Living Faith: Belief and Doubt in a Perilous World

by Jacques Ellul

Living Faith is a groundbreaking exploration of the meaning and dynamics of Christian faith today by a major theologian and social critic of our time. Jacques Ellul thoughtfully examines all aspects of the phenomenon we call faith to distill the essential characteristics of true Christianity. He argues cogently for a crucial distinction between religion, based on a faith that is nothing more than a reflection of our own circumstances and consciousness, and genuine Christian Faith, which concerns itself primarily with revelation. Such a Living Faith, he points out, is an open, honest, courageous response to a divine disclosure of the Wholly Other God that impels us beyond comfortable answers to see "everything in a light which is not that of reason, experience, or common sense"

Genres: Theology, Religion, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Baptised Catholic, Ellul became an atheist and Marxist at 19, and a Christian of the Reformed Church at 22. During his Marxist days, he was a member of the French Communist Party. During World War II, he fought with the French Underground against the Nazi occupation of France.

Educated at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris, he taught Sociology and the History of Law at the Universities of Strausbourg and Montpellier. In 1946 he returned to Bordeaux where he lived, wrote, served as Mayor, and taught until his death in 1994.

In the 40 books and hundreds of articles Ellul wrote in his lifetime, his dominant theme was always the threat to human freedom posed by modern technology. His tenor and methodology is objective and scholarly, and the perspective is a sociological one. Few of his books are overtly political -- even though they deal directly with political phenomena -- and several of his books, including "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" and "The Technological Society" are required reading in many graduate communication curricula.

Ellul was also a respected and serious Christian theologian whose 1948 work, "The Presence of the Kingdom," makes explicit a dual theme inherent, though subtly stated, in all of his writing, a sort of yin and yang of modern technological society: sin and sacramentality.

Reviews

[LVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faith is a radical exodus: "And now, men and women of faith, of faith as weak as mine, prepare yourselves for the exodus, for the time is coming."

(were Ellul and Girard contemporaries/pals?)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip Part 1 and Part 3 till the last chapter. Part 2 is a gold mine of Barthian and Kierkegaardian Christian existentialism with a French flare. Life-changing views of scripture and faith, so far from the dull and predictable pontificating of so many American envangelicals, yet still staying true to Scripture and the Reformed faith. This radical seperation of faith and belief, of religion and revelation, is an outlook every Christian should consider.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intellectually intense but fascinating book. Ellul was recommended to me many years ago, but I never got around to reading him until now. It turns out he's a French anarchist Christian theologian, and I had no idea what to expect based on such a description. I was surprised to find he had many thoughts that resonated deeply with my own.

I think Ellul offers something for the Christian and non-Christian alike, and he has a lot of social criticism that sounds a great deal like secular authors like Christopher Lasch. Much of his work is based on the premise that many of our current systems (intellectual, political, economic, and yes, religious) have trapped, alienated, and objectified us in various ways that have robbed us of our individuality and our lives of greater meaning. In reaction to this, Ellul turns to faith, which when "not narrowly defined as attending dreary cultural ceremonies or beliveing in lifeless abstract truths, is a constant struggle against the amnesia of the group we live in and against the dead weight of destiny, which in our eyes inevitably determines our future." Although he sometimes goes to extremes, overall I found Ellul to tackle the difficult issues of faith and doubt in the modern world in a thoughtful and thought-provoking manner.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faith for Ellul, in a perilous world, is an illogical adventure. One where hypothesis, routine, and habit is not required. Rather, a discerning of vocation. The vocation is not limited to the institution of the church. It is for all to discern. And having questions about the resurrection for Ellul is how faith differs from belief. Belief brings people together and faith separates the individual. The community of faithful Christians is what the text of the book and the Bible are about. Ellul sees the bible and the text as a whole that centralizes around Christ the Lord (Yahweh). Communicating Jesus in today's world is about the community of faithful Christians constituting the Kingdom of God now. It is not some far off ethereal world levitated about universe. Rather, it is present because the faithful and Jesus are simply the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's risky getting close to God, especially when God does not equate with Truth