In the twentieth century, formal, university-based god-talk tended to react to major movements in philosophy, particularly to the three great “masters of suspicion:” Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. Some god-talkers sought to do theology in philosophical language, hoping to reach the wider, non-religious audience of the modern world. Other god-talkers used philosophy to find a sturdier position for the traditional claims of organized religion.

Because of this (over)reaction to modern philosophy, university-based theology is now irrelevant to most “postmodern” folks, even though interest in pop spirituality and fundamentalism is on the rise. Developments in philosophy since World War II have been largely ignored by university theology, or else absorbed with such pedantry or faddishness as to render it unreadable. It often seems as though current philosphically-engaged theologians avoid reading the philosophers themselves and instead get their information from their perpetually angry neighbors in the English department (who probably never read it first hand themselves). Incorporating one or two key terms from a contemporary philosopher’s first noteworthy work (some twenty years after the fact) does not cut it.

This is not to say that god-talk needs to speak in “Foucauldese,” “Rortyese” or “Zizekese” to be relevant. Doing so would be no guarantee of a larger audience. But university-based god-talk should quit pretending it is philosophically informed until it enters into a significant engagement with post-Vietnam philosophy. Doing so would at least lend it greater credibility inside the university itself. Philosophers like Bataille, Lacan, Levinas, Derrida, and Kristeva have made significant contributions to god-talk, but you would never know it if you were chained to a lecture podium in your local theology department. (There are some notable exceptions.)