Radical Orthodoxy Research Articles

Review Essay the Monstrosity of Monovalence

This critical review focuses on the problems of modernity as outlined by Žižek and Milbank in The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? It argues that both Žižek’s nihil-a-theology (characterized by negative dialectic and deconstruction) and Milbank’s radical orthodoxy (charac-terized by Platonic participation, phenomenology and paradox) cannot provide satisfactory resolutions to the problem of the universal and the particular in both its epistemic and ethical inflections on account of being unable to make intelligible the deeper problem of order and chaos. Both authors generate a flat actualist ontology characteristic of the epistemic fallacy, and hold to some form of either perspectival realism or superidealism. It is argued that it is only by affirming something like a dialectical critical realist ontology that these problems are able to be addressed while maintaining the intelligibility of scientific understanding, paradox, progress, the universal and the particular and our ethical relation to the Other.

Obeying, Believing and Rebelling

This article offers a decisive alternative to a growing consensus within public theology that political liberalism represents the pro-Pelagian, atomistic and un-ecclesial face of modernity. Through a careful reappraisal of the sceptical theology of Michel de Montaigne I claim that contemporary Christian advocates of liberalism can develop a deeply Augustinian counter-account which has the ability to reconcile notions of individual autonomy and conscience with a strong sense of ecclesial authority. At the centre of this innovative settlement, I point to the value of Montaigne’s theological anthropology, which, in its sensitivity to human fragility and sin, offers a rich validation of pluralistic and tolerant societies by contesting absolutist claims to both knowledge and power. In framing political liberalism in these explicitly theological terms, such an account comes into sharp confrontation with the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, which has defined the liberal tradition as intrinsically anathema to an authentically Christian understanding of politics. In contrast, this article claims that political liberalism, far from being automatically antagonistic to Christian theological commitments, can be justified by them.

Radical Orthodoxy and Lance Armstrong: Shedding Light on Sport as Religious Experience

The theological framework of radical orthodoxy has yet to be realized as useful in examining the religious significance of sport and athlete hero-icons in contemporary American popular culture. This paper addresses four assumptions of radical orthodoxy scholarship to demonstrate why many claim to have religious and spiritual experiences through sport today. This paper argues the radical orthodoxy framework is useful for examining sport in popular culture as it may reflect elements of postmodern theology. Using these four assumptions this case study explores the religious and spiritual impact American cyclist Lance Armstrong's image and philanthropic activities, between 1999 and 2010, had in contemporary American popular culture.

Michel de Certeau: Spirituality and The Practice of Everyday Life

Michel de Certeau: Spirituality and The Practice of Everyday Life Philip Sheldrake (bio) Brenna Moore’s essay highlights the growing divergence and then final “rupture” between Michel de Certeau and his erstwhile hero and mentor Henri de Lubac. This centered around their contrasting understandings of how theology connects, or does not connect, with the everyday world or the “secular” and of whether the past is accessible to and useable in the present. My own sense is that de Certeau refuses to adopt a simple theology versus secular polarity. Even if the importance of the “secular” for de Certeau stems partly from his social and political conversion as the result of the riots of 1968, more straight-forwardly the secular refers to “the here and now,” this age. De Certeau was preoccupied with the way all our relationships—whether with the human or the divine “other”—are shaped by space and time. This sensibility to the immediate and the tentative was born of de Certeau’s immersion both in Ignatian spirituality and in historical theory. In reference to the latter, de Certeau’s historical training, particularly his exposure to the French Annales school of historical theory and interpretation, made him far more sensitive than Henri de Lubac to the unavoidable “otherness” and strangeness of the past. This contrasted strongly with de Lubac’s more fervent belief in the possibilities of historical continuity and its impact on his sense of how Christian tradition “works.” De Certeau’s critical historical perspective on Christianity ran alongside a complex yet deep engagement with faith. Overall, I seriously question the assumption among some English-speaking social scientists that de Certeau’s life and writings are neatly divisible into two parts—a first religious part up to the early 1970s and then a second social scientific period when theological interests and a religious narrative are essentially absent. I do not believe that de Certeau left theology behind or moved in some simple way into a form of postmodern fragmentation and dispersal. However, the problem with some attempts to retrieve him as a religious thinker, for example by “Radical Orthodoxy” theologians, is that they concentrate too much on his explicitly religious writings and bypass the implicit yet real religious underpinning to much of his social scientific writing.1 This omission fails to do justice to de Certeau’s emphasis on the spiritual quality of everyday practices—something which I [End Page 207] Click for larger view View full resolution Picture of a Pitcher © Feldore McHugh [End Page 208] believe has a covert Ignatian trace. My dominant concern in this essay is to underline certain continuities in de Certeau’s work by highlighting key spiritual values that I believe are present in his collaborative social scientific project entitled “The Practice of Everyday Life.” Luce Giard, de Certeau’s closest collaborator and executor, notes in several places his youthful fascination with solitary journeys.2 The theme of journeying is, in various ways, at the heart both of de Certeau and of Ignatian spirituality—including the lifestyle of the Jesuit order of which de Certeau remained a member until his death. This was part of what attracted him to the Ignatian path. Solemnly Professed Jesuits take a fourth vow to journey anywhere in the world to undertake mission. “This is a vow to go anywhere His Holiness will order . . . without pleading an excuse and without requesting any expenses for the journey.”3 “One should attend to the first characteristic of our Institute . . . this is to travel.”4 Ignatius Loyola’s assistant, Jeronimo Nadal, in his commentary on the Fourth Vow, wrote: “The principal and most characteristic dwelling for Jesuits is not the professed houses, but in journeyings.”5 Journeying is both a geographical concept and a spiritual value. In broad terms, this value is implicit in de Certeau’s later religious essays. In “The Weakness of Believing,”6 he suggests that Christian spirituality must avoid the temptation to settle down into a definitive “place.” The temptation of the “spiritual” is to constitute the act of difference as a site, to transform the conversion into an establishment, to replace the “poem” [of Christ] which states the hyperbole with the strength to make...

