"The Lord knows our human thoughts; how like a puff of wind they are." (Psalm 94:11)
kwh Continuing my read-through of Ellul’s Presence, we are still in Chapter 3. As we have seen, Ellul believes that Christians are engaged in a spiritual struggle against the supremacy of “means,” which have eliminated any common “ends” except for imaginary ones created only to justify each new set of means. But Ellul refuses to recommend … Read more
It’s the end of a year and a new one beckons, another way in which we humans try to control things by measuring them. I am as guilty of this sort of thing as any, and probably more than most – how much time have I wasted over the last few years meticulously noting down … Read more
I admire people like Joel Miller who are able to plan out their reading, which seems infinitely preferable to my habit of perusing my to-be-read shelves (now numerous, spanning multiple rooms) waiting for a certain inspired curiosity to fall on my head like, well, a book from a high shelf. But I doubt I will … Read more
Continuing in chapter 3 of Presence in the Modern World, Ellul dwells a bit more on the meaning of means, which is “that they are totalitarian. Our civilization is entirely one of means, and means affect every domain. They respect nothing.” There are two angles from which to consider the totalitarianism of means. First, means … Read more
So Advent begins, the season in which we recognize the state in which we all live, all of the time — this in-betweenness. Lately I’ve been thinking not about Christ’s birth, or even his return (whatever that may mean), but about his death and resurrection. I’m part of a group Advent reading of Auden’s For … Read more
There was a time when society might grapple honestly with whether or not particular means were appropriate to a desired end. But ends have vanished into abstraction and are no longer necessary to justify means, which justify themselves in the answer to a simple question: Do they work? “In reality, what justifies the means today … Read more
As we begin at long last Chapter 3 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World, we come to his first exploration on technique, that for which he became best known and which he later explored in multiple books, most famously The Technological Society. When one thinks of “means and ends,” the questions that come to … Read more
Having declared that “everyday facts” should be approached through the lens of a specifically Christian realism, rather than any nonexistent “Christian principles,” Ellul concludes chapter two by pointing out that this realism must also extend to more than just those “facts.” Christians, as Ellul said earlier, are always in a state of permanent revolution against … Read more
In the last section, Ellul called out the fact that Christians know “how the story ends” – with the Kingdom of God. But they are still called to live fully in the world’s present reality, pointing their fellow human beings toward Christ, rather than to withdraw and wait for the end. So Christians must live … Read more
Imagine you suddenly found yourself transported into the world of your favorite book or film, a new character in the midst of a story whose ending you knew very well. You would be surrounded by characters for whom that ending may not even be conceivable. Accepted by those characters as one of their own, with … Read more