Within the context of the contemporary historical epoch, marked by the postmodern difference (or différance, a la Derrida) to a pluralistic conception of epistemological systems, the concepts of Christian theology and its external, or material signifier, missiological praxis, have become problematic. A number of texts[2] have been authored which either condemn Christian theo-missiology[3] as a mistaken project to be left on the heap with the other tragedies of the “European” age, or at least question the central tenants of the Western model of theo-missiological understanding. There is merit and validity in both of these methods of critique, as it would be difficult to do anything but affirm a number of the criticisms that historians and critical scholars have developed in order to indict and/or correct Amero-European theo-missiology. The history of the Western missionary movement is not without blemish. It is marred by the presence of coercion, violence, bigotry, sexism, and, most importantly (for the sake of the current project), imperialist ideology. Consequently, the theological discourse that provided the impetus for the aforementioned opprobrious exploits must also be subjected to interrogative, discursive activity and, if necessary, indicted as compromised. Of course it is important to recognize the fact that many of the individuals[4] involved in the Occidental theo-missiological project were possessed of a genuine belief in the merit of their task, and authentically embraced the message and methods of Christ when they engaged in the “great commission.” The query of import, however, is to what extent the Western missionary movement has been compromised by the presence and prowess of imperial ideology. To put the matter in clarified terms, one must ask whether the ideological engine/impetus of the Christian missionary objective was inherently compromised by the concept of “Christendom” and is in need of total renewal, or whether there is a “core” which is worth preserving, a proverbial “baby” that should not be expelled with the contaminated bath water. For the sake, of this project the contention is that one may answer the above question positively; id est there is a fundamental essence, or a lucent fragile core present within the praxis and conceptual-structural nexus of Occidental theology and missiology.
In order to properly dissect a thesis of such scope it is important to discuss at least a provisional method of inquiry. For the sake of clarity and, due to considerations of time and breadth, it appears to be most efficacious to separate the current work into five separate (though not entirely distinct) sections. Due to the fact that the actual nature of the theo-missiological crisis remains opaque, it is necessary to begin the current project with an analysis of the problem as presented by some of the prominent, critical voices. Therefore, the primary foci of the initial portion of the essay at hand will be the indictments brought against modern Western theo-missiology and the historical/philosophical evidence to support those indictments. This section will itself be divided into two portions. One will focus primarily on the phenomenological aspects of theo-missiological compromise: physical violence, coercion, imperial domination. The second section will explore the “epistemological” crisis facing theology and missionary practice.
Apropos the second and third sections the title of the present text should reveal, at least implicitly, the philosophical and theoretical corpus to be employed in order to engage the aforementioned hypothesis or question of import, as well as the discursive activity dealt with in the first section. The philosopher, psychoanalyst and social theorist, Slavoj Žižek has been awarded pride of place within the context of this exposition because in recent decades he has provided useful analyses and criticisms of the post-modern/post-structuralist rejection and recrimination of Modernity and similar systematic approaches to epistemology (Christian theology) in general and the post-modern/post-structuralist critique of the Cartesian cogito in particular.[5] Žižek has also devoted a significant portion of his academic labor to the concepts and themes of Christian theology and religious praxis, arguing (at times inducing mortification, vexation and embarrassment on the part of his post-structural, post-modern and post-humanist contemporaries) that there is a central ideological core within Christianity that is indispensable apropos the projects of the Radical Left, as well as for Occidental culture in its entirety.[6] In both respects Žižek has done much to call for a fundamental reworking of the post-modern method of inquiry in a vein similar to Heidegger’s challenge and “deconstruction” of phenomenology, Western ontology and philosophical method in general.[7] Consequently, there is much to be gained by seriously considering the work and philosophical contributions of Slavoj Žižek in juxtaposition with the contemporary theo-missiological crisis.
A cursory review of the development of theological themes and concepts within Žižek’s politics and philosophy will comprise the second section of the current essay. Within the context of this section it will be argued that this philosopher’s “materialist Christian theology” does not represent a mature and unified theological framework that is present within each of his “theological/religious” works. On the contrary, Žižek’s theological perspective developed in stages and, it can be shown, moved from a deontological to a grace-driven perspective. To put is more succinctly, his materialist Christianity moved from a perspective closely resembling Catholic social teaching, or the ethical emphasis of liberation theology, to a much more Protestant position.[8] It is important to follow this engagement with Christian theology throughout its various stages, since this dialectical tension is the only way to clearly understand what he ultimately appraises as the central and, for Žižek, revolutionary core of Christian theo-political ideology. This will prove to be of great utility for those interested in answering the various indictments brought the western theo-missiological project by, among others, post-modernists, post-colonialists, radical feminists, and post-humanists. Essentially, an understanding of Slavoj Žižek’s philo-political interest in Christianity will enable one to determine with greater efficacy what of Christianity can and should be salvaged, and what has been compromised.
Finally, some remarks will be provided in the interest of developing a fuller understanding of the consequences of Žižek’s conclusions. Some critical observations will also be provided in order to help more orthodox/traditional theological scholars wrest some of the more useful, or substantive material present within Žižek’s “materialist Christianity.”
