of Necessity) treat Ellul and Heidegger, but tend to ignore Ellul’s theology.

28.

Entretiens, 55.

29.

Wagenfuhr, “Revelation and the Sacred Reconsidered,” 6.

30.

Gregory Wagenfuhr, “Postmodernity, the Phenomenal Mistake: Sacred, Myth and Environment,” and George Ritzer, “The Technological Society: Social Theory, McDonaldization and the Prosumer,” in Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21 st Century, Philosophy of Engineering and Technology 13, eds. Mitcham, et al. (London: Springer, 2013); Darrel J. Fasching, “The Sacred, the Secular, and the Holy: The Significance of Jacques Ellul’s Post-Christian Theology for Global Ethics,” The Ellul Forum, no.54 (April 2014): 1–13; Jacob Van Vleet, Dialectical Theology and Jacques Ellul: An Introductory Exposition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).

31.

Wagenfuhr, “Postmodernity, the Phenomenal Mistake,” 230.

32.

Van Vleet, Dialectical Theology and Jacques Ellul, 82.

33.

Ibid, 79, 142, 101–103. Van Vleet anticipates Michael Morelli’s doctoral investigation into Ellul and Virilio at the University of Aberdeen, which to my knowledge constitutes the fullest theological treatment of Virilio to date.

34.

Stanley Hauerwas, “Jacques Ellul, Courage and the Christian Imagination,” The Ellul Forum for the Critique of Technological Civilization, no. 13 (July 1994): 4.

35.

David Lovekin, Technique, Discourse, and Consciousness: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Jacques Ellul (London: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1991), 218. Of interest are also Lovekin’s and Samir Younés’s introductory essays to Empire.

36.

Hauerwas, “Jacques Ellul, Courage and the Christian Imagination,” 4.

37.

Gilbert Vincent, “Ordre Technique, disciplines et assujettissement selon Jacques Ellul et Michel Foucault,” in La technique et le façonnement du monde. Mirages et désenchantement, Directed by Gilbert Vincent (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007), 129–179.

38.

Ibid, 131.

39.

Ibid, 132.

40.

Ibid, 134.

41.

Ibid, 138.

42.

Ibid, 141. While this may have merit, Ellul and others have criticized Foucault’s use of history. I will show Ellul’s critiques below; see also J.G. Merquior, Foucault, Fontana Modern Masters, ed. Frank Kermode (London: Fontana Press, 1985, 1991).

43.

Ibid, 172.

44.

Fasching, “The Sacred, the Secular and the Holy,” 1.

45.

Ibid, 3.

46.

Ibid.

47.

Ibid.

48.

Ibid, 4.

49.

Ibid, 5.

50.

Ibid, 7.

51.

Ibid, 8, citing Humiliation, 230.

52.

Fasching, “The Sacred, the Secular and the Holy,” 8.

53.

Ibid, 13.

54.

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Theory and History of Literature, vol. 10 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 89.

55.

Goddard’s Resisting is the shining exception to this statement, dividing Ellul’s work into stages based on his evolution on various themes and separating his sociological and historical evolution; e.g. Resisting, xix.

56.

Contretemps, 54–55.

57.

Ibid, 70–71. On 70, Ellul notes he has changed more in his theology than his sociology.

58.

Patrick Chastenet, Lire Ellul: Introduction à l’œuvre socio-politique de Jacques Ellul (Talence: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 1992), 151. Cited in Resisting, 90, note 87.

59.

Espérance, 9; modified, Hope, v.

60.

Espérance, 9; modified, Hope, vi.

61.

For another biographical treatment, see Resisting, chapter 1.

62.

This paragraph summarizes portions of my argument in Rollison, Revolution of Necessity.

63.

Vitanza developed this approach in his class on Lyotard, “Hesitating Thought,” at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, June 2013.

64.

See Jean-François Lyotard, Libidinal Economy, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London: Continuum, 2004).

65.

Presence is a hermeneutical key, not the hermeneutical key; on the many ‘keys’ proposed for reading Ellul, see Resisting, 60–62.

