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The Subversion of Christianity

von Jacques Ellul

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274997,862 (4.46)8
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.… (mehr)
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We read this book in our reading club several years ago. Ellul was a French philosopher who argues that in the 4th century the alliance of Christianity with the power of the state under Constantine essentially changed the very nature of Christianity and encouraged the development of authoritarian thinking as the church now had the power of the state to enforce orthodoxy. ( )
  ecw0647 | Sep 30, 2013 |
Ellul’s Subversion is a compelling and challenging read. It’s challenging because Ellul was a French Christian-anarchist with a thorough grasp of church history. He often addresses situations and theological issues that are opaque to the modern Western reader. It’s compelling due to his penetrating mind and strong opinions. Perhaps compelling is to weak a word. This book is an important challenge to modern Christendom.

The problem with Christianity is that Jesus’ message has been co-opted and twisted by various forces throughout history. The chief ways Jesus’ message has been twisted are:

1. Sacralization:Jesus’ message was essentially a desacralization of the world. No longer do we worship what we do not know—God was made flesh and lived with us. Humans, however, feel a deep need for the sacred, and history can be viewed as a pendulum swinging between eras of sacralization (i.e. the relic trade) and desacralization (i.e. the Protestant Reformation).
2. Moralism: Jesus’ message was radically free. For Ellul, that freedom cannot exist in community(!) Either it blows apart, or rules and morality enters.
3. Islam: This force has been largely ignored. The idea of holy war (a drastic perversion of Jesus’ message) influenced Christianity via Islam. Ellul also (dis)credits Islam with the origin of the slave trade which Christianity, to its shame, imitated.
4. Politics: When Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, he declined—the church has accepted with glee. This has always led to a perversion of the gospel.
5. Nihilism: Ellul credits Christianity’s understanding of absolute transcendence, desacralization, and sin as the root of modern nihilism. I have to admit that this chapter was somewhat obtuse to me.
6. Dominions and Powers: Behind all the worldly forces there is a spiritual power which (always aligning with humanity) twists Jesus’ message.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit is still at work and that God’s Church will never be defeated, even if it appears to be in exile with a slim remnant remaining. There will always be renewal and genuine Jesus-following life from the fringe. ( )
1 abstimmen StephenBarkley | May 29, 2011 |
Published in French in 1984 and translated soon thereafter into English. I read the English version.

While this book covers some of the same ground as The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World by Samuel Angus (also read and reviewed this year), it takes a more philosophical rather than historical approach, and while exceedingly interesting, it was less useful for my purposes than the Angus book. And it does not lend itself to a couple of glib paragraphs in summary. From my point of view it defies summarization, but I'll try to comment anyway.

The point made by both authors is that almost from the moment of Jesus' death, the so-called subversion began, in large part, because the followers of Jesus were focused on the end of times, and Jesus had not provided them with a cosmological world view. Consequently, once the Christian followers were faced with the need to organize and deal with the world as it was then constituted, along with the setting down of beliefs and principles of organization, it was inevitable that the form if not the substance of existing pagan institutions would present themselves as models for a fledgling organization to follow. Thus, sacramental practices, for example, were enlarged upon from what was set out in the four Gospels, a priesthood was established, and forms of worship, etc., were not terribly unlike contemporary pagan practices.

Let me just say that Ellul's book is about exactly what its title suggests, and so I can recommend it if it dovetails with your interests. The Ellul book is somewhat less interesting to me than the Angus volume because my preoccupation is more historical than philosophical, and with how pagan ideas, myths, customs, organizations, etc., survived and continued their influence in the West despite the coopting of Christianity by the Constantinian state. ( )
  Poquette | Feb 25, 2011 |
Ellul asserts that "our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means ...
the means, it would seem, are more important than the end."
The means or practices of any activity are nothing more than steps
taken to achieve a desired goal.

Importantly, focusing on the means of an activity requires an examination
of the efficiency of the means. Ellul claims that "technique is the totality
of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency" and that
techniques are designed to "search for the greatest efficiency." ( )
1 abstimmen silverp42 | Feb 4, 2010 |
That what is deemed Christianity today is, in fact, a rejection of the revelation of Jesus Christ is unarguable, and Ellul does well in describing exactly how distant what Kierkegaard called "Christendom" is from its origins. I am especially impressed by his point that the contradictions to be found in the Bible that critics are so quick to identify and condemn are the essence of revelation. But I'll let Ellul make his own point: "We have to realize that everything in the Bible is contradictory. Yet there is revelation only as the contradictions are held together. God the Wholly Other is incarnate in a man. He is still the Wholly Other. And we have to understand -- I repeat this because it is essential -- that the truth is made up of the actual contradictions. Each aspect of the truth is true only because it is linked to its radical opposite." Regrettably, Ellul, himself, tends to lose sight of this when he spends considerable time analyzing gender discrimination and, especially embarrassing at this moment in time, attacking Islam. Regardless, I love reading Ellul. He barges forward like the white rabbit, in a hurry to get to his points and impatient of any restraint, even self restraint. ( )
1 abstimmen jburlinson | Mar 29, 2009 |
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"Toute la chrétienté (c'est-à-dire le christianisme historique tel qu'il s'est imposé) n'est autre chose que l'effort du genre humain pour retomber sur ses quatre pattes, pour se débarrasser du christianisme, en prétendant que c'est son accomplissement."

"Notre christianisme, celui de la chrétienté, supprime du christianisme le scandale, le paradoxe, la souffrance et y substitue le probable, le direct, le bonheur, autrement dit, il dénature le christianisme et en fait autre chose que ce qu'il est dans le Nouveau Testament; il le transforme même exactement en son contraire: et tel est le christianisme de la chrétienté. Le nôtre."

"Dans le christianisme de la chrétienté, la croix est devenue quelque chose comme le cheval mécanique ou la trompette d'un enfant."

Kierkegaard, l'Instant.
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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.

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