Sailing into New York Harbor, Sigmund Freud stood on the deck and
gazed upon a statue that was meant to symbolize someone else's vague
notion of freedom. The embryonic field of psychology--so very
interested to hear this theory, which excavated the depths of the
psyche--anticipated his arrival in America with lamentably eager
fanfare. Whether out of hubris or prescience Freud could only
whisper, "They don't realize we are bringing them the plague."
It was a theory that undercut our creative justifications for every
action and belief, and it suggested our anxious identities are
charted by a big Other--one we cannot begin to comprehend. As
psychoanalysis undergoes a resurgence of interest within religious
studies, political theory, and cultural criticism, its innovative and
peculiar claims remain difficult to grasp without any guide for the
perplexed. In God Is Unconscious: Psychoanalysis and Theology,
Tad DeLay explores the provocative teaching of psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan and its implications for Christianity. Partly an introductory
exposition of Freud, Zizek, and Lacan, and partly an application of
psychoanalysis to religion and politics, this book is organized as a
theological meditation on an incendiary theory.
