
A New Reading of Jacques Ellul
Presence and Communication in the Postmodern World
Jacob Marques Rollison(Author)
Lexington Books (Publisher)
Published on 10. September 2020
Book
Hardback
316 pages
978-1-7936-0434-7 (ISBN)
Description
This book presents an original and dynamic reading of the twentieth-century French sociologist and theological ethicist Jacques Ellul. Adopting Ellul's use of 'presence' as a hermeneutical key to understanding his work, it examines the origins of Ellul's approach to presence in his readings of Kierkegaard and the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, highlights the central structural role of presence in Ellul's theological ethics, and elucidates a crucial turning point in Ellul's theology following a personal crisis in Ellul's faith and life. Drawing from numerous unpublished and untranslated texts, Jacob Marques Rollison argues that this crisis involves confrontation with a critique of presence manifest in Ellul's reading of and engagement with Michel Foucault. Marques Rollison distills Ellul's sociological critiques and theological responses to this crisis, presenting Ellul's evolving theology against the background of major shifts in French intellectual life. In doing so, the author simultaneously calls for renewed engagement with Ellul's prophetic thought, critically appraises Ellul's dialectical theology and Marxist inheritances, and develops a robustly Protestant approach to theological communication ethics for our time.
Reviews / Votes
Jacob Rollison has woven together numerous strands in the study of Ellul's writings, presenting a fresh, welcomed challenge to postmodernist trends that devalue the role of language in today's world. Anyone interested in a theologically-informed 'ethics of communication' will profit greatly from this engaging book. -- Ted Lewis, Executive Director for the International Jacques Ellul Society This book represents the arrival of a new generation of serious scholarship on the intellectual legacy of Jacques Ellul and his renewed significance to the pursuit of theologically responsible understandings of our current social and cultural situation in the West. Working on the basis of sustained research into the archive of Ellul's writings, Rollison offers an account of Ellul's thinking centred on the concept of presence that is ambitious to confront the heuristic and dialogical challenges of our time. Alert to Ellul's influences, formative engagements and development, Rollison offers a new understanding of Ellul's intellectual project as a whole and suggests something of its real continuing import to contemporary theology and ethics. -- Philip G. Ziegler, University of Aberdeen Jacob Rollison offers us an excitingly new Ellul for an information age, or better, reads the old Ellul comprehensively and with breathtakingly new insight. Rollison traces previously unnoticed shifts in Ellul's thought and indexes them with newly-unearthed biographical details as well as linking his thought for the first time to the main philosophical currents of Ellul's contemporary France. Announcing Christ's presence to modern humanity, Ellul resources contemporary Christians desirous of being genuinely present to a world increasingly talking past one another. -- Brian Brock, University of Aberdeen Twenty five years after his death, Jacques Ellul is more alive than never with this fascinating book. He shows which would be the actual presence of the Christians in the postmodern world. Very stimulating! -- Frederic Rognon, University of Strasbourg Jacob Marques Rollison's A New Reading of Jacques Ellul is an innovative and bold attempt to introduce a new way of thinking about Jacques Ellul's entire body of work. A member of the board of directors of the International Jacques Ellul Society, with a PhD in theological ethics from the University of Aberdeen, he is well suited to the task of reinvigorating the study of Ellul for today's students...Readers might ?nd this to be a bit ambitious for a single-volume work, but I am happy to report that Rollison has succeeded admirably in each of his stated objectives.... I highly recommend this book's 'presence' on your bookshelf. * Studies in Christian Ethics *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
4 tables;
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
666 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-7936-0434-7 (9781793604347)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jacob Marques Rollison
A New Reading of Jacques Ellul
Presence and Communication in the Postmodern World
E-Book
09/2020
1st Edition
Lexington Books
€124.99
Available for download

Jacob Marques Rollison
A New Reading of Jacques Ellul
Presence and Communication in the Postmodern World
E-Book
09/2020
1st Edition
Lexington Books
€124.99
Available for download
Person
Jacob Marques Rollison is on the board of directors of the International Jacques Ellul Society.
Content
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Questions in Dialogue
Part I: Architecture
Chapter 1: Reason for Being: Ellul's Existential Epistemology of the Present
Chapter 2: Community in the Present: Marx, Institutions, and Language
Part II: Movement
Chapter 3: The Dialogue of Sign and Presence: Presence and Signification in Ellul's Theological Ethics
Chapter 4: Crises in Communication
Chapter 5: A Hopeful, Spoken Incognito: Presence in the Postmodern World
Conclusion: The Mystery of the Word
Appendix 1: Interpretive Summary of Ellul's Article "The Dialogue of Sign and Presence" (1936?)
Appendix 2: Ellul's Honorary Doctorate from the University of Aberdeen
Bibliography
About the Author
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Questions in Dialogue
Part I: Architecture
Chapter 1: Reason for Being: Ellul's Existential Epistemology of the Present
Chapter 2: Community in the Present: Marx, Institutions, and Language
Part II: Movement
Chapter 3: The Dialogue of Sign and Presence: Presence and Signification in Ellul's Theological Ethics
Chapter 4: Crises in Communication
Chapter 5: A Hopeful, Spoken Incognito: Presence in the Postmodern World
Conclusion: The Mystery of the Word
Appendix 1: Interpretive Summary of Ellul's Article "The Dialogue of Sign and Presence" (1936?)
Appendix 2: Ellul's Honorary Doctorate from the University of Aberdeen
Bibliography
About the Author