Processio and The Place of Ontic Being: John Milbank and James K.A. Smith On Participation

James K.A. Smith argues that the ontology of participation associated with Radical Orthodoxy is incompatible with a Christian affirmation of the intrinsic being and goodness of creatures. In response, he proposes a Leibnizian view in which things are endowed with the innate dynamism of ‘force’. Creatures have a certain depth of being, and are intrinsically good, just because they each have an inner virtuality that they bring into expression. Such force is said to be a metaphysical component of the agent. In this paper it is asked whether John Milbank's ontology of participation can be defended by distinguishing between two senses of being a subject. Perhaps it is possible for a creature to bring into expression what is an infused ‘alien’ gift rather than a metaphysical component – to be expressive subject, but not ontic subject, for divine power. However, while this distinction promises to make sense of the reception of an indwelling ‘other’ in grace, knowledge and love, neither proper substance nor proper existence can be received in this way. A creature must be the ontic subject for its being, after all. Still, divine being might proceed from God as radical indwelling gift, as non‐ontic ground for ontic being.

"You turn if you want to": The Questions a Pragmatic Political Theology Might Ask of Speculative Realism

The question pursued in this article is what might a pragmatic (in the Rortyan sense) political theology ask speculative realists to contribute to its analyses and discussions. The article begins by discussing the potential reservations political theologians might have in employing Richard Rorty as a dialogue partner. It then considers the insights from Rorty that political theologians might value, namely a respect for Western democracy and pluralism, the desire to reform capitalism, and a deeper understanding of the relationship between Christianity and liberalism. These insights are discussed in dialogue with the radical orthodoxy of John Milbank. It is argued that Milbank and Rorty share post-foundational philosophical assumptions but arrive at different political conclusions with regard to democracy and capitalism. The paper makes the case for a pragmatic valuing of democracy and capitalism and a recognition of their Christian heritage.

Speculative Realism and Public Theology: Explorations

The paper argues that ideas emanating from the speculative realists can inform a new approach to public theology, one that is broadly consistent with Christian realism and opposed to that of radical orthodoxy. Linking the two disciplines through an exploration of the ethical consequences of speculative realism, it takes in particular the work of Latour, his concept of the "gathering," his distinction between matters of fact and matters of concern, and his questioning of the fact-value distinction, and through a lived example shows how the language of human and non-human offers a critique of reductionist approaches to the political.

Apophasis as the common root of radically secular and radically orthodox theologies

On the one hand, we find secularized approaches to theology stemming from the Death of God movement of the 1960s, particularly as pursued by North American religious thinkers such as Thomas J.J. Altizer, Mark C. Taylor, Charles Winquist, Carl Raschke, Robert Scharlemann, and others, who stress that the possibilities for theological discourse are fundamentally altered by the new conditions of our contemporary world. Our world today, in their view, is constituted wholly on a plane of immanence, to such an extent that traditional appeals to faith in an other world become difficult to take as more than self-deception and willful blindness to our human reality. On the other hand, we hear the assertion of a new lease on life for theology and its traditional affirmation of divine transcendence over and against the putative arrogance of all claims of human autonomy. This claim is advanced particularly by theologians grouped under the banner of the so-called Radical Orthodoxy. Emanating from England, originally from the University of Cambridge in the 1980s and 1990s, this movement includes such theological thinkers as John Milbank, Graham Ward, Rowan Williams, and Catherine Pickstock. It has also explicitly styled itself “post-secularist.” I propose that both approaches are based on not very fully acknowledged and often explicitly denied premises in negative theology, which surprisingly emerges as key to fostering genuine possibilities for dialogue among apparently antagonistic theological approaches.

The Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation – Edited by Chris K. Huebner and Tripp York

The Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation – Edited by Chris K. Huebner and Tripp York

Sport as Liturgy: Towards a Radical Orthodoxy of Sport

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that sport can be understood as a form of engagement with the fundamental contingency and vulnerability of the human condition, and as such that it expresses a yearning for meaning in a modern society that offers only the illusion of meaning. Sport, at its most profound, is argued to be a negative liturgy, in the sense that it highlights an absence of meaning, rather than offering a positive alternative. The paper draws on an analysis of contemporary society, and resultant defence of the potential role that liturgy might play in restoring meaning and a sense of transcendence to society, that is offered by the Radical Orthodoxy theologian Catherine Pickstock.