II. (a) The Lostness of the Cause: The Opprobrium of Occidental, Christian Theo-missiological Historicity
The current climacteric period of Theo-missiological engagement must be understood in two different, though consociated philo-epistemological manners. First, one must examine the visceral violence, exploitation and oppression that accompanied the Occidental church’s relationship of chaplaincy to the apparatus of state power.[9] Though this history of abuse is well known, often the knowledge affirmed is characterized by mere/superficial acknowledgement and gloss. In other words, the awareness of the malevolent component of the historicity of the Amero-European Christian community is sometimes acknowledgement for the sake of apologetic management and/or ecumenical discussion, and is more akin to fetishistic disavowal, or a sort of “reverse apophasis,” which registers within human consciousness but only in trace/skeletal form. For this reason it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the aforementioned profligate narrative of institutional Christian history.[10]
While it is difficult to determine the exact point of imperial compromise, it is generally accepted within biblical scholastic circles that imperial ambition proved to be a contagion to which certain elements of the Christian community appeared to be readily susceptible. Missiologist and missionary David Andrews espouses this view in his text Christi-anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion:
Christianity may have begun as a voluntary, non-violent movement committed to authentic human growth and change. But it wasn’t long before it became a fierce reactionary force which fervently circumscribed personal choice, and ferociously suppressed political dissent…It was during the reign of Emperor Constantine that Christianity in the Roman empire started to align itself with the established order. Constantine saw the religion as a means of uniting a fragmented empire, and the church saw the state as a means of securing a favored position for its religion…In return for encouraging the people to obey the authorities, pay taxes, and serve in the army, the clergy were exempt from being tried by secular courts, paying customary taxes, and serving in the regular army themselves. And, in return for the sign of the cross, and assurance that “in this sign thou shalt conquer,” in AD325, at the first Council of Nicea, Emperor Constantine assured unanimous acceptance of the Nicene creed as the standard of orthodoxy by threatening to banish any bishop who disagreed.[11] (Emphasis added)
Though the manner of church-empire/state collusion may not have followed the exact path plotted out in Andrews historical description,[12] there is enough historically documented dubious behavior on the part of the community that coalesced/congealed into the organized church to lend creedance to Andrews’ claims. This is attested to by the existence of similar scholastic commentary. The apparent Christian declension described above, along with a supposed early repression of competing Christian sects was the initial impetus, or engine behind the Gnosticism of biblical scholar Elaine Pagels.[13]
Joerg Rieger, a theologian and professor of systematic theology, has also provided a similar account of the ideological structures of the Christian faith community and the extent to which they were influenced by Empire:
From the very beginning, our images of Jesus Christ have developed in the context of empire. Jesus was born under the rule of the Roman Emperor Augustus, lived under the auspices of the Roman Empire, and was executed by a common means of punishment for political rebels in unruly provinces: the cross. Empire in one form or another has been the context in which some of the most important later images of Christ developed: the notion of Jesus’ lordship gained prominence at a time when the Roman emperors would claim to be the only lords; the idea of Jesus’ equality with God and with humanity developed at a time when the Roman emperors had become Christians and drew their authority from the Christian God; Christ’s role as God-human in salvation was clarified during the early years of the Norman conquest of England; the way of Jesus was further explicated in the midst of the Spanish conquest of the New World; Jesus’ roles as prophet, priest and king were picked up during the heydays of Northern European colonialism; Christ victorious was proclaimed in neocolonialist circumstances; and even the cosmic Christ is tied to another empire.[14]
In the passage cited above Rieger makes it clear that, at least with respect to the theo-philosophical position of the varying Anglo-European creeds, the nexus of imperial political ideas has left an indelible impression. In fact, when one reflects on the ideas posited by Rieger in this portion of his text it appears very difficult to disentangle the theological from the imperial codex.
Although imperial political encroachment is certainly a matter of grave concern, the historical deportment of the western Christian community is of greater importance. Engagement with imperial or state power in a purely theoretical manner, while at times illicit and/or spurious, is not an indication of theo-missiological compromise and is, arguably, unavoidable to a certain extent. Collusion of this sort, however can often distort theological and missiological praxis. Violence, intolerance, misogyny, terror, or providing the philosophical and theological catalyst for such acts is a sign of accommodation, concession, or even covenant with the state’s hegemonic circuit of power and authority. Indeed, many critical theologians, scholars and philosophers purport that it is an augury that creedal authority and Church auspices are a veil for imperial or state will-to-power.
Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner explicate the philosophical topology of this particular stance in their book Christian Jihad. Within this unique tome these two theologians attempt to give an account of the Crusades from a Muslim, as well as a scholastic historical perspective. These two theologians indicate that the book’s main project is to “turn the spotlight of criticism of jihad onto Christian history,” because “Christianity has been guilty of its own form of jihad as well.”[15] Throughout the course of this book, the Caners demonstrate how large portions of the Christian milieu made the transition from the position of pacific martyrdom in the face of a hostile empire to the posture of amalgamation with respect to imperial power which culminated in “Christendom.” Ergun and Emir argue that the antecedent of theological compromise can be found at the point of Christian integration into the complex infrastructure of empire. In the chapter entitled “The Unholy Marriage: When the Church Became a Mistress,” the Caners state that during the period of time bracketed by the fall of the Roman Empire (AD 476) and the first Crusade (AD 1095) the Christian community inserted “itself incrementally into the fabric of geopolitical intrigue.”[16] The Caners then argue (albeit in a rather strident or raucous tone) that the genesis of Christian violence, misogyny and oppression resides in the relationship of collusion between the body of believers and the body politic:
The importance of these events cannot be underestimated. Quite simply, before Pope Urban II could have the ability and capacity to unite a Christian army under his leadership, the Church had to enter into an unequal yoke of marriage with the state. This frightening union saw the development of a central premise that guides the study of Church history: Whenever the church and the state enter into a relationship, inevitably the church ends up becoming the state’s whore. She is used for the political expedience of the state, and when she is no longer useful, she is tossed aside as an unwanted mistress. It is an unholy relationship, and the state is an abusive spouse.[17] (Emphasis present in original text)
The above passage from the Caners text, as well as the quote extracted from the book by Joerg Rieger both indicate that the violence which has characterized the historical narrative of the institutional Church is not limited to the ancient period of politico-ecclesial formation. When one examines later eras and movements within annals of the Occidental church’s saga the verity of these authors’ positions is at least partially apparent. While the Anabaptist position of the Caners might be an extreme theological posture to maintain, it would be difficult to claim that the effect produced by the interaction of the imperial and spiritual dominions was entirely positive or neutral.