66.

Conversations, 22, cited in Resisting, 52. Goddard (Resisting, 31, 52–53) dates the formation of this plan to 1942–43, but notes the possibility of its conception as early as 1936.

67.

Rognon’s focus on dialogue is not far off, nor is Gill’s focus on the Word of God in Ellul’s ethics; both are inextricably linked to presence. (See Pensée, and David Gill, The Word of God in the Ethics of Jacques Ellul (Metuchen, NJ, and London: The American Theological Library Association and The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1984).) Goddard’s treatment in Resisting comes the closest to presence: his treatment of Ellul’s ethics opens with the statement “For Ellul, the Christian life is to be understood primarily as a form of presence in the fallen world. The character of this presence can be summed up in the phrase ‘in this world, not of it.’” (Resisting, 102.) For Goddard, the relationship between God and the world drives Ellul’s thought, with rupture and communion characterizing this relationship. I think he is right; my treatment of presence aims to specify this relationship. Particularly, I show that this relationship can be illuminated by Ellul’s reading of Kierkegaard and Ecclesiastes together, leaving a modified version of Kierkegaard’s search for the “contemporaneity of Christ” as a constitutive element of Ellul’s view of God’s presence in the present time.

A few articles take up presence as a driving theme. Stephanie Bennett rightly emphasizes the important relation between time and space. (Stephanie Bennett, “The Presence of the Kingdom Online: Exploring the Virtual Church in Light of Jacques Ellul’s Techno-Religious Discourse,” paper presented at Jacques Ellul Centenary Conference, Wheaton, IL, July 9, 2012.) Matthieu Gervais rightly notes that for Ellul it is a question of “thinking eternity and acting in the present” (though I clarify what Ellul means by eternity), and above all that Ellul’s commentary on Ecclesiastes treats this theme; I pursue this in greater depth. Less apt is Gervais’s view of Ellul’s time as a “line of time” punctuated with variable events. (Matthieu Gervais, “Penser l’éternité et agir au présent: l’histoire dans le mouvement paysan et dans la pensée de Jacques Ellul,” in Comment peut-on (encore) être Ellulien au XXIème siècle? Actes du colloque du 7, 8, et 9 Juin 2012 (Paris: La Table Ronde, 2014), 424–443.) A recent volume, Jacques Ellul, une théologie au present, takes up the question of presence directly. Proceeding from an October 2014 conference in Geneva, the five authors offer various approaches to presence. In this volume, Christophe Chalamet’s critical engagement with Ellul raises questions of presence seriously and helpfully, though he departs significantly from Ellul by emphasizing eucharistic presence. (Christophe Chalamet, “L’espérance comme provocation et comme invocation,” in Jacques Ellul, une théologie au présent (Le mont sur-Lausanne: Éditions Ouverture, 2016), 53–73.) Daniel Cérézuelle focuses on the element of incarnation, a crucial ingredient of Ellul’s presence. (Daniel Cérézuelle, “De l’éxigence d’incarnation à la critique de la technique,” in Ibid., 74–94.) I develop a notion of presence that goes beyond these treatments, carrying their questions further and including some of them.

68.

T.F. Torrance sees the eucharist-focused conception of presence as a Lutheran adaptation of the “Patristic doctrine of the communication idiomatum” and conceptions of presence derived from Aristotle by Occamist thinkers. Torrance views this conception as creating an ultimately problematic separation of space from time, and sees it at the root of many contemporary theological problems. Cf. Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Incarnation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1969, 1997), esp. 32–40. Indeed, while doing so remains to be developed in a future endeavor, setting my reading of Ellul’s ethical approach to space and time against Torrance’s account might qualify Ellul’s approach as a distinctively Reformed ethics of space time. However, this would be far from a clean integration of the two theological thinkers; Torrance’s emphasis on scientific method and an ontological order of creation would certainly give Ellul pause. This critique is not dissimilar from that expressed in Philip G. Ziegler, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), esp. 114–120.

69.

Cf. Apocalypse, 20.

70.

See Sources.