These Arrows in My Flesh (Sebastianism as Method)

This paper considers a passage from François Laruelle’s Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy. In that passage, Laruelle invokes a conflict between, on the one hand, the figure of Saint Paul and the Church, and, on the other hand, the figures of Saint Sebastian and Christ. I argue that Laruelle figures Sebastian and Christ as ‘clones’ of the Victim-in-person. Toward that end, I give an account of Laruelle’s non-philosophical project, especially his theory of the subject (i.e., the clone), with a view toward articulating a method for philosophy of religion. I call this method Sebastianism. Sebastianism is a method or style of thought that—as a non-philosophical project—proceeds strictly according-to-the-Victim, but which is distinctive in that (this is its non-philosophical ‘deviation’) it makes the critique of Christianity the fundamental vocation of philosophers of religion.