Awaiting the Impossible: A Dialogue with Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Endless Wait for Messiah

This book dialogues with deconstruction's "religion without religion" and its implications for theology. In the view of many, deconstruction is a purely nihilistic force bent on the wanton destruction of long-held philosophical, religious, and moral traditions. However, this perspective ignores the fact that deconstruction--in the hands of its standard bearers like Jacques Derrida, John Caputo, and others--has all along been a religious exercise in demythologization. Furnishing a Christian rejoinder to deconstruction's claims about and objections to orthodox religion (and particularly to Christianity), the book addresses the following questions: How can deconstruction open a space for an affirmative faith to occur and be professed? Can deconstruction ever be hospitable toward Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for which it waits?

See Seng Tan is president and CEO of International Students Inc. (ISI), a Christian nonprofit organization headquartered in Colorado Springs. Before entering vocational ministry, Tan worked as a political scientist, university academic, and think-tank leader. He is the author of The Responsibility to Provide in Southeast Asia (2019), The Legal Authority of ASEAN as a Security Institution (2019), Multilateral Asian Security Architecture (2015), and The Making of the Asia Pacific (2013).