Abstract
Jacques Ellul formulated his influential critique of technological society in the decade following the Second World War, as one of a group of theologians and church people concerned about technology and social justice in war-torn Europe. They are a group I will call the Technology and Social Justice Movement. Their work was sponsored by the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and Ellul was its most recognizable speaker. Ellul visualized a society founded neither on Marxist nor capitalist terms, by radically rejecting the concepts of planning inherent in both. This paper analyzes the speech that brought Ellul to international attention, at the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948, and draws on the correspondence and papers of Ellul held in the Geneva archives of the World Council of Churches. Ellul’s contributions required him to merge what he would later distinguish as his theological and sociological approaches. I argue that Ellul’s Amsterdam contributions illustrate how theologically grounded and truly radical his critique of technological society was.
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- 1.
The Ecumenical Council had formed commissions to prepare for the Amsterdam Assembly: I, The Universal Church in God’s Design; II, The Church’s Witness to God’s Design; III, The Church and the Disorder of Society; and IV, The Church and the International Disorder.
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Commission I of the Assembly took up the need for church unity in a period of human disruption; Commission II considered how the church might put the Gospel to work at the social level; Commission IV examined the church’s approach to international affairs, its relationship with national governments, for example, and with international bodies like the United Nations or the International Labor Office. They all made concrete recommendations: Commission I, that the Unified Church recognize and continue to discuss divisive issues; from Commission II came a three-pronged strategy of missions and evangelization; and Commission IV urged that domestic and international action be taken to encourage observance of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
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The relentless first chapter of Tony Judt’s Postwar is a brilliant description of this apocalyptic topography (see Judt 2005: 13–40).
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Comments in languages other than these three were noted and filed, some commenters wrote on Dutch, for example, but not translated and distributed.
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It was this volume that Ellul objected to in the opening pages of The Technological Society (1964: 3). In the 1950s Oldham would go on to author an influential volume on Work in Modern Society.
- 6.
References
Ellul, Jacques. 1960. La technique et les premiers chapitres de la Genèse. Foi et Vie 59: 97–113.
Ellul, Jacques. 1964. The technological society. Trans. John Wilkinson. New York: Vintage Books.
Ellul, Jacques. 2010. On freedom, love, and power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gaines, Edward P. 1966. The world council of churches: A study of its background and history. Peterborough: Richard R. Smith Noone House.
Judt, Tony. 2005. Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin Press.
Menninger, David C. 1975. Jacques Ellul: A tempered profile. Review of Politics 37: 236–246.
Oldham, O.H. 1950. Work in modern society. London/New York: SCM Press/WCC & Morehouse-Gorham.
Vanderburg, William H. 2010. How the science versus religion debate has missed the point of Genesis 1 and 2: Jacques Ellul (1912–1994). Bulletin of Science Technology Society 30: 430–445.
Archival Sources
Assembly Commission III on “The Church and the Disorder of Society,” Report on Commission III (First unofficial draft), A2 Study Organization d. Study Organization 1946–1948, Box 24.090, Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
Assembly Commission III on “The Church and the Disorder of Society,” Report on Commission III (Complementary Statement), A2 Study Organization d. Study Organization 1946–1948, Box 24.090, Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
Bliss, Kathleen. 1948. “‘The Church and the Disorder of Society’, An Address at the First Assembly, World Council of Churches, August 24, 1948, Amsterdam,” WCC Assembly Amsterdam 1948, Box 31.003, file 9.1. Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
Ellul, Jacques. 1948. Amsterdam statement. World Council of Churches, WCC Assembly, Amsterdam, 1948. Box 31.003, file 9.2. Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
Report of Commission III “The Church and the Disorder of Society”. n.d. (meeting held in 1948), Received by the Assembly and commended to the churches for their serious consideration and appropriate action, Man’s disorder and god’s design: An omnibus volume of The Amsterdam Assembly Series, New York: Harper & Brothers, V. III.
“The meeting continued on June 24th, at 8:15 p.m.,” pp. 2–3, Amsterdam Commission III, “The Church and the Disorder of Society,” I, Study Department Amsterdam Assembly, Commissions II and III, Witness (II) and Society (I) vom 1947 bis 1948, Box 24.057, Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
“Wednesday morning, 9:30 June 25th, 1948. Minutes of Meeting of Commission III” Amsterdam Commission III, “The Church and the Disorder of Society,” I, Study Department Amsterdam Assembly, Commissions II and III, Witness (II) and Society (I) vom 1947 bis 1948, Box 24.057. Archives of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
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Alexander, J.K. (2013). Radically Religious: Ecumenical Roots of the Critique of Technological Society. In: Jerónimo, H., Garcia, J., Mitcham, C. (eds) Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6658-7_14
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