Book Description

Offers a profound vision of the Christian epic as the site of the modern apocalyptic reenactment of the original apocalypse. In this series of essays, Thomas J. J. Altizer explores the Christian epic as the site of modern revolutionary apocalyptic reenactments and renewals of the original apocalypse enacted by Jesus Christ and primitive Christianity. Beginning with the pivotal seventeenth-century figures Milton and Spinoza, Altizer analyzes the apocalyptic visions of key figures of modernity, including Blake, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Joyce, often juxtaposing them to surprising and illuminating effect. These revolutionary moments stand in opposition to what Altizer calls the pathological modern counterrevolution that dominates the world today, which is an effect of a new postmodernity and of a progressive dissolution of historical consciousness. Through his analysis of modern apocalyptic moments and thinkers, this book becomes an elegant and accessible guide to Altizer’s own apocalyptic vision and his ultimate project of the total and comprehensive reconstruction of theology. “This is an indispensable work of closure coming from one of contemporary theology’s most lucid, original, rebellious, provocative, and passionate voices. Altizer’s most central and tenaciously held convictions are distilled into this essential testament.” — William Franke, author of Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the Wake of Dante “This book is vintage Altizer: a vast and profound vision of the transformations of interiority, conceptions of the world, and the idea/image of God throughout the time of Western culture. Altizer is an incredible and amazing writer and thinker. I found myself stopped dead in my tracks, left to ponder anew everything that I thought I knew. His intuitions and insights are so penetrating and enlightening that they evoke sheer wonder at the marvel of his accomplishment.” — David E. Klemm, coauthor of Religion and the Human Future: An Essay on Theological Humanism