Slavoj Zizek has been called ",an academic rock star", a nd ",the wild man of theo r y",, his writing mixes astonishing erudition a nd references to pop culture in o r der to dissect current intellectual pieties. In The Puppet a nd the Dwarf he offers a close reading of today's religious constellation fr om the viewpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He critically confronts both predominant versions of today's spirituality--New Age gnosticism a nd deconstructionist-Levinasian Judaism--a nd 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 a nd political stance in a ",postsecular", age, this book--with a stance that is clearly materialist a nd at the same time indebted to the co r e of the Christian legacy--is certain to stir controversy.