Following a similar pattern of iterative discourse, an essay written by Pablo Richard entitled “1492: The Violence of God and the Future of Christianity” examines the presence of theo-missiological violence at the advent of modernity and the exploration of the American continents. Richard points out that along with the Spanish, Portuguese and Northwestern European conquest, “[i]n 1492 death came to this continent: the deaths of human beings, the death of the environment, death of the spirit, of indigenous religion and culture.”[18] Richard extends his discursive line, postulating that theology was the engine that drove the violence and European expansionist adventurism which followed the discovery of the “New World .” Indeed, he even appears to assert that the implicit “theological charter” of colonial expansion was a necessary component, determining and expanding the scope of the violence possible apropos European colonial engagement:
The genocide and massacre which began in 1492 would not have been possible without an appropriate theology. The historical violence was accompanied by theological violence.[19]
There are a number of tomes that have extended the critique of Richard into the contemporary historical context, indicting the theo-missiological praxis of the twentieth century Christian community. For example, the author and historian Greg Grandin explicitly ties North American military conquest in Latin America to the discursive theological activity of the North American “Christian Right,” or “Moral Majority” in his book Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States
Perhaps the most important (for philo-theological reasons), unique and contemporary extension of this critique of Western missiology can be found in the book Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism, written by Steve Brouwer, Paul Gifford and Susan D. Rose. The basic thesis of this text is that a modern variant of fundamentalist Christianity, which has been amalgamated with American patriotic fervor/nationalism, is being disseminated on a global scale, filling or transmuting the void of signification/meaning, the nihilism that manifests in response to the pressures of neoliberal globalization.[22] To put the thesis more succinctly, this new Fundamentalist Americanism[23] is a new product being exported as a φάρμακον (pharmakon), or remedy for the cultural declension and destruction that, according to the authors, is a result of the transnational transformation effectuated by the globalization of capitalist logic. In this way, Fundamentalist Americanism sublimates or counters the alternative responses (id est Islam, Communism/socialism, Catholicism, Feminism)[24] that might otherwise foment as a response to the destruction of indigenous culture carried out alongside the reproduction of Western cultural presence. In this respect the φάρμακον (pharmakon) of spiritual cognition prevents the transformation of the global capitalist superstructure, or American hegemony into a φαρμακός (pharmakós), or scapegoat.
One should not interpret the above critique as a hypothesis proposing the development of an illicit, conscious, and cynical conspiracy between civil and ecclesial authority. On the contrary Brouwer and company recognize that the belief system that they have dissected is, more often than not, genuinely embraced by those who count themselves among the number of the “faithful.” The concepts presented in their text are in many respects similar to the analysis formulated by the French philosopher Louis Althusser in his short treatise entitled On Ideology;[25] namely, that the conceptual framework of a given culture often functions as a mimetic veneer that infuses the material relations of production with gravity and meaning.
(b) A Little Matter of Truth: Epistemology, Christian “Witness,” and the Imperial Will-To-Power
This discussion brings one to the second crisis challenging the theo-missiological enterprise of Occidental Christianity: the crisis of epistemological contamination. The question to be dealt with at present is whether or not there is a certain philosophic consanguinity between what contemporary philosophers Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt have termed Empire[26] and the theological expressions and praxis of the Church. One must determine whether there is any merit to the claims made by Friedrich Nietzsche,[27] along with his most important modern interpreter Michel Foucault,[28] that the will-to-power generally conceals itself in the apologetics of absolute truth. In other words, does the violence, oppression and exploitation propagated during the course of missiological expansion reveal a quasi-imperial ambition (or even a fully imperial ambition) which lies at the core of the theo-missiological commission.
Most recently the French cultural theorist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard produced a critique of modernity in which he implicated Occidental theo-missiology, which, while visibly absent from the secular process of diplomacy and global political interaction, nonetheless provided the “missionary impulse,” or the expansionist tendencies of modernity/modern philo-epistemology in the era of “globalization.” The critique found in Baudrillard’s short essay Carnival and Cannibal expresses, in condensed form, the general and negative postmodern assessment of modernity and the modern concern with (one might say faith in) the formulation of absolute truths. Due to the fact that such a negative juncture is the exact point from which Žižek begins his engagement with Christian theology[29], Baudrillard’s thesis will be quoted at length:
We may start out from Marx’s famous saying about history occurring first as authentic event and then being repeated as farce. In this way, we may see modernity as the initial adventure [imperial expansion] of the European West, then as an immense farce repeating itself on a planetary scale, in all those latitudes to which Western religious, technical, economic and political values have been exported. This ‘carnivalization’ passes through the ages of evangelization, colonization, decolonization, and globalization, which themselves are historic. What is less visible is that this hegemony, this ascendancy on the part of a global order, whose models seem irresistible – and not just its technical and military models , but its cultural and ideological ones too – is accompanied by an extraordinary process of reversion, in which power is slowly undermined, devoured, or ‘cannibalized’ by the very people it ‘carnivalizes.’ The prototype of this silent cannibalization – its ‘primal scene,’ so to speak – could be said to be that solemn mass at Recife in Brazil in the sixteenth century, at which the bishops who had come expressly from Portugal to celebrate the Indians’ passive conversion were devoured by them in an excessive display of evangelical love (cannibalism as extreme form of hospitality). As the first victims of this evangelical masquerade, the Indians pushed things spontaneously to the limit and beyond: they absorbed physically those who had absorbed them spiritually…It is this dual – carnivalesque and cannibalistic – form we see reflected in every corner of the world, with the exportation of our moral values (human rights, democracy), our principles of economic rationality, growth, performance and spectacle. They are taken up everywhere, with greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasm, but in a totally ambiguous way, by all those ‘underdeveloped’ peoples who have not so far heard the good word of the universal and, hence, provide fertile ground for missionary work and forced conversion to modernity…[30] (Emphasis added)
It is apparent here that Baudrillard’s critique of Modernity and western culture relies on an implicit and unspoken truth – unspoken because the verity of the postmodern critique is taken to be, at this point, a given on par with mathematical axioms – that there is no absolute, immutable (dare one say theological) truth. This is why the authentic event of the initial Western European expansion is taken to be a farce as repetition and scope increases. According to Baudrillard, there is no “Gospel” and, consequently, the “missionary” praxis of globalization apologists ultimately reveals the metaphysical scandal or crisis at the center of Modernity’s, and in a similar manner the Christian community’s, epistemological enterprise.
