Jacques Ellul

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Jacques Ellul (1990)

Jacques Ellul (born January 6, 1912 in Bordeaux , † May 19, 1994 ibid) was a French sociologist and theologian .

Life

Ellul, son of a Protestant mother and an originally Greek Orthodox father, grew up in Bordeaux and began studying law there , which he completed with a doctorate in 1936 . He then lectured at the universities of Montpellier , Strasbourg and Clermont-Ferrand . In 1940 he was released from the Vichy regime and retired to the village of Martres, where he supported his family by farming. At the same time, he completed his habilitation in Roman law in 1943 . Ellul was active in the Resistance and saved Jews from deportation. Appointed to a chair at the University of Bordeaux in 1944 , he also served there until April 1945 as a member of the provisional city administration. But then he concentrated on his work as a professor, which ended with his retirement in 1980 .

Ellul had had a conversion experience in 1930 and since then has been intensively involved with theology, especially with Karl Barth and Søren Kierkegaard . In numerous publications he dealt with biblical books and questions of the contemporary church. From 1956 to 1971 he was a member of the National Council of the Reformed Church of France . He was also active in the ecumenical movement .

to teach

In The Technological Society , Ellul tries to show that the technology is not of scientific, but of religious origin. The work, which takes a critical look at the relationship between man and technology , was translated into English 10 years after its publication on the recommendation of Aldous Huxley .

In The Humiliation of the Word , he shows how industrialization and the mechanization of our society are dwindling the ability of modern humans to extract the meaning from the (spoken) word that it once had. He contrasts the word with the image . The word as a linguistic statement is polarized: either a statement is true or it is a lie, i.e. false. The picture cannot fulfill this criterion : It does not show categories such as true / false, but presents a reality without comment .

Honor

During the Shoah , Ellul saved Jewish people , for which he was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1981 as Righteous Among the Nations . He is one of 43 in the Gironde department and one of 3,654 people in France with this award.

Works (selection)

  • Le Fondement théologique du droit , Delachaux et Niestlé, Neuchâtel 1946
    • in German: The theological justification of the law. Edited by Otto Weber . Kaiser, Munich 1948
  • Histoire des institutions , PUF, Paris 1952–1956
  • La technique ou l'enjeu du siècle. Armand Colin, Paris 1954. New edition: Économica, Paris 1990
  • Presence au monde modern. Roullet, Geneva 1948
    • in German: life as a modern person. Translated by Barbara Marx. Zwingli, Zurich 1958
  • Propaganda. 1962. New edition. Économica, Paris 1990
  • Métamorphose du bourgeois. Calmann-Lévy , Paris 1967
  • De la revolution aux revoltes. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1972
  • L'Apocalypse. Une architecture en mouvement. Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1975
    • in German: Apocalypse: The Revelation of John. Revealing Reality . Translated by Jörg Meuth. Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1981, ISBN 3-7887-0628-7
  • Trahison de l'Occident. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1975
    • in German: betrayal of the occident. Spirit and demon in conflict. Edited by Franz von Joachim. Seewald, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-512-00510-1
  • Le Système technicien. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1977
  • La parole humiliée. Seuil, Paris 1981
    • in English: The humiliation of the word. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1985
  • Le bluff technologique. Hachette, Paris 1988, paperback ibid. 2004, ISBN 2012792111
    • in English: The technological bluff. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1990, ISBN 080280960X
  • "Si tu es le fils de Dieu." Prompts et tentations de Jésus. Le Centurion, Paris 1991
    • in German: "If you are God's Son ..." sufferings and temptations of Jesus. Translated by Jörg Meuth. R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1991, ISBN 3-417-12480-8
  • La pensée marxiste. La Table ronde, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-7103-2574-8

literature

  • Detlev Langenegger: Overall interpretations of modern technology: Moscovici , Ropohl , Ellul, Heidegger . An interdiscursive problem view. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-88479-501-5 .
  • David Lovekin: Technique, discourse, and consciousness: an introduction to the philosophy of Jacques Ellul , Lehigh Univ. Press, Bethlehem 1991, ISBN 0-93422-301-7 .
  • Joan Mendes France: Jacques Ellul on Religion, Technology, Politics: Conversations with Patrick Troude-Chastenet. Scholars Press 1998. ISBN 978-0-7885-0519-5 .
  • Joyce Main Hanks: The reception of Jacques Ellul's critique of technology. An annotated bibliography of writings on his life and thought (books, articles, reviews, symposia). Edwin Mellen, Lewiston (New York) 2007, ISBN 0-77345-373-3 .
  • Helena M. Jerónimo, José Luís Garcia, Carl Mitcham (Eds.): Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century. Springer, 2013, ISBN 978-9-400-76657-0 .
  • Lou Marin: Biblical Anarchism. The connection between Christianity, nonviolence and anarchism in Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) . In: Sebastian Kalicha (ed.): Christian anarchism. Facets of a libertarian current . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution , Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-939045-21-2 . Pp. 147-172
  • Jacob E. Van Vleet: Dialectical Theology and Jacques Ellul: An Introductory Exposition. Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2014, ISBN 978-1-4514703-90 .

Web links

notes

  1. ↑ see honors
  2. ↑ Jacques Ellul on the website of Yad Vashem (English)
  3. ^ Sud-Ouest newspaper, October 31, 2013. Figures as of January 1, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Ellul, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French sociologist and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bordeaux
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1994
Place of death Bordeaux