Jacques Ellul - The Presence of the Kingdom

As I’m sure we’re all aware, the American church’s World War II-era philosopher of choice is C.S. Lewis, a writer who possessed astounding intellect, but could whittle grand theological ideas down to their base level. His books have the feeling of a wise old grandfather imparting the wisdom of the world to his tiny grandchildren.

Jacques Ellul was Lewis’s French counterpart, a leader of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France, and a brilliant professor at the University of Bordeaux. While Lewis’s books are read by millions of Christians every year, Ellul’s best known works (The Technological Society, The Subversion of Christianity and The Presence of the Kingdom) are only still in print due to the efforts of a loyal few. If Ellul’s books were studied as closely as C.S. Lewis, perhaps the American Church wouldn’t be struggling with the crisis of identity it now faces.

Late last Summer, I took it upon myself to work through some of Ellul’s writings. The best introduction, I was told, is Presence of the Kingdom, which was written in 1948.

Presence of the Kingdom is a mere 132 pages, but it took me four months to read. Most of this is due to me just not being smart enough to process all of what Ellul has to say, but readers should be warned that Kingdom, while concisely written, can also be dryly academic. The Ellul book I’m reading now, Anarchy and Christianity, was written in 1988 and is far easier to read, due in part, no doubt, to Ellul’s experience as a writer.

Even at a brief 132 pages, Presence of the Kingdom is packed with statements that seem both revolutionary and obvious. The copy of the book I have is underlined, highlighted, starred and noted on every page. Some pages are covered completely in fluorescent yellow ink. Rather than trying to sum up the book, I’ve decided just to flip through and let some of Ellul’s passages speak for themselves.

“…the Christian must not act in exactly the same way as everyone else. He has a part to play in this world which no one else can possibly fulfill. He is not asked to look at the various movements which men have started, choose those which seem ‘good,’ and then support them. He is not asked to give his blessing to any particular human enterprise, nor to support the decisions of man.”

“…it is essential that Christians should be very careful not to be wolves in the spiritual sense - that is, people who try to dominate others. Christians must accept domination of other people, and offer the daily sacrifice of their lives…”

“Modern man can no longer have confidence in the virtues of the individual, in his kindness, or his energy, because we are no longer confronted by individual sins but by the state of sin of humanity.”

“Another solution…consists in the desire to ‘moralize’ or ‘Christianize’ the actions of the world. ‘If the State were Christian, how agreeable it would be to depend upon it; then let us make a Christian State, etc.’ People who take this line aim at having a kind of Christian conception of things: they want to have ‘good’ institutions, ‘good’ morals; they want to know what is ‘the good’ in every situation, and thus to gloss over the actual situation of our present world, covering it up with an ethical glaze - ‘Colorwash the devil in gold, dress him up in white, and perhaps he will become an angel!’”

“…we must give up the idea that we can decrease our sin by our virtues…At the same time, if we take this situation of the Christian seriously, we must refuse to further the disintegrating tendency in the world. We must not say to ourselves, ‘We can’t do anything about it!”

“We are free, because at every moment in our lives we are both judged and pardoned, and are consequently placed in a new situation, free from fatalism, and from the bondage of sinful habits.”

“…We see that the Christian ethic is inseparable from the preaching of the Word…we must come back to this idea that the Christian ethic is not a means of resolving the Christian tension - that is it not a recipe for righteousness…”

“When we speak of the preservation of the world, immediately we envisage participation in the actions which the world thinks are best for it. The world chooses its own methods, draws up its own plan of action…and people often think that if Christians are to help to preserve the world they ought to join in these movements…Thus when everyone was shocked by the demonic character of the Nazi regime, war was presented as a crusade. The world took up arms; Christians took up the same arms, and fought in exactly the same way as the others against these demonic forces.”

All of these passages were in the first 16 pages.

Ellul stands at a unique perspective. When he finally passed on in 1994, he had experienced 82 years of the 20th century: the Great Depression, World War II, the reconstruction of Europe, the rise of the United States and Soviet Union, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the books afterword, written in the late 60’s or early 70’s, Ellul writes of three major revolutions that were occurring at that time: 1) Revolutions against colonial power (like that of Vietnam toward France); 2) Revolutionary movements associated with the Cultural Revolution in China and; 3) Revolutions related to Islam.

Of Islam, Ellul writes, “It is the only power today that challenges world structures…Islam has again set upon its conquest of the world, and it is a true revolution because it denies the modern State (based on the idea that the State and religion must be one single reality) and because it globally rejects Technique, the technical system of the West, in order to return to traditional social structures - which is the most absolute revolution.”

While he decries the Islamist revolution, Ellul also rejects the technical system of the West, and the biggest leap a Westerner like me must make in reading his writing is to accept that Technique has become god for the West. If you’re willing to accept that discussion, and many American Christians are not, Ellul’s words are a fascinating study and prediction of what the American Church has become over 50 years later.

The Presence of the Kingdom is available from Powells Books.