Jan 11, 2026, from Julian Waldner: I recently wrote a piece that will be published in a Lutheran journal called Promissio. That piece is my attempt to work out an intuition that there is an interesting (and surprising) congruence between Illich and Luther. One point of congruence is the sense of levity that you get in Illich and (arguably in Luther). Here is how I put it in a paragraph that was cut from my piece:
...what first attracted me to both Luther and Illich is their humour. The levity that characterizes these thinkers is not accidental, it is the essence of their vision. Both Luther and Illich recognized with G. K. Chesterton that “Joy… is the gigantic secret of the Christian.” Brian Brock describes the theology of Luther as a “decisive break with the tenor and sensibility of the patristic era” by reintroducing into the Christian tradition a “theology of joy and laughter.” Illich described Jesus as an “anarchist saviour” “whose only economics are Jokes.” Illich did not mean this as a dismissal, but as an encapsulation of the “naked saviour” he tried to follow, and as a description of a way of life best summed up in what he called ‘Conviviality’.
I don't think this is unimportant--humour often points to the heart of things. The laughter in Illich and Luther I think points to something I would call grace.
The more direct connection I see is with Illich's diagnosis of modernity. The argument is too complex to summarize here, but here are a few flashpoints:
- I see a connection between Luther's critique of 'works righteousness' which can be described as us trying to 'earn' or create eternal life by our own efforts--and Illich's account of Modernity as a quasi-religion whereby we essentially try ensure that the good life is certain and predictable.
- Luther sees this quest for 'works righteousness' as tending to undermine itself--I see a parallel here with Illich's notion of 'paradoxical counterproductivity'.
- Finally, Luther sees the gospel as pure gift, a sense that we have been given freely what we need. In Berry's words "what we need is here." I see this as the essence of Illich's vision: despite modernity's vision of scarcity, Illich believes that what is needed for the good life is here. Like Luther's notion of living by faith, this a contested posture that requires venture to live out.
Those are some of the high points, there is a lot more to the argument and I hope someone like you will be able to pick out the other threads. I am really curious to hear your comments/feedback/critiques. I do realize that by drawing on Luther I am stepping on some toes--in many accounts of modernity he is often styled as the villain. I see my reading of Luther as an account of an alternative modernity rather than as a return to the premodern.
Jan. 13, 2026, from David: Thanks for your letter, and your essay. I'm not very deeply versed in Luther, but I found your case, and your comparison to Illich persuasive as well as instructive. I've just finished a long essay which tries to read Illich and C.G. Jung together and braid heretofore quite separate strands of my formation. It's long, and I don't want to impose it on you, but, in the final section of the piece, you will find some observations on the part humour plays in Illich's philosophy that may be germane to your reflections. (p. 34ff.) If you're interested in the thing as a whole, I would, of course, be delighted. Glad to be in touch.
https://www.davidcayley.com/blog/2026/8/17/b42vh6v3yy15its7zitld9eb3smdsi
Jan 17, 2026, from Julian: Thank you for your kind words and for sending along this article. I have some comments for you that you will hopefully find helpful. I’ve added some questions in bold.
I was interested to see your reference to Thiel (6). I’ve wondered what to make of his warnings of the anti-Christ. Do you think his perspective is aligned with Illich, I.e. good intentions gone awry?
I was intrigued by your description of what Jung thinks has gone wrong with us in modernity: “The radiant Christ will invoke a shadowy Satan; the attempt to be “better than we are” will make us worse that we are; the kingdom of Christ, Christendom, will be succeeded by a Luciferian modernity in which technology and economy are king.” (33) This is well expressed and reminds me both of Illich’s counter-productivity and of my critique via Luther. I thought too that your use of Jung to describe our world as off balance were very apt (16). One additional piece of empirical evidence I would add to this is the misbalance of the genders in our current context. You see this not only politically (Trumpian machismo vs Liberal permissiveness) but also literally in statistics showing that men and women are drifting further and further apart politically. In a poll I saw today, men and women were over 20 points apart, with women becoming ever more liberal, and men ever more conservative.
I was curious about your description of the trinity as off balance compared to symbols with 4. As you are probably aware, here in Canada we are focused on “indigenizing” things and resisting “colonialism” (certainly in part the heritage of Christianity). Part of what this involves is integrating the symbol of the medicine wheel and its 4 directions. I don’t necessarily see this as a sign of societal health, do you? (I’m also curious if you’ve come across the book Meditations of the Tarot, you might find it interesting if you haven’t.)
I would now like to offer some reasons that I wouldn’t think of Illich as a natural fit with Jung. I am not very familiar with Jung—my only exposure to him comes through that famous contemporary Canadian disciple of his! Maybe that introduction to him has warped my sense of his thought. As I understand Jung (reading your paper confirms it) he understands religion and Christianity primarily as something that sits in the deep background of a civilization or of the psyche. As you put it, Jung is inside Christianity in the sense that “he regarded his culture, his inheritance as deeply and irrevocably Christian.”(9) I see Illich is having a more radical and in a sense “apocalyptic” view of Christianity where it can never be the ‘background’ or ‘civil religion’ of a culture and remain itself, but is always something that stands as a possibility outside or beyond culture or standard morality. (I think of Kierkegaard’s distinction between ‘Christianity’ and ‘Christendom’. Would Illich roughly affirm this?)
