In this chapter I want to further develop the inter-textual theological tropes by engaging with the trope of the Exile. More specifically, I wish to do this by connecting the trope of the exile with the trope of the postmodern theologian. To perform this task I will continue with the particular reading strategy I have followed. This method can probably be best described as a secular re-theologizing hermeneutic. Building on the centrality of the Logos-logos dialectic, allied with the continual undercurrent of lightening flashes and short-circuits, I want to wrestle with the considerable body of texts on Exile. This wrestling is designed to open these writings up to the possibility of being theological texts. The underlying assumption is that the Logos behind the logos sits within all texts enabling a theological hermeneutic to occur.

Gianni Vattimo has talked of Christianity entering an age of interpretation which he views as “the development and maturation of the Christian message.” What his claim signals is a future for theology that is not a case of belief in but rather that of response to and interpretation of “a historical message of salvation.” Vattimo's locating of a response which situates itself against authoritarianism can be viewed as extending into such a project as is followed in this text To retreat into authoritative statements of belief as final truth that sets prescribed limits to interpretation is to make statements of belief into the locations of authoritarian oppositions.