"The Lord knows our human thoughts; how like a puff of wind they are." (Psalm 94:11)
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
Resuming my read-through of Jacques Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. I got sidetracked for a while with life, vacation, other writings and readings. There is still quite a bit of Chapter 1 to muddle through. In my last post, I mentioned Ellul’s contention that the world is now so interconnected that all of us … Read more
Continuing my read-through of Chapter 1 of Jacques Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. There’s a lot here. Ellul (perhaps because he was a layperson) is most concerned with the plight of the laity in the modern world, because unlike the clergy, there is no separation between a layperson and the rest of society. “Claiming … Read more
Started reading Jacques Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World a while back and set it aside because I had to read some Kierkegaard for a couple of Catherine Project groups, and I can only take so much. After those months of strenuous mental exercise, I’m returning to the Ellul and it feels a tiny bit … Read more