Curtis A. Bronzan

The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?, by Slavoj Žižek, John Milbank, and Creston Davis must have sold well. The three are teaming up again with Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology. Amazon’s description asserts:

The rediscovery of the Apostle Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking developments in recent philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church. These philosophers view Paul as having a revolutionary understanding of authority and politics. Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul’s new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Žižek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock.

I’ve engaged a bit of this “rediscovery” in Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, which may be engaged by Milbank in chapter 8 of Paul’s New Moment, entitled “Thinking Backwards, Again! Badiou and the Death of Philosophy.” I look forward to possibly reading this one, though Žižek and Milbank’s sparring previously proved a bit tiresome. Adam Kotsko, author of Žižek and Theology has written of Žižek (and then Milbank) some thoughts I’m tempted agree with:

What I do find important is that very bizarre thing that seems to have happened in Christ and in his wake. People who help me, directly or indirectly, to think about that wierd (sic) happening in new or more rigorous ways inspire gratitude in me. People who do not inspire boredom and frustration in me – or in the case of Milbank, both. I think that’s probably a more helpful way of divvying things up, if we must so divvy.

Notice also Baker’s description, which is searching for a different audience, it seems:

Are there moments in Christian history when non-Christians in some ways understand Christianity better than Christians? The church fathers and mothers often did especially acute theology because they could remember well what it meant to inhabit non-Christian philosophies and religions. The Hindu Ghandi saw and acted on something in Christ’s witness that many confessing Christians overlooked. Today, some leading secular thinkers have turned to a surprising source: the Apostle Paul. The rediscovery of Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking developments in recent philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church.

Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul’s new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Zizek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock.

Paul’s New Moment will be of interest to theologians, philosophers, cultural critics, and literary scholars.

David Bazan’s forthcoming Curse Your Branches has been spinning in my car all day; round and round in all it’s brilliance. While Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) has always engaged in the theological, in recent years his perspective has shifted considerably, from evangelical Christian to agnostic, if not atheist.

Though each of Curse Your Branches’ ten songs engage a lofty – and rather modern – theological construct, the final verse of the last song on the record, “The Stitches”, sounds like the Seattle area songwriter has been sitting down with the Slovenian “Elvis of cultural theory.” Curse Your Branches concludes thusly:

When Job asked you a question
You answered “Who are you?”
That sounds a bit defensive
Did you just bite off more than you could chew?

In his recent theological title fight with John Milbank – and in conversation with Vattimo and Caputo’s weak thought – Marxist, militant atheist Slavoj Žižek (the aforentioned “Elvis”) equates Christ’s death with Job’s suffering.

Christ’s death on the Cross thus means we should immediately ditch the notion of God as a transcendent caretaker who guarantees the happy outcome of our acts… (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55)

He goes on:

What, then, if this is what Job percieved and what kept him silent: he remained silent neither because he was crushed by God’s overwhelming presence, nor because he wanted thereby to indicate his continuous resistance – the fact that God avoided answering his question – but because, in a gesture of silent solidarity, he percieved the divine impotence. God is neither just nor unjust, but simply impotent. What Job suddenly understood was that it was not him, but God himself who was in effect on trial in Job’s calamities, and he failed the test miserably. (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55-56)

Žižek concludes this section asserting the “radical notion” that Job even foresaw Christ’s suffering!

How interesting that both Bazan and Žižek engage faith – at least in part – from the perspective of a narrative that predates any other canonical book. Are there deconstructive efforts at work here that end up leaving the rest of the Narrative on the cutting room floor?

Ought Job and Jesus be so closely intertwined? And which should interpret the other? And what of the charge of impotence? Can it be justified if we gather up all that has been cut out?

A conversation has been sparked recently by Peter Rollins’ desire to form a reading group “dedicated to introducing and exploring the work of key theorists who are contributing important insights into Christianity.”

In this corner, Geoffrey Holsclaw argues that to consider Žižek a theologian is wrong in “either one or two ways,” to misunderstand his project or misunderstand the practice of theology. Holsclaw states,”the only way to understand Žižek as a theologian is to serious (sic) downgrade theology itself.”

In this corner, Peter Rollins asserts that in Žižek and Milbank’s The Monstrosity of Christ, “we get something more than a philosophy, anthropology, sociology or psychology of religion,” namely a theology in the vein of Altizer and the Death of God movement.

While I understand Holsclaw’s perspective, my money is on Rollins in this one. Adam Kotsko, author of the recent Žižek and Theology,explicates my thoughts well in his response to the conversation at The Church and Postmodern Culture:

What I do find important is that very bizarre thing that seems to have happened in Christ and in his wake. People who help me, directly or indirectly, to think about that wierd happening in new or more rigorous ways inspire gratitude in me.

His book is the first of a new series offered by T&T Clark which (will) examine(s) other “atheists” and their contributions to theology, including Badiou, Derrida, and Nietzsche.

I don’t want to wade into this debate here, but instead offer some recent thoughts from my ongoing research regarding Jesus’ temple action as a way to reform our ecclesiological communities. For, while many in both church ministry and theological education would question the importance – or even argue against the legitimacy – of engaging with an avowed Marxist, materialist atheist (including Holsclaw?), Žižek provides a helpful perspective with which to engage the study of religion in contemporary culture.

Žižek draws heavily upon Hegelian dialectical philosophy, Marxist social theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and has, throughout his career, drawn insights from Christian theology. Of late, however, he has become one of many contemporary theorists who have turned to religion, though he would most likely bristle to be included in such a grouping. Kotsko has noted that this “turn” should be viewed instead as

having been occasioned by the tensions within his more strictly philosophical work on subjectivity, ethics and political theory. (Žižek and Theology, 6)

Or, to put this recent engagement in his own words, Žižek asserts:

The subversive kernel of Christianity… is available only to a materialist approach – and… to become a true dialectical materialist, one should go through the Christian experience.” (The Puppet and the Dwarf, 6)

My thesis, then, in engaging with Žižek throughout the posts to follow, is that his reading of Christianity – heretical, sideways, or short circuited though it may be – provides a significant support for de(con)structing the temple(s) of contemporary Christianity.