After God
by Mark C. Taylor
University of Chicago Press, 2007
Cloth: 978-0-226-79169-2 | Paper: 978-0-226-79171-5 | Electronic: 978-0-226-79172-2
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226791722.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Religion, Mark C. Taylor argues in After God, is more complicated than either its defenders or critics think and, indeed, is much more influential than any of us realize. Our world, Taylor maintains, is shaped by religion even when it is least obvious. Faith and value, he insists, are unavoidable and inextricably interrelated for believers and nonbelievers alike.

The first comprehensive theology of culture since the pioneering work of Paul Tillich, After God redefines religion for our contemporary age. This volumeis a radical reconceptualization of religion and Taylor’s most pathbreaking work yet, bringing together various strands of theological argument and cultural analysis four decades in the making.

Praise for Mark C. Taylor
“The distinguishing feature of Taylor’s career is a fearless, or perhaps reckless, orientation to the new and to whatever challenges orthodoxy. . . . Taylor’s work is playful, perverse, rarefied, ingenious, and often brilliant.”—New York Times Magazine

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Mark C. Taylor is professor of religion and chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Hiding and Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

"A most engaging example of contemporary American religious thought. . . . Much can be learned from the historicity of critical theory and its expansive socio-cultural analysis."
— Marc P. Lalonde, Journal of Religion and Culture

"If you have never been able to figure out what Mark Taylor is up to, read After God. It brings to a head everything he has been saying over the years in an engaging summa theologiae tayloriensis. Composed in readable English, it is a work of maturity of a major American thinker—clear, sober, interdisciplinary, full of theory, and ending with down-to-earth warnings about what we are doing to the water. Taylor has never made more sense, never made it more sensibly, cognetly, and cautiously. He makes it clear that the 'death of God' . . . is all about life, just the way the seed must die in order to give life."
— John D. Caputo, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Figures

Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Religion Visible and Invisible

Against Theory

Networking Symbols

Three Ways of Being Religious

The Divided Subject

The Invisible Hand

Privatization, Decentralization, Deregulation

Freedom and Representation

Figuring Subjects

World as Work of Art

Immanence and Transcendence

Incarnation and Trinity

Self- Embodiment of God

Theology and Theory

Deaths of God

Consuming Images

Cultivating Diversity

Counterculture

Securing the Base

Marketing the New Age

Base Closures

Refiguring Life

Emergent Creativity

Guide for the Perplexed

Fluid Dynamics

Notes

Index