Confronting Technology
The Theology of Jacques Ellul
Matthew T. Prior
Confronting Technology
The Theology of Jacques Ellul
Princeton Theological Monograph Series 243
Copyright © 2020 Matthew T. Prior. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Pickwick Publications
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-7145-6
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-7146-3
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-7147-0
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Prior, Matthew T., author.
Title: Confronting technology : the theology of Jacques Ellul / by Matthew T. Prior.
Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications, 2020 | Princeton Theological Monograph Series 243 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-7145-6 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-7146-3 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-7147-0 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ellul Jacques—1912–1994. | Technology and civilization. | Technology—Social aspects.
Classification: BR115.T42 P75 2020 (print) | BR115.T42 P75 (ebook)
Manufactured in the U.S.A.03/10/20
Table of Contents
• Abbreviations and Notes on Translation
• Why Do We Need a Theology of Technology?
• Technology and the Cultural Mandate
• Hearing the Word in an Age of Technique: Ellul’s “Dialectic of Sociology and Theology”
• 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
• Ellul: A Twentieth-Century Kierkegaard?
• Internal Dialectics and Revolutionary Texts
• Erasing Cain Cain, the Primordial Technologist?
• Ellul’s Theological Hermeneutic: Canon, Myth, and Apocalypse
• Canon
• Myth
• From Cain to Christ: Judgment and Desacralization
• Jesus’ Approach to the “Mass Society”
• Incarnation as Desacralization, Adoption, and Substitution
• From Christ to New Jerusalem: Recapitulation and Reconciliation
• The Architecture of Revelation The Revelation of the Powers and of Divine Non-Power
• Apocalyse Then: The Destruction of the Powers and Universal Salvation
• The Incarnations of the Powers
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About Confronting Technology: The Theology of Jacques EllulWe 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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