Against the Titans: Theology and the Martyrdom of Alfred Delp

Peter Nguyen, SJ

doi:10.5771/9781978704787

Summary

Modern history has been marked by the emergence of the figure of the titan, who yearns for self-mastery in the face of death and who denounces modernity’s tendency to reduce the individual to the lockstep of need and gratification. But what of those few who rejected the impulses of the titan, those militant desires to exert supremacy over all? The story recounted in Against the Titans: The Theology of the Martyrdom of Alfred Delp examines one martyr’s rejection of the titan’s perversion of heroism and sacrifice. The life of Delp, a Jesuit priest, embodied a Christian theology of martyrdom, articulated over against a virile fundamentalism that rejected divine sovereignty. As Peter Nguyen, S.J., shows, Delp opposed Ernst Jünger’s active nihilism by revealing a more authentic and no less demanding existence, one that came not from acquiring self-mastery, but rather from an emptying out of self — an indiferencia, an unselving — through a radical dependence upon God.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2020
Copyright Year: 2020
ISBN-Print: 978-1-9787-0477-0
ISBN-Online: 978-1-9787-0478-7
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 292
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 18
Chapter 1 Alfred Delp’s Faith and Ministries No access Pages 19 - 70
Chapter 2 The Militant Appeal of Titanism No access Pages 71 - 120
Chapter 3 Against the Hypertrophy of Sacrifice No access Pages 121 - 172
Chapter 4 The Heart of Christ and the Theology of Kenosis No access Pages 173 - 218
Chapter 5 Pneumatic Existence No access Pages 219 - 266
Conclusion No access Pages 267 - 274
Bibliography No access Pages 275 - 282
Index No access Pages 283 - 290
About the Author No access Pages 291 - 292