many tendencies, often contradictory but all covered by the
relevant ‘ism.’ In a final loosening of the original knot of life and
thought, which are generally united in the creator and his
immediate disciples, the ‘ism’ sometimes takes the form of a
practical sociological trend, a type of organization or mass
movement, such as socialism, communism, royalism, or
republicanism.
At this point there is an even greater distance between the rock
of the first life and thought and the sandy wastes that now engulf it.
Marxism and what has been derived from it for a whole century
have nothing in common. It is the same whenever an ‘ism’ is made
in the name of some creator, such as Thomism, Lutheranism, or
Rousseauism. It seems that in each case the deviation and
subversion mentioned are typical of the Western world. We need
not go into that here. The only point is that the ‘ism’ aspect of
Christianity is not peculiar to it. Similar results occur in many
other cases. Nevertheless, the perversion or subversion here is
much more vast and aberrant and incomprehensible than any of the
others.” 4Ellul is correct in asserting that the attempted reduction
of Christianity into an ...ism is a greater perversion than
any other. The living reality of the divine life of Jesus
Christ that constitutes Christianity, cannot be killed and
compressed into a closed casket of an ideological construct.
The theories and concepts of man can, and are, boiled down
into ...isms, but how can the ontological dynamic of the
infinite Living God be compressed into a humanly
manageable package of thought? Impossible, except it be
decimated and destroyed, having been reduced to
something that no longer represents the reality of the
expression of God in Jesus Christ.