This book by Jacques Ellul needs very little said about it because it quite completely blew my mind, not by introducing me to new ideas but essentially because it represents a total synthesis of all of what I thought were my most radical systems of ideas I'd encountered and grouped into some kind of holistic critique of modernity but expressed more succintly (not to mention logically) than I would ever have been capable of, and grounded fully and richly in a rigorous exposition of the dynamics of God-headed Spirit-led discipleship rightly understood in opposition to the worldly powers of the twentieth century. No single book* has quite so entirely both affirmed and challenged my personal state of thinking and living. If every church leader read this and digested its truths, there would be an utterly unprecedented surge of repentance from congregations who have conformed too far to comfortably stand against sin; a return to Scripture to listen to Jesus' cry of forgiveness for those lost in the condemned pits of modernity. One of our greatest western prophetic thinkers, to be sure. Partly why I'm writing such a short post about it - it's one of his earliest books and is described as laying out his general systemic viewpoint, and so I will certainly be digging into further detail of his perspectives through others of the many books he wrote.
* As ever with these hyperbolic statements about Christian literature; except the Bible.
* As ever with these hyperbolic statements about Christian literature; except the Bible.
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