The abovementioned postmodern thesis has itself suffered from repetition, almost to the point of farce[31], but its challenge must be taken seriously. Postmodernity’s “deconstructive” motif, as was noted above, subjects all truth claims to negative, interrogative discourse, questioning not only the correctness of each truth claim, but even the very possibility of the authentic existence of “Truth” proper. In essence each truth claim becomes a philosophical obiter dictum and apologetics becomes little more than the mastery of rhetoric. For Marxism and Christianity, which are philosophical systems defined by their all encompassing epistemologies and eschatologies, the postmodern, pejorative assessment of truth-systems-proper is troubling. It is precisely this fact that makes Slavoj Žižek’s marriage of these two philosophical positions particularly interesting, and promising apropos the dilemmas of historicity and violence confronting contemporary theo-missiology.
III. The Allure of Things Sacred: The Žižekian Use of Christian Theology
Upon initial inspection Slavoj Žižek appears a very unlikely candidate for the advancement of a Christian theological position. Much of his early work is devoted to the exposition and explication of the work of Jacques Lacan[32], a central figure in the “return to Freud” movement amongst French psychoanalysts and philosophers. Much of this work was also dedicated to the unraveling of ideological systems in a fashion similar to the French Marxist Louis Althusser. While Žižek may have referenced Christian philosophers and theologians from time to time he certainly placed Christian theology, as a whole, at a distance from the center of his theoretical framework. As such, Žižek’s later work represents a definitive “turn” toward theology. Recognizing this, one must ask from whence did the impetus for such a dramatic theoretical mutation come.
The Marxist biblical scholar Roland Boer has suggested that the crisis of epistemic vacuity created by postmodern and post-Marxist philosophical discursive activity actually provided Žižek with the “drive” (to use a loaded Freudian/Lacanian term) toward Christian exegetical engagement. According to Boer, at the turn of the 21st century Žižek became increasingly interested in developing a more acute political critique of neoliberal capital and the systems of hegemony in which this economic specter found embodiment. In other words, Žižek wanted to find a way into the debate that was initiated in a punctuated fashion by Francis Fukuyama’s claim that the end of history was at hand following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.[33] As Boer points out, however, Žižek’s Lacanian analytical framework did not provide him with the tools to undertake such a project in an efficacious manner:
In what follows, I begin, then, with the challenge that led to Žižek’s ‘conversion,’ which I will leave in scare quotes until I can speak about it in more detail. For one who held Christianity and Marxism at the end of each arm, Žižek emerges as a proponent of both at the beginning of the new millennium. He does so, I suggest, in response to the challenge posed to him by Judith Butler [an American post-structuralist philosopher] and Ernesto Laclau [an Argentine post-Marxist political theorist] in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (2000). While Butler
Žižek even implicitly admits the truth of Boers thesis. He initiates The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology with an oblique reference to the line with which Karl Marx begins the communist manifesto.[35] However, here the specter is not the “communist hypothesis,”[36] as Badiou has recently described it, but rather the Cartesian concept of the “thinking subject”; the postmodern φαρμακός (pharmakós), or scapegoat par excellence. With this in mind it is interesting to note that this is one of the essential titles for anyone interested in the Žižekian interaction with Christian theology (or in Žižekian scholastics in general), because it is the first text in which Žižek makes a direct and explicit connection with Christian theology.[37] Thus, Žižek initiates the first tome in which he embraces Christian theology as an indispensible apparatus, or (more appropriately) intermediary in the process of explicating and repudiating of the postmodern impasse[38], and does so using the language of a manifesto. Here, in this text one is able to locate a Žižek searching for a rupture into which he may insert a coherent political platform, alongside a Žižek that partially (and only partially) accomplishes this task by recovering Christian theology and the Cartesian subject[39] through a psychoanalytic assessment of Badiou’s book on St. Paul.[40] Indeed, as Boer notes in Criticism of Heaven, Žižek’s reading of Badiou provides him with perhaps the most significant introduction of the concept of Saint Paul
To put it as bluntly as possible, it seems to me that Žižek emerges as a political writer only after the exchange with Ernesto Laclau and Judith Butler in Contingency, Hegemony, and Universality, and that dispensing with the murk of his political credentials in terms of Leninist Marxism could only happen with and by means of Paul.[43]
Within the text of The Ticklish Subject it is obvious that Žižek has picked up on the place of primacy given to Paul by Badiou:
What he [Paul] provides is the first detailed articulation of how fidelity to a Truth-Event [for Badiou, this term designates the rupture of the revolutionary situation into the fabric of history] operates in its universal dimension: the excessive, surnuméraire Real of a Truth-Event (‘Resurrection’) that emerges by Grace (i.e. cannot be accounted for in the terms of the constituents of the given situation) sets in motion, in the subjects who recognize themselves in its call, the militant ‘work of Love,’ that is, the struggle to disseminate, with persistent fidelity, this Truth in its universal scope, as concerning everyone.[44] (emphasis present within the text)
The religious signification which Žižek encounters in the course of his reading of Badiou (“Resurrection, Grace, and ‘work of Love’”), though not entirely incorporated into Žižek’s literary, or iterative vocabulary, will prove to be of great import with respect to Žižek’s later “Christian” texts.
