Dis-enclosure : the deconstruction of Christianity / Jean-Luc Nancy ; translated by Bettina Bergo, Gabril Malenfant, and Michael B. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nancy, Jean-Luc.

Series:

Perspectives in continental philosophy.

Perspectives in continental philosophy

Standardized Title:

Déclosion. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deconstruction.

Philosophy and religion--History--20th century.

Philosophy and religion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (203 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book is a profound and eagerly anticipated investigation into what is left of a monotheistic religious spirit—notably, a minimalist faith that is neither confessional nor credulous. Articulating this faith as works and as an objectless hope, Nancy deconstructs Christianity in search of the historical and reflective conditions that provided its initial energy. Working through Blanchot and Nietzsche, re-reading Heidegger and Derrida, Nancy turns to the Epistle of Saint James rather than those of Saint Paul, discerning in it the primitive essence of Christianity as hope. The “religion that provided the exit from religion,” as he terms Christianity, consists in the announcement of an end. It is the announcement that counts, however, rather than any finality. In this announcement there is a proximity to others and to what was once called parousia. But parousia is no longer presence; it is no longer the return of the Messiah. Rather, it is what is near us and does not cease to open and to close, a presence deferred yet imminent. In a demystified age where we are left with a vision of a self-enclosed world—in which humans are no longer mortals facing an immortal being, but entities whose lives are accompanied by the time of their own decline—parousia stands as a question. Can we venture the risk of a decentered perspective, such that the meaning of the world can be found both inside and outside, within and without our so-immanent world? The deconstruction of Christianity that Nancy proposes is neither a game nor a strategy. It is an invitation to imagine a strange faith that enacts the inadequation of life to itself. Our lives overflow the self-contained boundaries of their biological and sociological interpretations. Out of this excess, wells up a fragile, overlooked meaning that is beyond both confessionalism and humanism.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Translators’ Foreword

Opening

Atheism and Monotheism

A Deconstruction of Monotheism

The Judeo-Christian (on Faith)

A Faith That Is Nothing at All

An Experience at Heart

Verbum caro factum

The Name God in Blanchot

Blanchot’s Resurrection

Consolation, Desolation

On a Divine Wink

An Exempting from Sense

‘‘Prayer Demythified’’

The Deconstruction of Christianity

Dis-Enclosure

Appendix. Far from Substance

Notes

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-190).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612698781

9780823258765

0823258769

9781282698789

1282698788

9780823237579

0823237575

9780823228379

0823228371

OCLC:

1227050849