Jacques Ellul Quotes - Page 2

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• We have to admit that there is an immeasurable distance between all that we read in the Bible and the practice of the Church and of Christians.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, Distance, Practice

  Jacques Ellul (2011). “The Subversion of Christianity”, p.7, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, Agents, Dimensions

  28 Copy quote

• Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity.

  Jacques Ellul

  Victory, Related

  "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul, translated by John Wilkinson, (p. xxxii), 1964.

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• Propaganda begins when dialogue ends.

  Jacques Ellul

  Propaganda, Ends, Dialogue

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• The machine is a tool. But it is not a neutral tool. We are deeply influenced by the machine while using it.

  Jacques Ellul

  Tools, Machines

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• God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.

  Jacques Ellul

  Prayer, Character, Giving

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• Because of the myth of progress, it is much easier to sell a man an electric razor than a straight-edged one.

  Jacques Ellul

  Men, Progress, Razors

  "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes". Book by Jacques Ellul, translated by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner,, 1965.

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• Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization.

  Jacques Ellul

  Taken, Civilization, Technique

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• For in a civilization which has lost the meaning of life, the most important thing a Christian can do is to live, and life, understood from the point of view of faith, has an extraordinary explosive force.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, Prayer, Views

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• When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action. Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, Prayer, Men

  Jacques Ellul, Geoffrey W. Bromiley (2011). “The Judgment of Jonah”, p.23, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• People think that they have no right to judge a fact - all they have to do is to accept it. Thus from the moment that technics, the State, or production, are facts, we must worship them as facts, and we must try to adapt ourselves to them. This is the very heart of modern religion, the religion of the established fact, the religion on which depend the lesser religions of the dollar, race, or the proletariat, which are only expressions of the great modern divinity, the Moloch of fact.

  Jacques Ellul

  Heart, Thinking, Race

  "The Presence of the Kingdom" by Jacques Ellul, translated by Olive Wyon, Seabury paperback, (p. 37), 1967.

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• Almost always, it is the conviction that 'I am right' or 'my cause is the cause of justice' that triggers violence. That is, ...the moment propaganda does its work, violence is unleashed. And violence can be reduced by countering this propaganda.

  Jacques Ellul

  Justice, Doe, Violence

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• Christians have always tended to transform the Christian Revelation into a Christian religion. Christianity is said to be a religion like any other or, conversely, some Christians try to show that it is a better religion than the others. People attempt to take possession of God. Theology claims to explain everything, including the being of God. People tend to transform Christianity into a religion because the Christian faith obviously places people in an extremely uncomfortable position ­ that of freedom guided only by love and all in the context of God's radical demand that we be holy.

  Jacques Ellul

  Christian, People, Religion

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• Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.

  Jacques Ellul

  Technology, Play, World

  "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul, translated by Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner, Vintage Books, New York, (p. xvii), 1973.

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• I believe that the biblical teaching is clear. It always contests political power. It incites to "counterpower," to "positive" criticism, to an irreducible dialogue (like that between king and prophet in Israel), to antistatism, to a decentralizing of the relation, to an extreme relativizing of everything political, to an anti-ideology, to a questioning of all that claims either power or dominion (in other words, of all things political), and finally, if we may use a modern term, to a kind of "anarchism" (so long as we do not relate the term to the anarchist teaching of the nineteenth century).

  Jacques Ellul

  Kings, Teaching, Biblical

  "The Subversion of Christianity" by Jacques Ellul, translated by G. Bromiley, (p. 116), 1986.

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• We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.

  Jacques Ellul

  Bible, Biblical, Thinking

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• (Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth

  Jacques Ellul

  Character, Two, Manipulation

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• No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.

  Jacques Ellul

  Levels, May, Matter

  Jacques Ellul (2011). “Anarchy and Christianity”, p.34, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass. It is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.

  Jacques Ellul

  Men, Influence, Propaganda

  "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes". Book by Jacques Ellul, translated by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner, 1965.

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• According to the International Institute for Environment and Development, the annual amount spent globally on advertising aimed at increasing consumption topped $430 billion in 1998.Consumer capitalism is dedicated to the proposition that production is good in itself, no matter what is produced. The net effect is the massive production of absurd, empty and useless items which are nevertheless utterly serious since we earn our living from them, and dedicate our leisure time to them.

  Jacques Ellul

  Development, Useless, Matter

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• Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it.

  Jacques Ellul

  Men, Light, Technique

  "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul, translated by John Wilkinson, (p. 142), 1964.

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• The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.

  Jacques Ellul

  Suicide, World, Accepting

  "The Presence of the Kingdom" by Jacques Ellul, translated by Olive Wyon, Seabury paperback, (p. 28), 1967.

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• The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action.

  Jacques Ellul

  Ideas, Action, Propaganda

  "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes". Book by Jacques Ellul, translated by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner, 1965.

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• Am I a pessimist? Not at all. I am convinced that the history of the human race, no matter how tragic, will ultimately lead to the Kingdom of God. I am convinced that all the works of humankind will be reintegrated in the work of God, and that each of us, no matter how sinful, will ultimately be saved.

  Jacques Ellul

  Race, Kingdoms, Matter

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• The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal - the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing...There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in a sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or radio program there.

  Jacques Ellul

  Fashion, Mean, Doors

  "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul, translated by Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner, Vintage Books, New York, (p. 9), 1973.

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