A New Reading of Jacques Ellul
A New Reading of Jacques Ellul
Presence and Communication in the
Postmodern World
Jacob Marques Rollison
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941768
ISBN 9781793604347 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781793604354 (epub)
This work is dedicated to my parents, with love and deep gratitude for their endless love, support, encouragement, and patience.
To be postmodern is not to reject but also not to embrace anything for longer than a moment.
—Brian Brock and Bernd Wannenwetsch
Acknowledgments
What do you have that you have not received?
—1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV
Thanks are due to Prof. Brian Brock for overseeing this project as a thesis at the University of Aberdeen, and for his availability and concern for the research and the researcher. Thanks also to Prof. Stanley Hauerwas for stimulating engagement and further supervision. Thanks to Professor Read Mercer Schuchardt at Wheaton College for inspiration, encouragement, friendship and assistance in multiple forms. Thanks to Prof. Frédéric Rognon at the University of Strasbourg for kind and thorough engagement with initial and final drafts of my writing, and for graciously sharing his knowledge, friends, archives, and time with me.
Thanks to the rest of the Aberdeen Department of Divinity, including Professors Mike Mawson, Phillip Ziegler, and Mike Laffin. Thanks also to many dear friends and companions during this writing—including but not limited to Michael and Jayne Morelli, Kenny and Ange Laing, Dan and Katie Patterson, Andrew and Lauren Errington, Declan and Raquel Kelly, Amy Erickson, Cole Jodon, Nathalie Mareš, Joy Allan, Taido and Alison Chino, Kevin and Chrissy O’Farrell, Kevin and Claire Hargaden, Alex Apostolovski, Daniel and Angelika Bocchetti, Hannah Waite, Emily Hill, Allen and Mary Ann Calhoun, and their families. Additionally, thanks to Michael, Kevin, Amy, Declan, Dan and Hervé for their careful proofreading. Thanks also to Craig and Edvige at Kilau, for their friendship, coffee and wonderful food.
Special thanks to Jérôme Ellul, Jean Ellul and the Ellul family for their kindness in welcoming me during my trip to Bordeaux, for their support of my work, and for generously sharing materials integral to my research. I would like to thank the University of Aberdeen for kindly allowing me to publish the elements included in appendix 2.
Thanks to Prof. Shona Potts, Geneviève Ferrier, Léa Michoud, Sophie-Anne Faivre and Patricia Batki for their friendship, patience and help with my French. Thanks to the Fondation Catholique Écossaise for a grant enabling French language study at l’Institut Catholique in Paris. Thanks to Hervé Mousset for his friendship, prayer, and correspondence. Thanks to Elisabetta Ribet, Jean-Sebastian Ingrand, and Guillaume Joseph for their dialogue and friendship in our little Ellulian reading group led by Prof. Rognon. Thanks to Prof. Rognon and the GRESOPP research unit for allowing me to present initial versions of my research. Thanks to l’Église reformée du bouclier for housing me while in Strasbourg. Thanks to Arnaud and Colette Schrodi, Andrew and Estelle Pearson, and many others in Strasbourg for their friendship and care. Thanks to Daniel and Anita Cérézuelle, Patrick Chastenet, Mariame Thauri, Jean-Phillipe Qadri, and the Seurin sisters for welcoming and assisting my research in Bordeaux. Thanks to Béatrice Mencoy at the library of Sciences Po Bordeaux for facilitating my access to the Fond Jacques Ellul.
Thanks to David Gill, Ted Lewis, and Jacob Van Vleet at the International Jacques Ellul Society for their continued help and support, including in facilitating my presentations at their conferences in 2016 and 2018. My research was supported by grants from the University of Aberdeen Development Trust and a T.F. Torrance Award, for which I am very grateful. Bursaries from the Society for the Study of Theology facilitated the presentation of portions of this research at their annual conferences in 2016 and 2018.
Thanks to David and Angela Gibson, Drew and Fiona Tulloch, and the rest of the community at Trinity Church Aberdeen for their care and friendship. I would like to thank numerous dear friends who have supported me in friendship, prayer and patronage, including Christopher and Kelly Opiela, Justin Luttrell, Jeff and Sue Nevels, Bob and Betsy Kenney, Phil and Shanna Davis, Bill and Lori Gregory, Jon Luesink, Prof. Stephan Van Erp, and Rachel San Luis.
Finally, deep thanks to those whose love and support have been the conditions sine qua non of my life and work over the last three years. Thanks to Mélanie Marques Rollison for her love, patience, dialogue, and careful reading and editing, and to her family for their warm hospitality. Finally, thanks to my immediate family for their continued love and patience, and encouragement.
Abbreviations
Texts by Jacques Ellul
| French Abbreviation | Fr. Title (yr. edition used [yr. first publication]) | English Abbreviation | English Title |
| Fondement | Le fondement théologique du droit (2008 [1946]) | Foundation | Theological Foundation of Law (1961 [1960]) |
| Présence | Présence au monde moderne (2007 [1948]) | Presence | Presence in the Modern World (2016 [1951]) |
| Histoire | Histoire des institutions 1-2: L’Antiquité (1992 [1951]) | — | — |
| Jonas | Le livre de Jonas (2007 [1952]) | Jonah |
The Judgement of Jonah (1971)
|