One point of importance must be addressed before the current discussion will be allowed to continue. It would be difficult to contend that Saint Paul Saint Paul
When one examines the second major Žižekian text to consider Christian theology it is apparent that the implicit lesson found within Gillespie’s thesis was also evident to Slavoj Žižek. In his next book, The Fragile Absolute: Or Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?, Žižek follows the theological path he marked out in The Ticklish Subject. Initially, one is struck by the title, or more specifically the subtitle of the text. It appears as though his early flirtation with theological concepts has given way to philosophical commitment. Within the text of this book Žižek develops a concept which was relegated to the periphery of his discussion of Badiou’s treatment of Saint Paul
In Lacanian terms, the difference here is the one between idealization and sublimation; false idolizing idealizes, it blinds itself to the other’s weaknesses – or, rather, it blinds itself to the other as such, using the beloved as a blank screen on to which it projects its own phantasmagorical constructions; while true love accepts the beloved the way she or he is, merely putting her/him into the place of the Thing, the unconditional object. As every true Christian knows, love is the work of love – the hard and arduous work of repeated ‘uncoupling’ in which, again and again, we have to disengage ourselves from the inertia that constrains us to identify with the particular order we were born into. Through the Christian work of compassionate love, we discern in what was hitherto a disturbing foreign body, tolerated and even modestly supported by us so that we were not too bothered by it, a subject, with its crushed dreams and desires…[Christian love] is not an inner contemplative stance, but the active work of love which necessarily leads to the creation of an alternative community.[48] (emphasis present in the text)
It is interesting to note how, in a manner similar to Latin American liberation theologians, Žižek insists that this Christian love must be incarnated in praxis, and, furthermore, in a manner similar to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Žižek asserts that this love must of necessity extend to a universal community of love. This, like the reference to Gillespie’s thesis above, is another epistemic clue as to the possible resuscitation of theo-missiological discourse and practice.
While the above interaction with agape brings Žižek fully into the circle of Christian theology, he remains there only in a general sense. The Christian endeavor that has been undertaken by Žižek thus far is much more catholic/Catholic, and vague, and his political program, while intiated, remains in the realm of altruism rather than militancy (something which Žižek believes to be of great import[49]). To move forward, to further develop his materialist Christianity, Žižek must again extract a conceptual catalyst from Badiou: the Reformed/Protestant conception of grace. Žižek develops this concept in the texts On Belief and The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, the two books which follow The Fragile Absolute.
At this point it would be valuable to reconsider the concept of grace furnished by Badiou in Saint Paul
The pure event is reducible to this: Jesus died on the cross and resurrected. This event is “grace” (kharis). Thus, it is neither a bequest, nor a tradition, nor a teaching. It is supernumerary relative to all this and presents itself as pure givenness.[50] (emphasis added)
That Badiou would classify the death and resurrection of Christ as the pure event is quite significant given the status of the term/concept of event within Badiou’s lexicon. Often Badiou uses the term “truth-event,” due to the fact that truth is only expressed in a rupture within the fabric of history.[51] As Badiou states in the “dictionary of concepts” portion of his book Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II, “[a]n event is a real change such that the intensity of existence fleetingly ascribed to the site is maximal, and such that among the consequences of this site there is a maximal becoming of the intensity of existence of what was the proper inexistent of the site.”[52] It is in Badiou’s concept of grace/event, expressed in pure form in the event of Christ’s death and resurrection, that one finds an integral component with respect to Žižek continued engagement with Christian theology and his search for a militant politics. The author Roland Boer takes notice of this stating that, particularly in On Belief
Žižek realizes the implications of Badiou’s laicized grace for a militant politics. And the signal of such a realization is that only in this book does he become overtly Leninist...it is not merely Christianity, or even Paul himself, but quite specifically the reformed concept of grace that enables him to become a Leninist.[53]
Thus, in On Belief, which marks Žižek’s initial treatment of the theological signifier grace, we witness Žižek move out of the vague and catholic/Catholic understanding of Christian reality and into a more particularly Protestant/Reformed variant. It is only when Žižek makes full utilization of this concept that he is able to more fully develop the philosophical modus operandi appropriate for political praxis. The Christian conception of grace also allows Žižek to confront the criticisms of historical determinism (whether in Stalinist form, or, as the earlier quote from Fukuyama
Does this mean that the primordial decision forever predetermines the contours of our life? Here enters the “good news” of Christianity: the miracle of faith is that it IS possible to traverse the fantasy, to undo the founding decision, to start one’s life over again, from the zero point – in short to change Eternity itself (what we “always – already are”). Ultimately, the “rebirth” of which Christianity speaks (when one joins the community of believers, one is born again) is the name for such a new Beginning. Against the pagan and/or Gnostic Wisdom which celebrates the (re)discovery of one’s true Self – the return to it, the realization of its potentials or whatsoever – Christianity calls upon us to thoroughly reinvent ourselves. Kierkegaard was right: the ultimate choice is the one between the Socratic recollection and the Christian repetition: Christianity enjoins us to REPEAT the founding gesture of the primordial choice. One is almost tempted to put it in the terms of the paraphrase of Marx’s “thesis 11”: “Philosophers have been teaching us only how to discover (remember) our true Self, but the point is to change it.” And THIS Christian legacy, often obfuscated, is today more precious than ever.[54]
Žižek continues to expound upon this treatment of Christian grace in The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, which is the final Žižekian tome to be examined in this project.
