Jacques Ellul's Conversions and Protestant Theology

Jacques Ellul was converted to Marx and then to Christianity 4 years later. He lived with this contradiction until his death in 1994. Marx and the Bible were dialectical in his mind, with his sociological pole rooted in Marx and his religious commitments in Karl Barth. God's otherness and His freedom in Barth are the central components of Ellul's theology and theological method. Thus, he was not a pessimist but dialectically saw God's perfect freedom as the source of human freedom over against technological necessity. For life to be meaningful in high-tech societies, a total personal transformation is necessary. Ellul challenged Christians to prophetic witness—not as fatalists but to confront la technique without compromise.