Can Evangelicals Learn Anything From Postmodern, Atheist,
Deconstructionist Theologian Mark C. Taylor?
Ronald T. Michener
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit
Heverlee-Leuven, Belgium
Evangelical Theological Society
53rd Annual Meeting, 14 Nov. 2001, 4:35-5:15 p.m.
I. Postmodern A/theology
Negative theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer suggests that Mark C. Taylor
1
may be
considered the first American "post-ecclesiastical systematic or philosophic theologian"
who is "free of the scars or perhaps even the memory of Church theology, and the first
theologian to address himself solely to the purely theoretical or cognitive problems of
theology."
2
Taylor believes that "[d]espite its overt atheism, postmodernism remains
profoundly religious, and this atheistic religiosity offers a promising point of departure
for a truly postmodern theology."
3
Taylor calls this an "a/theology." Taylor has been
greatly influenced by the work of Jacques Derrida's deconstructionism, and actually
uses deconstructionism to do theology.
4
Taylor has published numerous books and
articles which refer to his theological views, but it is in his book Erring (1984), where he
most thoroughly develops his deconstructive theological manifesto.
5
The essentials of Taylor's theology are based on the deconstruction of four basic
elements throughout traditional Western theology: God, self, history and the book. For
Taylor, these traditional notions are not stable or certain as many believe. We will
briefly address each of these four "deconstructed" topics in Taylor's a/theology, which
provide the backdrop to his "negative" affirmations.
1
Mark C. Taylor is Cluett Professor of Humanities at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
2
Thomas JJ. Altizer in foreword of Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p.
xii. Altizer notes that Taylor began his professional work studying Kierkegaard from a modern theological
perspective, where theology is free from the influence of the church and "thereby free of the very power and
ground which theological thinking itself negated in realizing its modern epiphany." p. xii.
3
Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. xx.
4
Taylor claims that "[o]ne of the distinctive features of deconstruction is its willingness to confront the problem
of the death of God squarely even if not always directly... deconstruction is the "hermeneutic" of the death of
God." Mark C. Taylor, Erring (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 6. William A. Beardslee has
also related Taylor's work to Lyotard: "Taylor, like Lyotard, rejects conventional narrative and replaces it, as the
title of his book suggests, with "erring," which means both wandering and, like Lyotard's parology, transgressing
breaking the established patterns in the directionless movement of life." William A. Beardslee, "Christ in the
Postmodern Age: Reflections Inspired By Jean-François Lyotard" in David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee,
and Joe Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 67.
5
Taylor, Erring. Some of his ideas were previously articulated in his book Deconstructing Theology (1982), and
in a chapter he wrote titled, "Text as Victim," in Deconstruction and Theology, ed. Thomas J. J. Altizer (New
York: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 58-78. Since then, Taylor has written additional theologically significant works
including, Altarity (1987), Tears (1990), Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion (1992), and "Reframing
Postmodernisms" included in Philippa Berry and Andrew Wernick, eds., Shadow of Spirit (1992).