Download or read book Understanding Jacques Ellul written by Jeffrey P Greenman and published by James Clarke & Company. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) was one of the world's last great polymaths and one of the most important Christian thinkers of his time, engaging the world with a simplicity, sincerity, courage, and passion that few have matched. However, Ellul is an often misunderstood thinker. As more than fifty books and over one thousand articles bear his name, embarking on a study of Ellul's thought can be daunting. This book provides an introduction to Ellul's life and work, analysing and assessing his thought across the most important themes of his scholarship. Readers will see that his remarkably broad field of vision, clarity of focus, and boldly prophetic voice make his work worth reading and considering, rereading and discussing.
Download or read book Propaganda written by Jacques Ellul and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This seminal study and critique of propaganda from one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1962. Taking not only a psychological approach, but a sociological approach as well, Ellul’s book outlines the taxonomy for propaganda, and ultimately, it’s destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.
Download or read book Jacques Ellul written by Jacob E. Van Vleet and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-13 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was Professor of the History and Sociology of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux. A sociologist, historian, and Protestant lay theologian, Ellul is primarily known for his writings on technology, propaganda, and Christian anarchism. He influenced a wide array of thinkers including Ivan Illich, William Stringfellow, Thomas Merton, Paul Virilio, and Neil Postman. In this book, Jacob Van Vleet and Jacob Marques Rollison guide readers through Ellul’s most influential theological and sociological writings. By understanding Ellul’s primary works, readers will be able to clearly grasp his social theory and theological ethics, profiting from his deep insight and prophetic wisdom.
Download or read book The Technological Society written by Jacques Ellul and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As insightful and wise today as it was when originally published in 1954, Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society has become a classic in its field, laying the groundwork for all other studies of technology and society that have followed. Ellul offers a penetrating analysis of our technological civilization, showing how technology—which began innocuously enough as a servant of humankind—threatens to overthrow humanity itself in its ongoing creation of an environment that meets its own ends. No conversation about the dangers of technology and its unavoidable effects on society can begin without a careful reading of this book. "A magnificent book . . . He goes through one human activity after another and shows how it has been technicized, rendered efficient, and diminished in the process.”—Harper's “One of the most important books of the second half of the twentieth-century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that technology, which we continue to conceptualize as the servant of man, will overthrow everything that prevents the internal logic of its development, including humanity itself—unless we take necessary steps to move human society out of the environment that 'technique' is creating to meet its own needs.”—The Nation “A description of the way in which technology has become completely autonomous and is in the process of taking over the traditional values of every society without exception, subverting and suppressing these values to produce at last a monolithic world culture in which all non-technological difference and variety are mere appearance.”—Los Angeles Free Press
Download or read book Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century written by Helena M. Jerónimo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-07-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume rethinks the work of Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) on the centenary of his birth, by presenting an overview of the current debates based on Ellul's insights. As one of the most significant twentieth-century thinkers about technology, Ellul was among the first thinkers to realize the importance of topics such as globalization, terrorism, communication technologies and ecology, and study them from a technological perspective. The book is divided into three sections. The first discusses Ellul’s diagnosis of modern society, and addresses the reception of his work on the technological society, the notion of efficiency, the process of symbolization/de-symbolization, and ecology. The second analyzes communicational and cultural problems, as well as threats and trends in early twenty-first century societies. Many of the issues Ellul saw as crucial – such as energy, propaganda, applied life sciences and communication – continue to be so. In fact they have grown exponentially, on a global scale, producing new forms of risk. Essays in the final section examine the duality of reason and revelation. They pursue an understanding of Ellul in terms of the depth of experience and the traditions of human knowledge, which is to say, on the one hand, the experience of the human being as contained in the rationalist, sociological and philosophical traditions. On the other hand there are the transcendent roots of human existence, as well as “revealed knowledge,” in the mystical and religious traditions. The meeting of these two traditions enables us to look at Ellul’s work as a whole, but above all it opens up a space for examining religious life in the technological society.
Download or read book The Subversion of Christianity written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pointing to the many contradictions between the Bible and the practice of the church, Jacques Ellul asserts in this provocative and stimulating book that what we today call Christianity is actually far removed from the revelation of God. Successive generations have reinterpreted Scripture and modeled it after their own cultures, thus moving society further from the truth of the original gospel. The church also perverted the gospel message, for instead of simply doing away with pagan practice and belief, it reconstituted the sacred, set up its own religious forms, and thus resacralized the world. Ellul develops several areas in which this perversion is most obvious, including the church's emphasis on moralism and its teaching in the political sphere. The heart of the problem, he says, is that we have not accepted the fact that Christianity is a scandal; we attempt to make it acceptable and easy--and thus pervert its true message. Ultimately, however, Ellul remains hopeful. For, in spite of all that has been done to subvert the message of God, the Holy Spirit continues to move in the world. Christianity, writes Ellul, never carries the day decisively against Christ.
