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SUBVERSION OF
CHRISTIANITY
| 8° CQUES ELLUL
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THE SUBVERSION
_COHFR ISTIANITY
by
Jacques Ellul
TRANSLATED BY
GEOFFREY W. BROMILEY
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Copyright © 1986 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Translated from the French edition, La Subversion du Christianisme,
copyright © Editions du Seuil, janvier 1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ellul, Jacques.
The subversion of Christianity.
Translation of: La subversion du christianisme.
1. Christianity and culture. I. Title.
BR115.C8E4513 1986 270.8'2 86-19826
ISBN 0-8028-0049-1
CONTENTS
Chapter I. The Contradictions
Chapter II. The Chief Forms 19
Chapter III. Desacralization and Sacralization 52
Chapter IV. Moralism 69
Chapter V. The Influence of Islam 95
Chapter VI. Political Perversion 113
Chapter VII. Nihilism and Christianity 137
Chapter VIII. The Heart of the Problem 154
Chapter IX. Dominions and Powers 174
Chapter X. Eppur si muove! 191
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Christendom is an effort of the human race to go back to 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.
The Christianity of Christendom . . . takes away from Christian
— ity the offense, the paradox, etc., and instead of that introduces
probability, the plainly comprehensible. That is, it transforms
Christianity into something entirely different from what it is in the
New Testament, yea, into exactly the opposite; and this is the
Christianity of Christendom, of us men.
In the Christianity of Christendom the Cross has become something
like the child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.
—KIERKEGAARD, “THE INSTANT” 5, 2-3
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Chapter I
THE CONTRADICTIONS
ke
The question that I want to sketch in this work is one that
troubles me most deeply. As I now see it, it seems to be insoluble
and assumes a serious character of historical oddness. It may be
put very simply: How has it come about that the development
of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a
civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we
read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law,
the prophets, Jesus, and Paul? I say advisedly “completely op-
posite.” There is not just contradiction on one point but on all
points. On the one hand, Christianity has been accused of a
whole list of faults, crimes, and deceptions that are nowhere to
be found in the original text and inspiration. On the other hand,
revelation has been progressively modeled and reinterpreted ac-
cording to the practice of Christianity and the church. Critics
have been unwilling to consider anything but this practice, this
concrete reality, absolutely refusing to refer to the truth of what
is said. There is not just deviation but radical and essential
contradiction, or real subversion.
This phenomenon is not at all the same as that which
exists between Marx and the Russia of the Gulags or between
the Koran and the fanatical adherents of Islam. It is not the
same because in these last two cases one may find the root of
the deviation in the text itself. I will leave aside the second case,
which would take us too far afield, and focus on the first. One
can trace back a path from Stalin to Lenin and from Lenin to
g
A THE SUBVERSION OF CHRISTIANITY
Marx. At each stage is an undeniable link between the one and
the other, so that one can easily see that there is deviation and
that the results are tragic, a contradiction of what Marx thought
and wished and hoped. In one respect there is thus an obvious
point of similarity between what takes place in Marxism and in
Christianity. Both have made practice the touchstone of truth
or authenticity. In other words, it is by practice that we have to
appreciate or not the intentions or purity of the doctrine, of the
truth of the origin or source.
The link between praxis and theory in Marx is well known.
One should not forget, however, that it is a circular link. This
means finally that false practice inevitably engenders false the-
ory, and one can see the falsity of practice not only from its
effects (judged by what standard? Marx would undoubtedly have
challenged humanistic or moral emotion in face of the enorm-
ities of Stalin, but he would surely have checked the aggravation
of the power of the state, the dissolution of the class struggle,
the increase of alienation, the practice being judged by the the-
ory that inspired it) but also by the new theory to which it gives
birth. All this was evident in the theoretical expression of the
end of Stalinism and the disappearance of theory among Soviet
leaders who have entered into the structure of the conflict of
states and their own imperialism. Christianity, too, judges itself
by practice. We thus confront a constant challenge in this regard.
The whole revelation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob incessantly comes back to the point that those who keep
God’s commandments will live (cf. Lev. 18:5; Neh. 9:29; Ezek.
20:11). Practice the commandments; the Lord demands this (Deut.
25:16; 27:10). Similarly, evil and death are linked to failure to
practice the commandments or to practice of the usages of other
peoples, of abominable customs (Lev. 18:30). A radical distinc
tion arises between hearing and doing; there are those who hear
but do not do (Ezek. 33:31). Jesus takes up the decisive impor-
tance of practice in almost the same terms. True believers are
those who hear and practice what they hear (Luke 8:21). There
is a parable on the subject that we usually do not hear very well.
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:24-27) we
find the familiar parable of the man who builds his house either
on the rock or on the sand. The house on the rock is solid and
resists the tempest and torrent. The house on the sand collapses.