Within the context of The Puppet and the Dwarf the theme of Christian grace again becomes central, though in a manner distinct from that which is present in On Belief. In this book grace allows Žižek to uncover the full and revolutionary implications which are present within the concept of Christian grace. With grace Žižek is able to extricate his commentary from the realms of historicity and limited human agency, and come into direct contact with the messianic moment, or the revolutionary situation a la Badiou,[55] which ultimately brings Žižek’s discussion back to a concept he elucidated earlier in The Fragile Absolute: the alternative community of believers. Ultimately for Žižek, the loci for the origin and ethics of this community of Christian love is the crucifixion (for materialist reasons, Žižek does not refer positively to the resurrection) of Christ and the advent of the ecclesial community at Pentecost:
Insofar as the ultimate Other is God Himself, I should risk the claim that it is the epochal achievement of Christianity to reduce its Otherness to Sameness: God Himself is Man, “one of us.” If, as Hegel emphasizes, what dies on the Cross is the God of beyond itself, the radical Other, then the identification with Christ (“life in Christ”) means precisely the suspension of Otherness. What emerges in its place is the Holy Spirit, which is not Other, but the community (or, rather, collective) of believers: the neighbor is a member of our collective. The ultimate horizon of Christianity is thus not respect for the neighbor, for the abyss of its impenetrable Otherness; it is possible to go beyond – not, of course to penetrate the Other directly, to experience the Other as it is “in itself,” but to become aware that there is no mystery, no hidden true content, behind the mask (deceptive surface) of the Other…[56]
In the last line in the passage above, one is able to perceive the way in which Žižek’s efficacious amalgamation of radical critique with Christian/Pauline theology has allowed him to recover two important things: a concept similar, if not equivalent to the Cartesian conception of the subject, and the possibility for collective action. While it is easier to see the pertinence of the latter concept in relation to theo-missiological praxis, the former is more opaque. This peculiar cognitive disjunction, along with the other lessons to be gleaned from Žižek’s analysis of Christianity, will be dealt with explicitly in the next section.
VI. The Four Things Needful: Redeeming Theo-missiological Praxis
Following this reading of Žižek’s use of Christian theology one still bears the task of recovering an authentic theo-missiological project; i.e. one is still confronted with the “lostness” of the “cause” of Christian theology and missiology that one began with. There are, however, four distinct lessons present within Žižek’s Christian endeavor that enable one to recover the initial impetus which is at the center of the Great Commission. These four lessons, or concepts will be briefly elucidated here, but they require further development in order to be useful tools for those interested in reconciling the Christian faith with the “sins” of Christian historicity.
First, through his reading of Badiou’s interaction with Saint Paul
The second lesson that the Žižekian analysis makes possible is that the authentic expression of the aforementioned “work of Love,” is the universally open, alternative community of believers that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described as the “beloved community.” This community is open to each person regardless of genetic or socio-economic distinictions. In the words of Žižek this community is identified by “the hard and arduous work of repeated ‘uncoupling’ in which, again and again, we have to disengage ourselves from the inertia that constrains us to identify with the particular order we were born into.”[57] Recognizing this reality, the faithful missiologist will practice an apologetics altogether different from the apologetics of imperial expansion: the apologetics of loving praxis mentioned in the paragraph above.
The tertiary concept/lesson which one might extract from this rereading of Žižekian texts is that a concept equivalent to the Cartesian subject is necessary for socio-political, and religious engagement on a universal level. This is the point which Žižek is making when he states that “[t]he ultimate horizon of Christianity is thus not respect for the neighbor, for the abyss of its impenetrable Otherness; it is possible to go beyond – not, of course to penetrate the Other directly, to experience the Other as it is “in itself,” but to become aware that there is no mystery, no hidden true content, behind the mask (deceptive surface) of the Other.”[58] Humankind is no longer, following the advent of the Christian gospel locked into identity politics, marked by the infinite dissimulation of individual particularities. One must be careful when interpreting the reality that Slavoj Žižek is explicating. He is not arguing for any kind of McCarthyist conformity. Rather, Žižek is trying to get at a concept that unites human beings in a manner similar to the Christian concept of the Imago Dei, or image of God present within each person. This is also a theme which permeates Pauline theology:
27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.[59]
A conception of Christian missiology that preserves this principle will find it difficult to acquiesce to the demands of imperial loyalty.
Finally, the Christian faith in which Žižek is interested also liberates the individual, as well as human communities and societies, from the tyranny of determinism, historical or otherwise. As Žižek stated earlier the “good news” of Christianity is that “the miracle of faith,” makes it “possible to traverse the fantasy, to undo the founding decision, to start one’s life over again, from the zero point – in short to change Eternity itself (what we “always – already are”).”[60] This is not a mere philosophical abstraction similar to Nietzsche’s postulation of the necessity for “Eternal Return.”[61] On the contrary, it is a reality that is necessary for any revolutionary break with previous history. Without it we are condemned to endlessly repeat the somber iteration of Ecclesiastes’ narrative, declaring everything to be vanity. This concept is also the most pertinent for the project at hand. Those engaged in the theo-missiological task of Christian praxis are in no way tied to the opprobrious and bloody history of Christendom. Each missionary is given the task of refounding/recreating the universal community of love, the distinguishing character of Christian theology, in the context in which they are called.
Works Cited
Agamben, Giorgio The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford , California : Stanford University
Ali, Tariq The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (London
Althusser, Louis On Ideology (London
Andrews, Dave Christi-anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion (Oxford: Lion Publishing plc, 1999).
Badiou, Alain The Communist Hypothesis (London
Badiou, Alain Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford , California : Stanford University
Badiou, Alain Being and Event (London
Badiou, Alain Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II (London
Badiou, Alain and Slavoj Žižek Philosophy in the Present, edited by Peter Engelmann (Cambridge
Baudrillard, Jean Carnival and Cannibal (London
Boer, Roland “The Conversion of Slavoj Žižek,” in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
Brouwer, Steve, Paul Gifford and Susan D. Rose, Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism (London: Routledge, 1996).
