A Theology of Failure

Abstract

Everyone agrees that theology has failed, but the question of how to respond to this failure is contested. Against both radical orthodoxy and deconstructive theology, Rose proposes that Christian identity is constituted by, not despite, failure. Rose shows how the influential work of Slavoj Žižek repeats the original move of Christian mysticism differently, yoking language, desire, and transcendence to a materialist rather than a Neoplatonist account of the world. Tracing these themes through the Dionysius, Derrida, and contemporary debates about the gift, violence, and revolution, Rose’s critical theological engagement with Žižek helps makes possible a materialist reading of Christianity. 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.