Subversion of Christianity –notite de lectura
The author of this notice is Silviu Man.
WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY,GRAND RAPIDS,MICHIGAN, 1986
(originally published in French as La Subversion du Christianisme, Éditions du Seuil, 1984)
CHAPTER I – THE CONTRADICTIONS
Kirkegaard : Christendom is an effort of the human race to go back walking on all fours, to get rid of Christianity, to do it knavishly under the pretext that this is Christianity, claiming that it is Christianity perfected.
Kirkegaard : In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.
The Holy Spirit is a power that augments human action when we choose to do God’s will.
The Technological Society – notite de lectura
The author of this notice is Silviu Man.
VINTAGE BOOKS, ALBERT A. KNOPF, INC., 1964
(originally published in French as La Technique ou l’enjeu du siècle, Librairie Armand Colin, 1954)
CHAPTER 1 – TECHNIQUES
Technique (as J. Ellul uses the term – S.M.) is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for the given stage of development) in every field of human activity.
We must not think of the problem in the terms of a choice between being determined and being free. We must look at it dialectically, and say that man is in deed determined, but that it is open to him to overcome necessity, and that this act is freedom. Freedom is not static but dynamic; not a vested interest, but a prize continually to be won. The moment man stops and resigns himself, he becomes subject to determinism. He is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably settled in freedom.
SITUATING THE TECHNICAL PHENOMENON
The machine, so characteristic of the nineteenth century, made an abrupt entrance into a society which, from political, institutional and human points of view, was not made to receive it; and man has had to put up with it as best as he can. Men now live in conditions that are less than human. Consider the concentration of out great cities, the slums, the lack of space, of air, of time, the gloomy streets and the sallow lights that confuse night and day. Think of our dehumanized factories, our unsatisfied senses, our working women, our enstrangement from nature. Life in such an environment has no meaning. Consider our public transportantion, in which man is less important than a parcel; our hospitals, in which he is only a number. Yet we call that progress… And the noise, the monster boring into us at every hour in the night without respite.
Jacques Ellul, Conferinţă asupra Apocalipsei Sfântului Ioan (recenzie)
de Radu Iliescu
Sâmbătă, 3 noiembrie 1984, Jacques Ellul a susţinut la Nantes o conferinţă, urmată de discuţii, pe tema ultimului text din Biblie, Apocalipsa lui Ioan Teologul. Observăm în treacăt că subiectul este delicat, greu de abordat fără să simţi o un sentiment de inadecvare, poate de aceea, înainte de a răspunde provocării, conferenţiarul întreabă: „Ce anume vreţi să auziţi?” Politeţe sau prudenţă? Poate amândouă la un loc. Într-adevăr, cum să nu te simţi lejer ex-centric atunci când vorbeşti despre sfârşitul lumii care cultivă frenetic obsesia tinereţii fără bătrâneţe, şi cum să nu ai o senzaţie acută de ex-orbitare când eşafodezi o hermeutică a finalităţii în faţa unui auditoriu îmbibat cu imperativul experimentării fără rost şi înţelepciune? Înainte de a recenza acest discurs, cu reuşitele şi cu stângăciile sale, o reverenţă în faţa aventurii lui Jacques Ellul, a profunzimii şi a modestiei sale, e cum nu se poate mai potrivită…