"The Lord knows our human thoughts; how like a puff of wind they are." (Psalm 94:11)
Ellul wrote Presence in the Modern World during the very tumultous post-War period of the 1940s — a revolutionary era, as he noted in Chapter 2. He himself served in the French Resistance and had first-hand experience with the conflicting ideologies of fascism, communism, and capitalism. Despite the ongoing and protracted struggle between viewpoints (within … Read more
I grew up in the 1980s being told that the world was going to end at any moment because Jesus was coming back and he was pissed. They gathered us kids together in the church hall and showed us movies made in the prior decade about people who were too stoned or otherwise evil to … Read more
I believe I’ve mentioned Alan Jacobs’ book The Year Of Our Lord 1943 before. I think that book may be where I first heard of Jacques Ellul, even though it’s more about Auden, Weil, Eliot, Lewis and Maritain. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Jacobs in The Point magazine with interesting background on Ellul … Read more
Let’s see if I can wrap up my notes on Chapter 1 of Jacques Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. In the last post, we discussed the redemption of time, and how it depends solely on Christian “behavior and preaching.” Ellul concludes the chapter by noting that, if Christians are going to participate in the … Read more
A friend of mine who has been following along with my blog posts about Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World asked if, based on the discussion of actions in this post, Ellul was dismissive of “the way words are also actions?” Here we come to the answer, which is no, he isn’t dismissive; in fact, … Read more
Let’s continue on with Chapter 1 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World, shall we? Blog post #5, and I haven’t even finished page 12 yet! Earlier, commenter Mike mentioned salt’s use for preservation in the ancient Near East, which was a bit of a foretaste of the next section. As we’ve seen, Ellul believes … Read more
Let’s keep going with Chapter 1 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World, because by God, I want to finish it. In the last post – well, let’s see if I can summarize Ellul thus far (and please correct me where I’m wrong): Whew, ok. Does this mean that a Christian can do, willy-nilly, whatever … Read more
Returning to Chapter 1 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. (Remember, I’m taking these notes as I go, section by section, so I reserve the right to realize later that I’m making incorrect assumptions and assertions! In other words, maybe I’m getting it wrong; feel free to tell me so.) In my last post, … Read more
Continuing with my (extremely slow) reading of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. There’s still a lot of Chapter 1 left, so if I don’t step up the pace, this book may take the better part of my remaining life to finish. And it’s not even a very long book! In the last post, I … Read more
Maybe the real AI was the stupid things we made along the way. Richard Beck on the subversive nature of the Bible: It “denies the ultimacy” of any political system (we are not citizens of this world), the prophetic tradition opposes oppression and injustice, and the themes throughout the scripture are about emancipation, liberation. Beck … Read more