Ep 18 - John D. Caputo ”Derrida / Deconstruction / Weak Theology”

If you are digging what we're doing here, maybe you'd like to make a small donation? Think of it as a tip or an "atta boy guys! Keep at it!" Doing this isn't at all cheap but we'll keep at it as long as we have a few pennies left in our accounts. Click the link below. We'll probably buy books, beer or techincal crap. Love you. squareup.com/store/thedeconstructionists This week we spent some time nerding out with Jack Caputo. Highly influential to the ideas talked about on this podcast, Jack has ben an enormous influence on our friend Peter Rollins, as well as Brian McLaren, Karen Armstrong and many others. This episode is pure gold to those willing to listen and do the hard work of imagining. John D. Caputo, the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus (Syracuse University) and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus (Villanova University) is a hybrid philosopher/theologian who works in the area of radical theology. His most recent book, "The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps," is a sequel to The Weakness of God, which develops his concept of radical theology and engages in dialogue with Malabou, Zizek and Latour. He has also just published "Truth," a part of the Penguin “Philosophy in Transit” series, aimed a general audience. His interest is centered on a poetics of the "event" harbored in the name of God. His past books have attempted to persuade us that hermeneutics goes all the way down ("Radical Hermeneutics"), that Derrida is a thinker to be reckoned with by theology ("The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida"), and that theology is best served by getting over its love affair with power and authority and embracing what Caputo calls, following St. Paul, "The Weakness of God." His notion of the weakness of God, an expression that needs to be interpreted carefully by following what he means by "event," is reducible neither to an orthodox notion of kenosis nor to a death of God theology (Altizer, Zizek), although it bears comparison to both. He has also addressed wider-than-academic audiences in "On Religion," "Philosophy and Theology," and "What Would Jesus Deconstruct?" and has an interest in interacting with working church groups like Ikon and the Emergent Church. While at Syracuse, Professor Caputo specialized in continental philosophy of religion, which means both working on radical approaches to religion and theology in the light of contemporary phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction, and tracking down the traces of radical religious and theological motifs in contemporary continental philosophy. Find out more at: https://www.facebook.com/John.D.Caputo/ Music on this episode is by The Well Pennies You can find them on iTunes or below: www.thewellpennies.com www.facebook.com/thewellpennies