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Gabriel Vahanian,
Tillich and the New Religious Paradigm
Philosophical and Cultural Studies in Religion
Tillich and the New Religious Paradigm represents a creative and
radical engagement with the enduring legacy of Tillich’s thought,
and provides resources for renewing theological reflection in a
secular world. The author does not simply survey Tillich’s theology;
he engages it in a profound intellectual reading that pushes Tillich
beyond Tillich. The secular and utopian aspects of Tillich’s
theology are intensified through a dialectical process of critique
and appropriation. Vahanian confronts Tillichian themes of being,
kairos and the sacred with his own reflections on secularity,
holiness and utopia. He takes issue with some of Tillich’s own
conclusions by spelling out the logic of some of the processes
inherent in Tillich’s theology. Vahanian shows us what Tillich could
look like if pushed to a consistent extreme. This creative
engagement with Tillich’s theology provides new resources for
religious and theological reflection.
Contents
Foreword
Chapter One: From Tillich to Tillich
Chapter Two: A Quest for the New Religious Paradigm
Chapter Three: The Secular: From the Sacred to the Holy
Chapter Four: Utopia and the Sacred – Religion East and West
Chapter Five: Kairos and Utopia
Chapter Six: Word and Sacrament
Chapter Seven: Jesus and the Christ
Chapter Eight: Dogma into Poetry
Notes
Author
During a distinguished tenure as professor
of religion at Syracuse University Gabriel Vahanian wrote several
landmark books, the most well-known and influential of which was
The Death of God. His God and Utopia (1977) led Jaques
Ellul to describe Vahanian as a “true theologian.” In the mid-1980s
Vahanian returned to France to teach at the Université des Sciences
Humane, Strasbourg, after which most of his publications were in
French, and inaccessible to a large part of his audience. Tillich
and the New Religious Paradigm is his first book written in
English in several years. In addition to demonstrating the
significance of Tillich’s thought for contemporary theology, in
Tillich and the New Religious Paradigm Vahanian makes accessible
once again to a large part of the English-speaking world the
profound art of thinking that distinguishes Gabriel Vahanian as a
true theologian.
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