Jacques Ellul

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Ellul's most prominent theme was the danger to human liberty and faith posed by modern technology. He did not intend to ban modern technology or methods, but rather to change our perception of modern technology and methods as a tool rather than a regulator of status quo. The Technological Society and Propaganda: The Evolution of Men's Attitudes are two of his most popular books.

Ellul, who was trained as a sociologists, approached the issue of technology and human behavior from a dialectical viewpoint. His writings are often concerned with the emergence of a technological tyranny over humanity. He continued to explore the sacredness of the modern age as a philosopher and theologian. A group of former Ellul students founded the International Jacques Ellul Society in 2000. The society, which includes scholars from a variety of fields, is dedicated to continuing Ellul's legacy and exploring the current relevance and implications of his work.

Life and influences

Jacques Ellul was born in Bordeaux, France, on January 6, 1912, to Marthe Mendes (Portuguese) and Joseph Ellul (initially an Eastern Orthodox Christian, but later a Voltarian deist by conviction; born in Malta of an Italo-Maltese father and Serb mother). He wanted to be a naval officer as a young boy, but his father made him study law. In 1937, he married Yvette Lensvelt.

Ellul was educated at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris. He was a leader of the French resistance during World War II. By Yad Vashem in 2001, he was given the title Righteous among the Nations for his efforts to save Jews. He served as a layman in the Reformed Church of France and was elected into a high position within the National Council and held a high rank in it.

Ellul was one of Bernard Charbonneau's most admired colleagues, a writer from the Aquitaine region and a promoter of the French personalism movement. During 1929-1930's academic school year, they met through the Protestant Student Union. Both men acknowledged the utmost influence they had on the other.

Ellul's three main sources of inspiration by the early 1930s were Karl Marx, Sven Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth. Ellul was first introduced to Karl Marx's theories during a Joseph Benzacar economics lecture course; Ellul continued Marx and became a prolific exempire of his theories. He also encountered Kierkegaard's Christian existentialism during the same period. Ellul, Marx, and Kierkegaard were among his two most influential writers, and the only two authors whose work he read in entirety. He also considered Karl Barth, who was a leader of the resistance against the German state church in World War II, to be the twentieth century's greatest theologian. Ellul said that his father played a huge part in his life and that he considered him his role model in addition to these intellectual influences.

Both loyal followers and vehement critics were rewarded by these societal influences. Citation is required. Ellul reiterates Barth's polar dialectic of the Word of God, in which the Gospel both judges and renews the world, influenced Ellul's theological perspective. Ellul's book "This which desacralizes a given fact, also becomes the new sacred presence."

Ellul professed himself a Christian in 1932, after what he describes as "a very brutal and fast conversion." Ellul argues he was about 17 (1929-29), 30), and enjoying the summer with a few colleagues in Blanquefort, France. Ellul knew (without seeing or hearing anything) that he was in the presence of a mystery so overwhelming that it penetrated the very center of his being when translating Faust alone in the house. He rode a bicycle and fled, finding later that he had been in the presence of God. Ellul said that this event started the conversion process, which then continued over a number of years. Though Ellul professed as a Protestant, he was skeptical of church authority in general because the church dogmas did not place enough emphasis on Jesus or Christian scripture's teachings.

Ellul was also active in the worldwide ecumenical movement, but he became vocally critical of the campaign later on for what he felt were indiscriminate endorsements of political establishments. Ellul grew to love Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who convinced him that the establishment of new institutions from the grass roots level was the most effective way to establish an anarchist society. Ellul's view is close to that of anarcho-syndicalism, but the type of change Ellul wanted was a change that would result in an Anarchist society based on federation and Proudhon's Mutualist economics. He said Jesus was not simply a socialist but anarchist, and that "anarchism is the fullest and most serious form of socialism."

Ellul has been credited with coining the phrase "Think globally, act locally." He often said he was born in Bordeaux by chance, but that it was by chance that he spent almost all of his academic life there.

Following his wife, Yvette's death on April 16, Ellul fell into deep grief. He died in Pessac, three years later, on May 19th, 1994.

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