Download or read book Jacques Ellul on Politics Technology and Christianity written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2005-06-16 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Final Interviews Before Jacques Ellul Died Jacques Ellul on Politics, Technology, and Christianity is the best and most satisfying set of interviews ever carried out with Jacques Ellul and we are most fortunate to have this rich legacy of thought now available to a broader audience. Patrick Chastenet knew Ellul personally as well as intellectually. His questions display a rare balance of respect, boldness and insight that perhaps no one else could have achieved. Chastenet elicits Ellul's thoughts in Ellul's voice and refuses to edit or re-organize the text in any way that would diminish the realism and authenticity of the conversation. Chastenet truly takes the reader into Ellul's salon for a rare and wonderful experience. David W. Gill, President of the International Jacques Ellul Society Patrick Chastenet's interviews are a ""must read"" for anyone interested in Jacques Ellul or in issues pertaining to modern France. This book is full of important insights into an impressive range of issues, from technology and ecology to theology. Professor Joyce Hanks, University of Scranton Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) was Professor of the History of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux, France, from the end of World War II until his retirement in 1980. He is best known for his brilliant, path-finding analysis of our world in The Technological Society (original French edition, 1954) and many other writings, such as The Technological System, The Technological Bluff, and The Political Illusion. Ellul was also a powerful lay voice for a renewed and reformed Christian theology and ethics. Many of his Christian writings, such as Presence of the Kingdom, Living Faith, and Hope in Time of Abandonment continue to challenge and inspire. For more information, visit www.ellul.org, the web site of the International Jacques Ellul Society. Patrick Troude-Chastenet is Professor of Political Science at the University of Poitiers. He studied with Professor Ellul at the Institute for Political Studies, University of Bordeaux, 1974-76. He is author of an introduction to Ellul's thought, Lire Ellul: Introduction a l'oeuvre socio-politique de Jacques Ellul (1992) and editor of two anthologies on Ellul's thought: Sur Jacques Ellul: Un penseur de notre temps (1994) and a forthcoming collection from the international colloquium at Poitiers, October 2004, entitled Jacques Ellul: Libre examen d'une pensee sans frontieres. Chastenet is the founding president of L'Association Internationale Jacques Ellul (www.jacques-ellul.org) and founding editor of the annual Cahiers Jacques Ellul. The interviews in the present volume were conducted over a fourteen-year period, 1981-1994, and were originally published as Entretiens avec Jacques Ellul (1994).
Download or read book Anarchy and Christianity written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacque Ellul blends politics, theology, history, and exposition in this analysis of the relationship between political anarchy and biblical faith. While he clarifies the views of each and how they can be related, his aim is not to proselytize either anarchists into Christianity or Christians into anarchy. On the one hand, suggests Ellul, anarchists need to understand that much of their criticism of Christianity applies only to the form of religion that developed, not to biblical faith. Christians, on the other hand, need to look at the biblical texts and not reject anarchy as a political option, for it seems closest to biblical thinking. After charting the background of his own interest in the subject, Ellul defines what he means by anarchy: the nonviolent repudiation of authority. He goes on to look at the Bible as the source of anarchy (in the sense of nondomination, not disorder), working through Old Testament history, Jesus' ministry, and finally the early church's view of power as reflected in the New Testament writings.
Download or read book The Meaning of the City written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacques Ellul, a former member of a Law Faculty at the University of Bordeaux, was recognized as a brilliant and penetrating commentator on the relationship between theology and sociology. In the Meaning of the City he presents what he finds in the Bible--a sophisticated, coherent theology of the city fully applicable to today's urbanized society. Ellul believes that the city symbolizes the supreme work of man--and, as such, represents man's ultimate rejection of God. Therefore it is the city, where lies man's rebellious heart, that must be reformed. The author stresses the fact that the Bible does not find man's fulfillment in a return to an idyllic Eden, but points rather to a life of communion with the Savior in the city transfigured. The Meaning of the City, says John Wilkinson in his introductory essay to the book, is the theological counterpoint to Ellul's Technological Society, a work that analyzed the phenomenon of the autonomous and totally manipulative post-industrial world. Ellul takes issue with those who idealistically plan new urban environments for man, as though man alone can negate the inherent diabolism of the city. For Ellul, the history of the city from the times of Cain and Nimrod through to Babylon and Jerusalem reveals a tendency to destroy the human being for the sake of human works. Nevertheless, continuing the theme of the tension between two realities that characterizes all his works, Ellul sees God as electing the city as itself an instrument of grace for the believer. William Stringfellow describes The Meaning of the City as a book of startling significance, which should rank beside Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society as a work of truly momentous potential. Douglass D. McFerran adds that it is a book worth serious consideration by anyone interested in the relationship between religious commitment and secular involvement. And John Wilkinson sums it up: There are very few convincingly religious analyses of the sociological phenomena of the present day. . . . Ellul's biblically based sociology is today furnishing the matter for a large and growing group of social protestants, particularly in the United States.
