"In The Puppet and the Dwarf Slavoj Zizek offers a close reading of today's religious constellation from the viewpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He critically confronts both predominant versions of today's spirituality - New Age gnosticism and deconstructionist-Levinasian Judaism - and then tries to redeem the "materialist" kernel of Christianity. His reading of Christianity is explicitly political, discerning in the Pauline community of believers the first version of a revolutionary collective. Since today even advocates of Enlightenment like Jurgen Habermas acknowledge that a religious vision is needed to ground our ethical and political stance in a "postsecular" age, this book - with a stance that is clearly materialist and at the same time indebted to the core of the Christian legacy - is certain to stir controversy."--Jacket.