Overview

There are many fine philosophical and theological engagements with the works of John Caputo. He is one of our most serious philosophical theologians. But he's also hilariously funny. To read Caputo is to encounter someone who wants to move you, to grasp your attention, your humor, your creativity, because what he's looking for is not another philosophical couch potato. He's looking for someone who's open to being moved to put down the book--even his book, especially his book--and risk reaching out to help another--one who is other, one at the margins of this culture. He's interested in the kind of courage that there is far too little of, and conventional religion, he suggests, has more than its share of the blame. The more familiar one becomes with his work, the more one wonders why Caputo--in all his emphasis upon hermeneutics and responsiveness to the call of the other--seemed not to see, or perhaps want to claim, the many rhetorical gifts in his possession, the many rhetorical gifts at work in his writing. Even as Caputo is a master of all things hermeneutical, he claims ignorance on all things rhetorical--viewing the word itself through an old lens of adding mere ornamentation, what he calls ""rouge"" to beautify the basic claim. Bringing the last forty years of work in rhetorical studies to bear on Caputo's texts, the author has written this book in hopes of convincing Caputo and his many students that he made--whether he sees it or not--what can only be called the Rhetorical Turn in philosophy and theology.

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9781532608896

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Reviews

""This very impressive, well-written work is a two-for-one book. It engages John Caputo's stimulating contribution--his metanoetics and his call for transformation, to step out for justice. But it also presents Joe Bessler's fine proposal. He walks along with Caputo 'but not, ' magnifying a turn to rhetoric, not as rouge or decoration, but as the 'fine and useful art of making things matter, ' as nothing less than being moved to renew the world. Compelling."" --Warren Carter, Meinders Professor of New Testament, Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Oklahoma ""In Being Moved by Moving Words, Joseph Bessler not only offers a review of the theological thinking of John D. Caputo but also offers a way of thinking theologically with Caputo. Bessler helps us understand, or perhaps understand anew, the moving power of theological rhetoric, which is the power of laughter, the power of compassion, and the power of thinking the unthought. With moving words, Bessler shows us the rhetoric that Caputo holds in spades, and the reader is challenged to take theology out of the mind and have it live in the heart."" --David Galston, executive director, Westar Institute ""Insightful, illuminating, a pleasure to read these moving words about being moved by moving words. This important and timely book brings us up to date on the crucial linguistic turn in rhetoric and theology from certainty to uncertainty. This counter move returns us to experience the power of language; more evocative, transformative, and compelling than the blunt language of power and coercive argumentation. Joe Bessler brings to us a thoughtful and loving analysis of the groundbreaking radical theology of Jack Caputo and insists that rhetoric understood as poetic discourse and theology as a theopoetics are deeply linked in their mutual commitment and manner to 'the useful art of making things matter.' Bessler affirms the power of moving words to open and engage our imagination, stir our irrepressible response to an authentic call, and move us to act. This is a hopeful book. We will see with new eyes and hear anew how the moving words of rhetoric and theology, now understood as call and response, bring you the reader into urgent and necessary play as we move into an uncertain future. Take up and read this book. And let it move you. It will."" --Marianne Borg, founder, The Marcus J. Borg Foundation ""Reading this remarkable book, I am reminded that Kierkegaard said, 'Some things are true when whispered but become false when shouted.' John Caputo has dared to whisper about a 'weak' God in a world drunk on the idolatry of power. Now Joe Bessler has brilliantly analyzed the role that rhetoric plays in Caputo's radical theology. Read it, and you will want to shout 'theopoetically' from the rooftops."" --Robin R. Meyers, author of Saving God from Religion

Author Information

Joseph Bessler is the Robert Travis Peake Professor of Theology at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of A Scandalous Jesus: How Three Historic Quests Changed Theology for the Better and the co-author, with Martin H. Belsky, of Law and Theology: Cases and Readings. His interests lie mainly in the intersection of the religious and the political.

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