Download or read book The Humiliation of the Word written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Western people no longer hear; everything is grasped by sight. They no longer speak; they show.” -- Jacques Ellul Well-known for his many books on sociology and theology, Jacques Ellul creatively braids these two strands together in this provocative examination of how reality (which is visual) has superseded truth (which is verbal) in modern times. Ellul explores biblical texts for distinguishing visual cultural forms from the communicative (divine and human) Word, then examines how this distinction plays out with the rise of audiovisual media in the 20th-century West. Even in human speech, visual forms dominate contemporary life and devalue the word; this insight informs discussion of the image/word clash in religion, politics, and art. After a scathing critique of present-day idolatry, Ellul places his hope for nonviolent community in the fragile spoken word. Ultimately, Ellul sees the Bible as presenting a hopeful vision of reconciliation—between visual reality and spoken truth. A new afterword by Jacob Marques Rollison contextualizes Ellul’s stance within French postmodern thought, illuminating Humiliation of the Word as an outspokenly “Protestant communication ethic” in contemporary philosophical and theological discussions of language.
Download or read book A New Reading of Jacques Ellul written by Jacob Marques Rollison and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Politics of God and the Politics of Man written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Man's freedom--God's omnipotence: how can they be reconciled? That question is central to this penetrating study of political action and the prophetic function. Ellul's answer to that question, though based on events recorded in the Second Book of Kings, is immediately relevant to contemporary issues and to the church today. Emerging from these reflections is an eloquent testimony to the immense love of God--"which not only creates and saves, but which also in its incomprehensible humility wants to associate man with its work."
Download or read book Apocalypse written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There has never been a book provoking more delirium, foolishness and irrational movements, without any relationship to Jesus Christ [than the Book of Revelation].” —Jacques Ellul, Introduction Known for his trenchant critique of modernity and of those Christians who celebrate their captivity to it, Ellul here cuts to the heart of the theological intention of the Book of Revelation, and thereby reveals the liberating gospel in all its offensiveness. Neither an exhaustive commentary nor a work of historical-exegetical analysis, Apocalypse is a provocative, independent interpretation. Ellul seeks to rescue Revelation from the reassuring and orthodox banality to which commentators often reduce it. The goal is to perceive the totality of the book in its movement and structure. “Architecture in movement” is the key to understanding Revelation’s puzzling but simple message. This edition also comes with a new foreword by Jacob Marques Rollison who provides an essential aid for guiding readers through Ellul’s thorough engagement with Revelation.
Download or read book The Technological System written by Jacques Ellul and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-06-11 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 20 years after writing The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul realized how the totalistic dimensions of our modern technological milieu required an additional treatment of the topic. Writing amidst the rise of books in the 1970s on pollution, over-population, and environmental degradation, Ellul found it necessary, once again, to write about the global presence of technology and its far-reaching effects. The Technological System represents a new stage in Ellul’s research. Previously he studied technological society as such; in this book he approaches the topic from a systems perspective wherein he identifies the characteristics of technological phenomena and technological progress in light of system theory. This leads to an entirely new approach to what constitutes the most important event of our society which has decisive bearing on the future of our world. Ellul’s analysis touches on all aspects of modern life, not just those of a scientific or technological order. In the end, readers are compelled to formulate their own opinions and make their own decisions regarding the way a technique-based value system affects every level of human life.
Download or read book The Ethics of Freedom written by George Paxton Young and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Perspectives on Our Age written by Jacques Ellul and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas as a series of interviews, Jacques Ellul's first-person approach here makes his ideas accessible to readers looking for new ways of understanding our society, and also gives unique new insight into Ellul's life, his work, and the origins and development of his beliefs and theories. Jacques Ellul, historian, theologian, and sociologist, was one of the foremost and widely known contemporary critics of modern technological society.
Download or read book Being and Oil written by Chad A. Haag and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first ever book-length manifesto of Peak Oil Philosophy, Chad Haag argues that the transition to Fossil Fuel Modernity replaced the herds of megafauna of the Hunter Gatherer Worldview and the cyclically-harvested grain of the Agrarian Worldview with a single immensely powerful but quickly vanishing substance: oil. Everything we do is a euphemism for burning vast amounts of fossil fuels. Haag provides an original hierarchy of transcendental standards of meaning to reveal the extent to which our mythologies, systems, counter sense objects, and deep memes are just so many incomplete revelations of our Phenomenological awareness of petroleum. But as the globe already hit Peak Oil in 2005 and has been on the downward slope of depletion ever since, these higher order meanings have begun to collapse into falsity. Oil's peculiar role in sustaining systems of meaning precisely through imposing a hard physical limit to existence therefore requires a novel Ontology of Limitation. Haag reawakens the Heideggerian quest for Being by suggesting that even the subject itself must be understood as a limitation sustained through the limitation of, in our era, fossil fuels. Haag introduces a new table of 15 modes of truth to explicate how Peak Oil defies a simple binary of truth and falsity, given that even truth under Fossil Fuels is just a euphemism for oil's presence. Combining the Peak Oil insights of John Michael Greer and the anti-technological theories of Ted Kaczynski with the philosophical rigor of Heidegger, Aristotle, Zizek, Plato, Husserl, Descartes, and Jordan Peterson, Haag crafts a truly unique response to the challenge of joining Peak Oil and Philosophy.