Caner, Ergun Mehmet and Emir Fethi Caner, Christian Jihad: Two Former Muslims Look at the Crusades and Killing in the name of Christ (Grand Rapids , Michigan
Caputo, John D. and Linda Martin Alcoff entitled St. Paul Among the Philosophers (Indianapolis
Dannhauser, Werner J. “Friedrich Nietzsche” in The History of Political Philosophy, Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972)
Delpech-Ramey, Joshua and Slavoj Žižek, “An Interview with Slavoj Žižek ‘On Divine Self-Limitation and Revolutionary Love,’” in The Journal of Philosophy and Scripture, vol. 1 issue 2, Spring, 2004.
Ferreri, Marco La Grande Bouffe (a film production, 1973).
Foucault, Michel “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” and “Truth and Power,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, Lawrence
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
Grandin, Greg Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States , and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York
Gillespie, Michael Allen The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago : University of Chicago
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge , Massachusetts : Harvard University
Heidegger, Martin Being and Time (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1962).
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Signet Publications, 1998).
McLellan, David (Ed.) Marxism: Essential Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Nietzsche, Friedrich “The Natural History of Morals,” “The Genealogy of Morals,” and “The Will to Power,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, Lawrence
Pagels, Elaine “Introduction” in Living Buddha, Living Christ: Tenth Anniversary Edition (New York
Pagels, Elaine The Gnostic Gospels (New York
Pagels, Elaine Beyond Belief: Early Christian Paths Towards Transformation (New York
Pound, Marcus Žižek: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Grand Rapids , Michigan
Richard, Pablo “1492: The Violence of God and the Future of Christianity,” in 1492-1992: The Voice of the Victims, Leonardo Boff and Virgil Elizondo (Eds.) (London: SCM Press, 1992).
Rieger, Joerg Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis
The People’s Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Minneapolis
Taubes, Jacob The Political Theology of Paul (Stanford , California : Stanford University
Sardar, Ziauddin The A to Z of Postmodern Life (Harrisburg , Virginia
Zinn, Howard A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present (New York
Žižek, Slavoj Living in the End Times (London
Žižek, Slavoj Revolution at the Gates: Žižek on Lenin, the 1917 Writings (London
Žižek, Slavoj The Parallax View (Cambridge , Massachusetts
Žižek, Slavoj The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London
Žižek, Slavoj In Defense of Lost Causes (London
Žižek, Slavoj On Belief (Oxford
Žižek, Slavoj The Fragile Absolute: Or Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (London
[1] The title of this introductory section, as well as the impetus for the present theo-philosophical engagement finds its origin, or genesis in the title and thesis of Slavoj Žižek’s book In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2008), in which the author attempts to extract a kernel of truth/authentic eventhood (a la Badiou) from within the wreckage of the various failed projects of the Western philosophical, ideological, and political traditions.
[2] Here I am referring to texts such as Chrsit &Empire, by Joerg Rieger, as well as Christi-Anarchy: Discovering the Radical Spirituality of Compassion, by Dave Andrews.
[3] For the sake of textual brevity, as well as clarity and concision within the text itself, I have combined the two separate terms of theology and missiology into the neologism theo-missiology. This was done to make the text less obstructive and to explicate in a phonetic, or more precisely, morphemetic gesture the conceptual unity of the two terms (i.e. theology is germ and origin, the “genesis” of missiological praxis).
[4] Bartolomé de Las Casas provides us with perhaps one of the most prominent examples of such individuals due to the breadth of academic scholarship dedicated to the explication and description of his activities in opposition to the negative effects of Spanish colonialism (exempli grati the radical historian Howard Zinn’s reference to de Las Casas in A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present [New York: HaperCollins Publishers, 2001], 5-7).
[5] Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London
[6] Though it is possible to argue that Žižek’s interest in Christian theology was present in some of his earlier work (e.g. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology), as does Roland Boer in his book Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology, Žižek makes Christian theology and praxis an explicit concern in several of his more recent books. These include The Fragile Absolute: Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For?, On Belief, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic (coauthored with neo-orthodox theologian John Milbank and edited by Creston Davis), portions of The Parallax View, and his most recent publication Living in the End Times.
[7] The specific reference here is to the in the primary portion of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time. Here Heidegger calls into question the assumption made by practitioners of western metaphysics that the reality referred to, or supposedly encapsulated in the term “Being” is readily intelligible. Heidegger states that not only must modern, western, philosophical persons “raise anew the question of the meaning of Being,” but also that they “must reawaken and understanding for the meaning of this question.” Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1962), 1.
[8] Roland Boer, “The Conversion of Slavoj Žižek,” in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[9] It is important to bring this relation of chaplaincy to into cognizant recognition, and to note that this relationship was not, in any sense, historically contingent or necessary. Often critiques are leveled against institutional, or orthodox Christian theology, or the modernist conception of the nation-state, in a manner that implicitly indicates that Christian theology and imperial ideology are coterminous, if not simply the obverse faces the proverbial coin. An example of this type of critique can be found in the work of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, especially his work on the concept of “hegemony” in relation to the western socialist’s revolutionary struggle. See the work entitled Marxism: Essential Writings, David McLellan (Ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
[10] While some might object to the inclusion of yet another narrative, or account of the history of violence promulgated by missionaries, church officials and church councils, it must be noted that the inclusion of said narrative is not a symptom of anti-establishmentarian neuroses. A trace or trajectory must be established in order to make a proper diagnostic sketch of the “patient” – Occidental theo-missiology. To borrow a line of reasoning from Žižek (and so, in a manner, from Lacan) one must come into contact with the reality of one’s physical praxis – for this is what makes us who we are – not one’s imagined, private, personal identity. One cannot be allowed to separate oneself from the external reality which one’s actions create. For, as Žižek points out this is “the screen of civility,” a hypocritical stratagem that attempts to humanize even the most monstrous. (See In Defense of Lost Causes [London
[11] Dave Andrews, Christi-anarchy: Discovering a Radical Spirituality of Compassion (Oxford: Lion Publishing plc, 1999), 26.
