Synopses & Reviews
In the twenty-first century, religion has come under determined attack from secular progressives in documentaries, opinion pieces and international bestsellers. Combative atheists have denounced faiths of every stripe, resulting in a crude intellectual polarization in which religious convictions and heritage must be rejected or accepted wholesale.
In the long unavailable Atheism in Christianity, Ernst Bloch provides a way out from this either/or debate. He examines the origins of Christianity in an attempt to find its social roots, pursuing a detailed study of the Bible and its fascination for ‘ordinary and unimportant’ people. In the biblical promise of utopia and the scriptures’ antagonism to authority, Bloch locates Christianity’s appeal to the oppressed. Through a lyrical yet close and nuanced analysis, he explores the tensions within the Bible that promote atheism as a counter to the authoritarian metaphysical theism imposed by clerical exegesis. At the Bible’s heart he finds a heretical core and the concealed message that, paradoxically, a good Christian must necessarily be a good atheist.
This new edition includes an introduction by Peter Thompson, the Director of the Centre for Enrst Bloch Studies at the University of Sheffield.
Review
Ernst Bloch is the one mainly responsible for restoring honour to the word 'utopia". -- Theodor Adorno
Review
Bloch is not so much a Marxist philosopher ' as he is rather a 'theologian of the revolution". -- Fredric Jameson
Synopsis
"Only an atheist can be a good Christian and only a Christian can be a good atheist," wrote Ernst Bloch. Yet unlike Dawkins and Hitchens, who perceive religion as an opiate handed out by repressive priest- and mullah-run states, it was not enough for Bloch to posit religious belief as a delusion. Belief for him rested in social context. It could not simply be dismissed as "the sigh of the oppressed creature in a hostile world" without recognizing that the sigh contained the pre-illumination of a different, better world. Atheism in Christianityis a detailed historical study of the Bible and its long standing fascination across classes, locating its appeal in the stories that oppose the under-classes to authority and that promise transcendence.
A new introduction by Peter Thompson will bring this classic up to date for modern audiences.
Synopsis
Visionary utopian thinker finds the atheist core of the Bible.
About the Author
Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) is one of the most important German Marxist thinkers of the 20th century and one of the great theorists of utopia. A friend of Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht and Theodor Adorno, his works include The Principle of Hope, Spirit of Utopiaand Traces.