Jacques Ellul on religion, technology, and politics

1. Provincial. Minority. One book. A world without prospects. The Holy Spirit. Political power. The cold monster. Anarchy and Christianity. Reactionary. Humble words. Environmentalists. A libertarian Marx. New philosophers for the old right. Happiness. Intellectual responsibility. Pessimism and Manicheanism. Non-conformism. Non-violence. Means and ends

2. An austere individual. Consecration post-mortem? Work. Availability. The sin of pride. Specialization. Woe betide the polygraph. Presence in a modern world. Le Pen. Computer science. Socialism. Change revolutions. The Algerian war. 3. Father. Mother. Genealogy. Origins. An aristocrat. Sense of honour. The Obrenovic's. Malta. The Jewish calender. The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Pierre Mendes France. Political realism. Christians and politics. No war is just. The power of the "bureaux". The Bible

4. Childhood memories. The Jardin Public. A good fight. Secular state schoolboys versus those from private Catholic schools. Friendship. Roaming around. The Bordeaux quays. The navy or the law? The Arcachon basin. The canoe. Top of the class. Bordeaux smart society. Cold and calculating. Lead soldiers. The army. An obvious candidate for reform. Unpublished poetry. Introspection. A man like any other. Psychoanalysis. 5. The absolute. The Bible. Conversion. A matter between God and myself. School-minded. Goethe. Tacitus. Kierkegaard. Dialectics. Marx. Politics in the lycee. Girls and boys. Law school. Camping in the Pyrenees. Maurice Duverger. The Jeze strikes. A Dutch-looking girl

6. Personalism. The Hitler Youth. The Wandervogel. Scout and anti-scout. Bernard Charbonneau. Camps in the Pyrenees. Cult of effort or of pleasure? At a Nazi meeting. Esprit. Emmanuel Mounier. Pioneers of ecology. The Bordeaux branch of the Friends of Esprit. Letter to Hitler. The third path. Ordre Nouveau. Non-conformists. "Think globally, act locally." The civil war. The power of ideas. Anarchists. George Bataille. The Uriage School. 7. Roman law. The perpetual edict. University career. The Manicipium. The aggregation. Senior lecturer in Strasbourg. Struck off by Vichy. The Gergovian plateau. De Lattre de Tassigny. Back to Bordeaux. Professor on the land. First potato harvest. University's independence. Henri Vizioz. Roger Bonnard. The Resistance. Violence. The National Council for the Resistance. The purge

8. Bordeaux interim city council. Political parties. A prefect. Christianity and power. Serve and not dominate. A wife's influence. The comedy of power. A deanship. Post war purge. The National Liberation Movement. Elections. A systematic non-voter. The democratic game. Direct democracy. Village life during the Occupation. Mass society. Camping with Charbonneau. Mayor of Pessac. 9. Places to write. Anarchists. Totalitarian states. Sources. Bernard Charbonneau. Genuine democracy. Professional politicians. The prevention club. Delinquents and community workers. Elections. Political illusion. Sociology and theology. Objectivity in the social sciences. The author and his work

10. Living fully. Listening to others. The sensitivity of a woman. The friend and the wife. Bernard Charbonneau and Yvette Ellul. The bone of contention. Mother and daughter. South Africa. Jean-Paul Sartre. Crowds. Back versus Mozart. I have no regrets. Foreign languages. Morocco. Hassan II. 11. Freedom of man in the freedom of God. The dilemma of non-believers. The New Jerusalem. Recapitulation. The historical will of man. God is Love. The Word of God. Prophets and false prophets. Democracies and dictatorships

12. Human nature. Natural law. Incarnation. God. Hell. A possible impossibility. Technology and authority. Pessimism. The man of faith and the man of science. The exousiai. God in history. An arbitrary god? Microcomputing and revolution. 13. Technology. Technological society and ecological thinking. Man and nature. Progress. Consciousness raising. A misunderstanding. Political party or counter force? A more frugal society. The economic programme of the Greens. Genesis

14. Man the guinea-pig. Ambivalence of technological progress. The state and bioethics. Voluntary termination of pregnancy. The church and morality. The state faced with miracles. Organ donors. The Bible and blood. The body and eternal life. Gene therapy. Biology and the race struggle. The church and cloning. Medically assisted pregnancies. Biological adultery

15. Bach and Mozart. Leo Ferre. The Threepenny Opera. Delacroix. Michelangelo. Villon. Hugo. Peguy. The empire of nonsense (Aft in the technological society). Dali. Structuralism. Klee. Guernica. Art split asunder. Chilling perfection. Art and technology

Notes:

Includes index