J’avais déjà lu la traduction anglaise en 2025, mais depuis que j’ai reçu un exemplaire du livre original, j’éprouvais le désir de le relire. Vers la fin, je trouve que je ne comprend pas tout à fait ce qu’Ellul essaie de dire (c’est peut-être une question de compétence linguistique, mais je crois avoir éprouvé le même sentiment en lisant en traduction aussi), mais il y a des idées bien fortes dans ce livre aussi. En fait, il est fort intéressant de relire ce livre après avoir lu quelques-uns de ses autres livres pour voir combien de ses idées sont déjà présentes en 1948.

Yesterday, I got another opportunity to preach for the Beyond the Walls online Community of Christ congregation based in Toronto, Ontario. I enjoy contributing to their services when I can, and I was glad that the winter storm here in Kentucky (and so many other places) spared our power and internet so that I could show up as planned. I got to work Jacques Ellul into my sermon (perhaps unsurprising, given how often I reference him these days), though I did oversimplify his thinking a bit and would appreciate the opportunity to dive a bit deeper into what he had to say at some point.

One of the most interesting recurring themes in Jacques Ellul’s writing is one that contrasts reality (or facts) with truth. As Ellul distinguishes them, facts are what are and—implicitly—what must be conformed to, whereas truth is what ought to be. Ellul’s The Humiliation of the Word explores this distinction at length, but it crops up in plenty of his other writing. In fact, I’m currently reading his Présence au monde moderne (or rereading it, depending on what one considers reading the original French after reading the English translation last year), and I’m delighted to see that he makes this distinction as early as this 1948 book.