ABSTRACT
I have argued in the previous chapters that Christian anthropology produces a person governed and disciplined by the twofold desire of/for God. What we need to explore here is how this modern subject of desire has come about and what its characteristics are such that they relate to, and yet also differ from, that Christian anthropology sketched earlier (and to be developed further). This is important because, in reading the signs of the times, I want to argue for the timeliness of pursuing the pneumatology of persons in Christ. The modern subject of desire has to be both challenged (by being shown the destructive nihilism and narcissism in which it is implicated) and enlarged (by being shown that the erotic economy need not be reduced to simply a libidinal economy). I propose to challenge and enlarge the modern subject of desire by producing two genealogies. The first is of the subject of desire itself, and the second is of the communities of desire in which this subject participates. The point of these genealogies is to allow us to recognise: (1) the metaphysical and socio-political corollaries of the modern subject of desire; (2) some of the cultural forces which governed its production; and (3) the alternative understandings of desire and its role in community-formation which can then be offered as other cultural forces with the potential to transform future persons-inrelation.