[12] For instance it is a matter of debate as to whether or not Constantine
[13] Elaine Pagels, “Introduction” in Living Buddha, Living Christ: Tenth Anniversary Edition (New York New York : Random House, 2004] and Beyond Belief: Early Christian Paths Towards Transformation [New York
[14] Joerg Rieger, Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis
[15] Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, Christian Jihad: Two Former Muslims Look at the Crusades and Killing in the name of Christ (Grand Rapids , Michigan
[16] Ibid. 66.
[17] Ibid. 66.
[18] Pablo Richard, “1492: The Violence of God and the Future of Christianity,” in 1492-1992: The Voice of the Victims, Leonardo Boff and Virgil Elizondo (Eds.) (London: SCM Press, 1992), 59.
[19] Ibid., 61.
[20] Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States , and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York
[21] The most important book that Ali has written on the subject, however, is The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (London
[22] Steve Brouwer, Paul Gifford and Susan D. Rose, Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism (London: Routledge, 1996), 7.
[23] Ibid., 13-32.
[24] Ibid., 209-226.
[25] Louis Althusser, On Ideology (London
[26] Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge , Massachusetts : Harvard University
[27] Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Natural History of Morals,” “The Genealogy of Morals,” and “The Will to Power,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, Lawrence
[28] Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” and “Truth and Power,” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, Lawrence
[29] Roland Boer, Criticism of Heaven: Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[30] Jean Baudrillard, Carnival and Cannibal (London
[31] Postmodernism, like existentialism before it, has become a theoretical buzz word that can be applied to almost anything. For instance, a book written by The Statesman columnist and commentator Ziauddin Sardar entitled The A to Z of Postmodern Life (Harrisburg, Virginia: Vision Publishers, 2003) which purports to explore everything from sex and toys to terrorism from the postmodern perspective. Postmodern Pets, the name of a company that manufactures unique and ultra-contemporary furniture for household animals is, by far, the most comical use of the word postmodern that this author has run across recently. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/onlinecatalog-only/postmodern-pets-000447
[32] Marcus Pound, Žižek: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Grand Rapids , Michigan
[33] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).
[34] Roland Boer, “The Conversion of Slavoj Žižek,” in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[35] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Signet Publications, 1998), 49.
[36] Alain Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis (London
[37] Here I am referring to the section in The Ticklish Subject where Žižek attempts a rereading (to borrow a term from Latin American liberation theology) of Badiou’s exegesis of Pauline theology.
[38] What Žižek terms the ‘Night of the World,’ and “diagnosis” as the persistence of “the terrible deadlock” produced by the continuous endorsement of the Heideggerian “deconstruction of metaphysics,” which undermines “the very possibility of a philosophically grounded democratic resistance to the totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century…” The Ticklish Subject : The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London: Verso Books, 1999), 4-5.
[39] Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London: Verso Books, 1999), 145-290.
[40] Alain Badiou, Saint Paul : The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford , California : Stanford University
[41] Roland Boer, “The Conversion of Slavoj Žižek,” in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[42] Joshua Delpech-Ramey and Slavoj Žižek, “An Interview with Slavoj Žižek ‘On Divine Self-Limitation and Revolutionary Love,’” in The Journal of Philosophy and Scripture, vol. 1 issue 2, Spring, 2004.
[43] Roland Boer, “The Conversion of Slavoj Žižek,” in Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[44] Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London: Verso Books, 1999), 143.
[45] Aside from the work of Badiou and Žižek some of the more recent and important texts which address Paul as a preeminent political theorist/philosopher are Jacob Taubes’ The Political Theology of Paul (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004), the collection of essays edited by John D. Caputo and Linda Martin Alcoff entitled St. Paul Among the Philosophers (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009), and Giorgio Agamben’s book The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005).
[46] Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago : University of Chicago
[47] This is also, as we have noted, where Badiou locates the importance of Saint Paul Saint Paul : The Foundation of Universalism [Stanford , California : Stanford University
[48] Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute: Or Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (London
[49] One cannot fully appreciate the full weight and importance of militant politics for Žižek until one reads the texts which follow those deal more explicitly with the Christian legacy. This is especially evident when one examines three books: The Parallax View (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2009) in which Žižek moves from his reading of Christian theological principles towards a rehabilitation of (Leninist) dialectical materialism; Revolution at the Gates: Žižek on Lenin, the 1917 Writings (London: Verso Books, 2004), which is essentially a collection of the writings of V.I. Lenin sandwiched between two expository essays written by Žižek; Living in the End Times (London: Verso Books, 2010), Žižek’s most recent publication to date, and the book in which he develops his dialectical materialist eschatology.
[50] Alain Badiou, Saint Paul : The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford , California : Stanford University
[51] Alain Badiou, Being and Event (London
[52] Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II (London
[53] Roland Boer, Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Chicago
[54] Slavoj Žižek, On Belief (Oxford
[55] Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge , Massachusetts
[56] Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge , Massachusetts
[57] Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute: Or Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (London
[58] Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge , Massachusetts
[59] Galatians 3:27-28, The People’s Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Minneapolis
[60] Slavoj Žižek, On Belief (Oxford
[61] Werner J. Dannhauser, “Friedrich Nietzsche” in The History of Political Philosophy, Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 829-850.
Much appreciated; will have to go through a second reading (as I'm too unfamiliar with any of the authors save St. Paul and Nietzsche) before I can make any substantive comment.
ReplyDeleteFor now: intriguing and hopeful.