A word on how I think about the category of the ‘Apocalyptic’. There is a strain of New Testament interpretation that emphasizes the ‘apocalyptic’ nature of especially the Pauline letters. This apocalyptic theology sees Christ in the incarnation as breaking into a world ruled by dark powers and opening up the possibility of a new way of being. This Christ-event makes visible the powers that enslave us, while also enabling us to be freed from their rule to participate in the kingdom of God. (See for example a book by Philip Ziegler, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology. Its people in this ‘apocalyptic’ school that I’ve seen draw on Illich, e.g. the work of Brian Brock in Wondrously Wounded) Heady stuff, but notice the difference with Jung. For Jung, as you describe him, because of his Kantian presuppositions, there can be no discontinuity between God and humanity, nothing new can come in from the outside, it is all one seamless garment. In Illich on the other hand, I see this apocalyptic sense: something NEW has happened in the incarnation that changes history. Even in his sociological/critical work you can see him (like Ellul) as describing the powers that hold us captive. In this sense his sociological work is partly theological, he “could not have known with my unaided eyes and mind” (1)
Like the theologian you reference in your article (27) the notion of there being evil in God is a stumbling block for me too. But here again, I wonder if the notion of evil as privation isn’t a better fit for Illich then a Jungian notion of the repressed shadow. He says that the Incarnation makes possible the anti-Christ; I wonder if this can be read as analogous to how in the Augustinian tradition of privatio boni evil is made possible by Creatio ex nihalo. The Christian doctrine that God makes the world out of nothing, opens up the possibility of creation returning to that nothingness rather than choosing to continue to abide in existence. Similarly for Illich, the possibility of the incarnation opens up the possibility that this can be perverted along worldly lines: seeing to secure what can only come as a gift.
Feb 6, 2026, from David to Julian: I'm sorry to be so slow responding to your comments on my Jung essay. I began a response, then got sidetracked, and just remembered that I never completed it, or sent the letter. You'll pardon an old man, I hope.
Thiel is a puzzling figure, but I don't think his perspective is in any way aligned with Illich's. As far as I can make out, Thiel sees the anti-Christ as a brake on innovation and technological progress. He was recently in Innsbruck for a conversation with theologian Wolfgang Palaver, and I found the report on this event in the Bulletin of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion interesting: https://violenceandreligion.com/bulletin-86-november-2025/#President.
You write: I was curious about your description of the trinity as off balance compared to symbols with 4. As you are probably aware, here in Canada we are focused on “indigenizing” things and resisting “colonialism” (certainly in part the heritage of Christianity). Part of what this involves is integrating the symbol of the medicine wheel and its 4 directions. I don’t necessarily see this as a sign of societal health, do you? (I’m also curious if you’ve come across the book Meditations of the Tarot, you might find it interesting if you haven’t.)
My answer: There are two questions here - one is Jung's contrast between an allegedly unstable and incomplete trinity and a more grounded quadernity; the second is the huge question of indigeneity. On the first I would say I am interested in Jung's claims, and provoked by them, without feeling that I can reach a judgment on how the divine is to be imagined. (The first big series I did for Ideas, back at the beginning of the 1980's was called "Between Two Ages" - that is still how I imagine our contemporary situation - a situation that I think calls us to "live in the question," as I said in my book about the CBC, rather than rushing to premature on matters for which we as yet lack language - the centuries that elapsed between the life and death of Jesus and the completion of the edifice of Christian dogma might be a rough analogy.) On the indigenous question, I think Jung's proposal is partly a call for a restoration of "primitive" elements that tend to get lost in the Christian era. But I also think that the current cult of indigeneity is a self-interested and sentimental mystification carried out by people who are essentially modern, but who have been granted the privilege of pretending they are not. This is a huge subject, and one on which the price of speaking out is now set very high - witness the strange case of Francis Widdowson - fired from her university post, shouted down and arrested at other universities, and treated as an exponent of the "far right" for putting forward what was once a conventionally Marxist analysis of how the indigenous industry functions as a comprador elite which actually perpetuates the immiseration of its own people. This is definitely not in the direction of what you call "societal health." (About the Tarot book - I learned of it recently - borrowed it from the library - read enough to make me want to read more but haven't followed up as yet - what about you?)
About Jung you say that he is only a "cultural Christian" who treats Christianity as a "background" or "civil" religion, and that this distinguishes him from the more apocalyptic Illich. Jung does say that Christianity is an inescapable inheritance, but I think a careful reading of Answer to Job shows it as the record of a real struggle with God, and the cause of a real wound, like Jacob's dislocated hip.
I see Jung, as I wrote, as a pilgrim soul, who changed throughout life, and who used inherited languages that often conflicted with each other. So, yes, he was decisively influenced by Kant, but whether this means that he consistently held that, in your words, "there can be no discontinuity between God and humanity, [and] nothing new can come in from the outside" seems questionable to me. A lot turns on what "outside" means in our present world. Jung stretched the term unconscious until it finally comprehended the entire realm of spirit. This "unconscious" produces novelty - the Incarnation is something new from Jung's perspective too. Perhaps it is an outside that is inside.
Thanks for your excerpt from David Noble. I read that book a long time ago, and remember comparing it unfavourably with Illich's account, but perhaps I didn't do it full justice.
Well, these are deep waters, Julian, and I'm grateful that you're willing to venture into them with me. To be continued, I hope.