37 Facts About Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist.

The dominant theme of Jacques Ellul's work proved to be the threat to human freedom and religion created by modern technology.

Jacques Ellul did not seek to eliminate modern technology or technique but sought to change our perception of modern technology and technique to that of a tool rather than regulator of the status quo.

Jacques Ellul's writings are frequently concerned with the emergence of a technological tyranny over humanity.

In 2000, the International Jacques Ellul Society was founded by a group of former Ellul students.

Jacques Ellul was born in Bordeaux, France, on January 6,1912, to Marthe Mendes and Joseph Ellul.

Jacques Ellul was educated at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris.

Jacques Ellul was a layman in the Reformed Church of France and attained a high position within it as part of the National Council.

Jacques Ellul was best friends with Bernard Charbonneau, who was a writer from the Aquitaine region and a protagonist of the French personalism movement.

In large measure, and especially in those of his books concerned with theological matters, Jacques Ellul restates the viewpoints held by Barth, whose polar dialectic of the Word of God, in which the Gospel both judges and renews the world, shaped Jacques Ellul's theological perspective.

In 1932, after what he describes as "a very brutal and very sudden conversion", Jacques Ellul professed himself a Christian.

Jacques Ellul believes he was about 17 and spending the summer with some friends in Blanquefort, France.

Jacques Ellul jumped on a bike and fled, concluding eventually that he had been in the presence of God.

Jacques Ellul was prominent in the worldwide ecumenical movement, although he later became sharply critical of the movement for what he felt were indiscriminate endorsements of political establishments.

Jacques Ellul came to like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who convinced him that the creation of new institutions from the grass roots level was the best way to create an anarchist society.

Jacques Ellul fell into a deep grief following the 16 April 1991 death of his wife, Yvette.

Jacques Ellul died three years later, on 19 May 1994 in Pessac.

Jacques Ellul began publishing theological discussions early, with such books as The Presence of the Kingdom.

Jacques Ellul attacked this school, and practitioners of it such as Harvey Cox, as out of accord not with Christian doctrinal traditions, but reality itself, namely what he perceived as the irreducible religiosity of the human race, a devotion that has worshiped idols such as rulers, nations, and in more recent times materialism, scientism, technology and economics.

Jacques Ellul stated that one of the problems with these "new theologies" was:.

Jacques Ellul espouses views on salvation, the sovereignty of God, and ethical action that appear to take a deliberately contrarian stance toward established, "mainstream" opinion.

In most of his theologically oriented writings, Jacques Ellul effectively dismisses those charges as stemming from a radical confusion between religions as human phenomena and the unique claims of the Christian faith, which are not predicated upon human achievement or moral integrity whatsoever.

Similar political ideas to Jacques Ellul's appear in the writings of a corresponding friend of his, the American William Stringfellow, and long-time admirer Vernard Eller, author of Christian Anarchy.

Jacques Ellul identified the State and political power as the Beast in the Book of Revelation.

Jacques Ellul tried to get some for them through an old school friend of his and claimed that this was probably the one time in his life when he was sufficiently motivated to commit an act of violence.

Jacques Ellul did not go with the anarchists primarily because he had only recently met the woman that would become his wife and did not wish to leave her.

Jacques Ellul believed that social justice and true freedom were incompatible.

Jacques Ellul believed that a Christian could choose to join a movement for justice, but in doing so, must admit that this fight for justice is necessarily, and at the same time, a fight against all forms of freedom.

Jacques Ellul believed that when a Christian decides to act it must be in a way that is specifically Christian.

Jacques Ellul acknowledges that some have used this as an excuse to do nothing, but points out how some death-of-God advocates use this to claim that "we ourselves must undertake to establish social justice".

Jacques Ellul maintained that without a belief in the traditional Judeo-Christian conception of God, love and the pursuit for justice becomes selective, for the only relation left is the horizontal one.

Jacques Ellul discusses these topics in detail in his landmark work, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes.

Jacques Ellul viewed the power of the media as another example of technology exerting control over human destiny.

Jacques Ellul cannot remember them all, or coordinate them, or understand them; if he does not want to risk losing his mind, he will merely draw a general picture from them.

Jacques Ellul agreed with Jules Monnerot who stated that "All individual passion leads to the suppression of all critical judgment with regard to the object of that passion".

Jacques Ellul wants to act for the sake of justice, peace, progress, but does not know how.

In explaining the significance of freedom and the purpose for resisting the enslavement of humans via acculturation, Jacques Ellul rejects the notion that this is due to some supposed supreme importance linked to humanity.