Abstract
Though not a theologian, Charles H. Long’s historical work on religion has influenced a number of radical theologians. This chapter introduces readers to Long’s biography and works. It suggests that Long’s writings are best understood in relation to three interrelated intellectual movements of the 1960s: Radical Theology, the History of Religions, and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Long remains one of radical theology’s most important critics and conversation partners today.
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Notes
- 1.
Charles Long, in Fontella White, “Reflections,” Institute for Signifying Scriptures (March 3, 2009), 3.
- 2.
Long in White, “Reflections,” 3.
- 3.
Anthony Petro, “History of Religions, Approaches.” CQ Press Electronic Library, Encyclopedia of Religion in America, online (accessed 14. November 2010); originally published in Encyclopedia of Religion in America, ed. C. Lippy and P. Williams (Washington, DC: CQ, 2010).
- 4.
Agehananda Bharati, Rev. of Patterns of Myth: The Alpha by C. Long, Journal of Bible and Religion 32.3 (1964): 277–279.
- 5.
For the purposes of simplicity, I will cite Significations based on the 1999 edition, published by the Davies Group, Publishers.
- 6.
Richard Fenn, “The Death of God,” The Review of Religious Research 9.3 (1968): 171–181.
- 7.
Long, quoted in Charles Winquist, “Foreword,” in Long (1999), vii.
- 8.
For more on non-volition-centered analyses of American religion, see the special issue of Religion authored by Finbarr Curtis, “The Study of American Religions,” Religion 42.3 (2012): 355–372.
- 9.
Thomas Altizer, “The Death of God and the Uniqueness of Christianity,” in The History of Religions, eds. J. Kitagawa, M. Eliade, and C. Long (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1967), 119–142.
- 10.
For more, see Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1964), and Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002). The latter text was first published in English in 1972.
- 11.
Clayton Crockett, “Long Time Coming,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 9.1 (2004): 5–9.
- 12.
Charles Long, “Prolegomenon to a Religious Hermeneutic,” History of Religions 6.3 (1967): 254–264.
- 13.
Charles Long, “Anarchism and Hermeneutics,” in The History of Religions, eds. J. Kitagawa, M. Eliade, and C. Long (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1967), 67–87.
- 14.
Charles Long, “Silence and Signification,” in Myths and Symbols, eds. J. Kitagawa and C. Long (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1969), 141–150.
- 15.
Charles Long, “The Black Reality,” The Criterion 8.2 (1969).
- 16.
Charles Long, “Civil Rights—Civil Religion: Visible People and Invisible Religion,” in American Civil Religion, eds. R. Richey and D. Jones (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 211–221.
Work Cited
Long, Charles. 1999. Significations. Aurora, CO: Davies. Originally Published 1986.
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Rolsky, L.B. (2018). Charles H. Long. In: Rodkey, C., Miller, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Theology. Radical Theologies and Philosophies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96595-6_18
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