The Puppet and the Dwarf

Introduction: The Puppet Called Theology

After announcing the project of his book, Žižek pokes fun at postmoderns who are open to religion as a "culture" or "lifestyle" but are intolerant of "fundamentalists" who "dare to take their beliefs seriously." I can see why: Marxism and Christianity, although opposed in so many ways, are both quaintly absolutist compared to the ironic, relativist stance of postmodernism. I also agree with him that contemporary liberals are incoherent in tolerating everything but intolerance. (This hypocrisy is evident in the current debate over the status of gays in the Anglican church; a conservative bishop was attacked in the streets of London by two Chuch of England priests for condemning homosexuality, a conservative ECUSA church was burned to the ground by gay activists, four men beat a church sexton because of his priest's opposal to the actions of General Convention, and now a homosexual group in England is pressuring the government to refuse a visa to Nigerian bishop Peter Akinola.)

Žižek says "Within this framework of suspended belief, three so-called "post-secular" options are permitted: one is allowed either to praise the wealth of polytheistic premodern religions oppressed by the Judeo-Christian patriarchal legacy; or to stick to the uniqueness of the Jewish legacy, to its fidelity to the encounter with radical Otherness, in contrast to Christianity...In addition to these two options, the only Christian references permitted are the Gnostic or mystical traditions that had to be excluded and repressed in order for the hegemonic figure of Christianity to install itself. Christ himself is OK if we try to isolate the 'original' Christ, 'the rabbi Jesus' not yet inscribed into the Christian tradition proper...one is allowed to praise Paul, if one reinscribes him back into the Jewish legacy--Paul as a radical Jew, an author of Jewish political theology..." In the course of the book he will reject the first two options and defend a version of the third, in which the Gnostic "core"of Christianity is Marxist atheism.