Pointing to the many contradictions between the Bible and the practice of the church, Jacques Ellul asserts 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.
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.
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.
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the intersection between Christianity and politics, such as Anarchy and Christianity (1991)--arguing that anarchism and Christianity are socially following the same goal.
A philosopher who approached technology from a deterministic viewpoint, Ellul, professor at the University of Bordeaux, authored 58 books and more than a thousand articles over his lifetime, the dominant theme of which has been the threat to human freedom and Christian faith created by modern technology. His constant concern has been the emergence of a "technological tyranny" over humanity. As a philosopher and lay theologian, he further explored the religiosity of the technological society.
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