Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter One The Paradoxes of Lucien Goldmann -- The dialectic of grace -- The Elect and the Damned -- Wagering it all -- In the world and yet not -- Theory: the tight fit of homology -- Homology -- Dialectics? -- Is Pascal among the Marxists? -- By way of conclusion: Marxism as a secular and anti-secular project -- Chapter Two The Stumbling Block of Fredric Jameson -- Supersession versus a dialectic of ideology and utopia -- Sidestepping religion -- Magic and fantasy -- Feuerbach versus Marx -- The politics of fantasy -- Apocalyptic -- By way of conclusion: towards a dialectic of religion -- Chapter Three The Christian Communism of Rosa Luxemburg -- Tactics -- A Reformer's zeal -- Betraying the spirit -- A little church history -- Anti-clericalism -- Christian communism -- Consumption versus production -- Completing Christian communism -- Freedom of conscience -- Chapter Four The Enticements of Karl Kautsky -- Text, history, context -- The slipperiness of sacred texts -- The Bible as a cultural product -- Reconstructing economic history -- Differentiation and slaves -- Slaves and other modes of production -- The sacred economy: prolegomena to a reconstruction -- Transitions -- Christian communism -- Conclusion -- Chapter Five The Forgetfulness of Julia Kristeva -- Flushing out Marx -- Monocausality, or, the taboo of the mother -- Paul the Apostle, both ways -- Other-than-human love -- Crucifying the pathologies -- Collectives -- Conclusion -- Chapter Six The Fables of Alain Badiou -- Banishing the One -- Theology and the Event -- A generic procedure of religion? -- Pascal's miracle -- Kierkegaard's encounter -- Paul's fable -- Conclusion: necessary fables -- Chapter Seven The Conundrums of Giorgio Agamben -- The search for Paul -- Christology, or the problem of Jesus Messiah.

Faith, law and grace as placeholder of the void -- Pre-law, or trying to make sense of Paul -- Conclusion: relativising theology -- Chapter Eight The Self-Exorcism of Georg Lukács -- A world abandoned by God -- Leap-frogging Christianity -- Autobiographical exorcism -- Conclusion -- Chapter Nine The Bible and The Beekeeper's Manual -- An apparent absence? -- Warm Marxism -- Autobiography -- Welshness -- The working class -- Conclusion: the vanishing mediator of the Baptist chapel -- Conclusion -- References -- Index of Biblical References -- General Index.