A Theology of Failure
Žižek Against Christian Innocence

Marika Rose (Author)

9780823284078

Hardback, published 7 May 2019

240 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.56 kg

Everyone agrees that theology has failed; but the question of how to understand and respond to this failure is complex and contested. Against both the radical orthodox attempt to return to a time before the theology's failure and the deconstructive theological attempt to open theology up to the hope of a future beyond failure, Rose proposes an account of Christian identity as constituted by, not despite, failure. Understanding failure as central to theology opens up new possibilities for confronting Christianity's violent and kyriarchal history and abandoning the attempt to discover a pure Christ outside of the grotesque materiality of the church.
The Christian mystical tradition begins with Dionysius the Areopagite's uncomfortable but productive conjunction of Christian theology and Neoplatonism. The tensions generated by this are central to Dionysius's legacy, visible not only in subsequent theological thought but also in much twentieth century continental philosophy as it seeks to disentangle itself from its Christian ancestry. A Theology of Failure shows how the work of Slavoj Žižek represents an attempt to repeat the original move of Christian mystical theology, bringing together the themes of language, desire, and transcendence not with Neoplatonism but with a materialist account of the world. Tracing these themes through the work of Dionysius and Derrida and through contemporary debates about the gift, violence, and revolution, this book offers a critical theological engagement with Žižek's account of social and political transformation, showing how Žižek's work makes possible a materialist reading of apophatic theology and Christian identity.

Introduction: Failing 1
1 Ontology and Desire in Dionysius the Areopagite 15
2 Apophatic Theology and Its Vicissitudes 29
3 The Death Drive: From Freud to Žižek 56
4 The Gift and Violence 86
5 Divine Violence as Trauma 119
6 Mystical Theology and the Four Discourses 150
Conclusion: Theology as Failure 175
Acknowledgments 183
Notes 185
Bibliography 235
Index 251