Religion, Redemption and Revolution

Book excerpt: Religion, Redemption, and Revolution closely examines the intertwined intellectual development of one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century, Franz Rosenzweig, and his friend and teacher, Christian sociologist Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. The first major English work on Rosenstock-Huessy, it also provides a significant reinterpretation of Rosenzweig's writings based on the thinkers' shared insights — including their critique of modern Western philosophy, and their novel conception of speech. This groundbreaking bookprovides a detailed examination of their 'new speech thinking' paradigm, a model grounded in the faith traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Wayne Cristaudo contrasts this paradigm against the radical liberalism that has dominated social theory for the last fifty years. Religion, Redemption, and Revolution provides powerful arguments for the continued relevance of Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy's work in navigating the religious, social, and political conflicts we now face.