
Confronting Technology
The Theology of Jacques Ellul
Matthew T. Prior(Author)
Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published on 16. March 2020
262 pages
978-1-5326-7147-0 (ISBN)
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We are living through a digital revolution which already touches every area of life and will continue to shape the future in as yet unforeseen ways. Digital technologies are an ordinary part of daily life, and yet they also present an unprecedented challenge to Christians to articulate a biblical, theological framework to navigate times of rapid change. The work of the French theologian Jacques Ellul is a theological time-bomb primed for times like these.
Accounts of Ellul's career often divide off his sociology and theology, but this book argues that Ellul conceived a single project of bringing technology into confrontation with the Word of God, tackling the phenomenon he named technique, the pursuit of maximal power and efficiency implicit in the technological enterprise, with a profound depth of biblical and ethical insight. Centering himself on the apocalypse or revelation of Jesus Christ in history, Ellul offers a monumental, timely (though far from flawless) contribution to contemporary ethical debates about the uses and abuses of technologies. His work blazes a trail that Christians and all concerned for the future would do well to follow, as we avoid both the naivety of "technological neutrality" and the dread of "technological determinism."
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Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Eugene
United States
ISBN-13
978-1-5326-7147-0 (9781532671470)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
03/2020
Wipf & Stock Publishers
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03/2020
Wipf & Stock Publishers
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Person
Matthew T. Prior is an ordained minister in the Church of England and is Tutor and Lecturer in Ethics at St. Mellitus College, London, UK. He has an academic background in French language and literature and is a member of the International Jacques Ellul Society. This is his first book.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations and Notes on Translation
- Introduction
- Why Do We Need a Theology of Technology?
- Technology and the Cultural Mandate
- Technology and Eschatology
- Who Was Jacques Ellul?
- Technique and Technology
- Hearing the Word in an Age of Technique: Ellul's "Dialectic of Sociology and Theology"
- 1. Not by Sociology Alone
- Theology as the Key to Jacques Ellul?
- Ellul: The Marxist Theologian?
- Ellul, the Biblical Dialectician
- Ellul: The Barthian Sociologist?
- The Bible as the Key: Speaking a Living Word
- A "Faithful Betrayal"
- Ellul: A Twentieth-Century Kierkegaard?
- Internal Dialectics and Revolutionary Texts
- Conclusion
- 2. Rupture
- Erasing Cain
- Cain, the Primordial Technologist?
- Ellul's Theological Hermeneutic: Canon, Myth, and Apocalypse
- Canon
- Myth
- Apocalypse
- Does Ellul Go Too Far?
- The Canonical Cain
- The Mythological Cain
- The Apocalyptic Cain
- From Cain to Christ: Judgment and Desacralization
- Desacralizing Jerusalem
- Jesus: Homeless in the City
- Jesus' Approach to the "Mass Society"
- Incarnation as Desacralization, Adoption, and Substitution
- From Christ to New Jerusalem: Recapitulation and Reconciliation
- Conclusion
- 3. Apocalypse Then
- The Architecture of Revelation
- The Revelation of the Powers and of Divine Non-Power
- Apocalypse When?
- Apocalyse Then: The Destruction of the Powers and Universal Salvation
- What Are the Powers?
- The Incarnations of the Powers
- Ellul, Barth, and Das Nichtige
- The Chaoskampf and the Meontic Tradition
- Revelation 20
- The Unavoidable Questions of Being: A Dialogue with the Tradition
- Can People Be Separated from the Powers?
- Was Creation Good?
- Conclusion
- 4. Apocalypse Now
- Introduction
- The Word and the Idol
- Idolatry: Desacralization and the Old Testament
- Particularity: Desacralization and the New Testament
- Incarnation, Church, Spirit
- Summary: Discipleship before Imitation
- "If You Are the Son of God . . . ?" (Luke 4:3)
- Limits Bring Temptation
- Jesus Overcomes the Spirit of Power by Submission to the Father
- Jesus Desacralizes the Powers by Divine Non-power
- The Power of New Creation Is Unleashed by the Cross and Resurrection
- The Historical Responsibility of Christians: A Dialogue between Ellul and Yoder
- Conclusion
- 5. The Apocalypse of Creation
- Is There a Doctrine of Creation in Ellul?
- God the Creator
- A Relational Creator
- The Creator's Power
- Summary: Ellul the "Irregular" Theologian
- The Creator's Work and the Creator's Rest
- Humanity the Creature
- Created for Relationship
- Created for Dominion within Relationship
- Summary: The Ellulian "Cultural Mandate"
- Created for the Eternal Sabbath
- The Apocalypse of Creation: Creation in Christ
- What Is a Theology of Creation?
- Conclusion
- 6. Hearing the Word
- Discerning the Spirits
- The Spirit of Power and the Ethics of Non-power
- Genesis and the Material World
- The Ethics of Power: Rediscovering the Lost Tabernacle?
- The Spirit of Lies
- The Spirit of Lies and the Ethics of Iconoclasm
- Ellul's Somber Apocalyptic Tableau
- The Ethics of Holiness: Sabbath
- Reuniting Work and Worship: Beyond Ellul
- The Ethics of Hope
- Embodying the Word
- But Does Theology Mislead Sociology?
- Changing Revolution: New Tools, New Rules
- The Word and the Number: Beyond Ellul
- Desacralizing the Sacred Number?
- Attending to the Word in an Age of Technique
- Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Summary of the Argument
- Resources for Ethical Discernment: Desacralizing the Smartphone?
- Areas for Further Exploration
- A More Incarnate Methodology
- A Better Account of Bodies, Worship, and Work
- Mathematical Rationality
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
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