Crowned Anarchy and Nomadic Distribution: Gilles Deleuze's Transformative Appropriation of Duns Scotus

Crowned Anarchy and Nomadic Distribution:Gilles Deleuze's Transformative Appropriation of Duns Scotus Andrew T. LaZella I wish to highlight here at the outset the issues of "appropriation" and "transformation" as they relate to the history of philosophy. In appropriating a figure or argument from the depths of the historical past, it seems only natural to ask "for what reason?" or "to what end?" do we wish to appropriate this thinker's ideas or arguments. Is our desire to study the history of philosophy simply out of an antiquarian interest in the past? Is it because we feel philosophers in the past lack something that we might share with them (e.g., the advantages of modern science or logic)? By retooling their arguments with the most up-to-date discoveries, we then can engage them as peers.1 Do we wish to appropriate these past ideas because, even from the cold recesses of multiple centuries past, they still manage to exert some influence over us today? And by appropriating their ideas, we repeat such past possibilities and thereby transform the present.2 Or, finally, do we wish to recover something from the depths of the past that has been lost or occluded from the present's view?3 I do not claim that this is an exhaustive list of possibilities, or even that one possibility necessarily excludes another. Instead, I highlight as question-worthy the reasons for appropriation and transformation in the history of philosophy. In recent years, this question has re-emerged in the history of medieval philosophy, quite vehemently, around the figure of John Duns Scotus—that is, if it ever went underground in the first place.4 Duns Scotus—whose very name gave rise in the Renaissance to the popular insult "dunce" due to his students' hairsplitting pedantry in introducing distinctions upon distinctions—continues to form a basis of contested appropriation. How to read and understand this complex and dangerously innovative thinker marks a perennial debate between his apologists and accusers alike. He is—if nothing else—a figure of great controversy in part because of his nuanced and innovative ideas. After briefly surveying some of the [End Page 23] disputed terrain of the Scotistic legacy, I will follow an unlikely course, suggested by Gilles Deleuze, of appropriating and transforming two key Scotistic ideas: univocity and "virtual" communality. Both ideas, I will argue, along with their peculiarly Scotistic distinctions (i.e., the modal and formal distinctions) find new life within Deleuze's thought. In many circles loosely affiliated with the scholarship of the twentieth-century French philosopher and Thomist extraordinaire Etienne Gilson, the name "Duns Scotus" signifies the worst trends of scholastic intellectualism and essentialism. That is, Scotus represents a shift toward an unraveling of the medieval synthesis, which held together faith and reason, intellect and will, essence and existence as a set of dynamic harmonies. Scotus, Gilson charges, is guilty of a "conceptual imperialism." Gilson states: the first and most necessary condition for things to become objects of scientific knowledge is to be purified of the slightest trace of existence. A perfect case of conceptual imperialism, if there ever was one! And all this owing to Avicenna, who begot Scotus, who begot Suarez, who begot Kleutgen; and the list still remains open.5 "Conceptual imperialism" means that all reality, including the transcendent and sacred reality of the divine, can be adequately grasped by means of conceptualization. Being as a univocal concept, or one that applies equally to God and creatures alike without preference of one to the other, holds a direct key to understanding the bankruptcy of contemporary thought. Once God becomes just one more object of conceptual cognition, the distance afforded by divine transcendence becomes increasingly "mundane." God as first is in fact what the Princeps was only in name: first amongst equals.6 Thus an appropriation of the past, for Gilson, means renewing and revitalizing our situation with respect to this oft unnoticed history and the consequences entailed by its secularization. More recently Jean-Luc Marion and the proponents of what is called "Radical Orthodoxy" (most notably, John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock) have lodged a similar charge against Scotus.7 That is, they argue...

Radical Orthodoxy and Lance Armstrong: Shedding Light on Sport as Religious Experience

The theological framework of radical orthodoxy has yet to be realized as useful in examining the religious significance of sport and athlete hero-icons in contemporary American popular culture. This paper addresses four assumptions of radical orthodoxy scholarship to demonstrate why many claim to have religious and spiritual experiences through sport today. This paper argues the radical orthodoxy framework is useful for examining sport in popular culture as it may reflect elements of postmodern theology. Using these four assumptions this case study explores the religious and spiritual impact American cyclist Lance Armstrong's image and philanthropic activities, between 1999 and 2010, had in contemporary American popular culture.

‘THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS: RADICAL ORTHODOXY AND THEOSIS’

Western theology struggles with the rise of secularism and postmodernism. The Radical Orthodoxy sensibility asserts that the ancient principles of methexis (participation) and theosis (deification) presents an alternative metaphysical narrative to the narrative of secularism and the onto‐theological tradition. This article addresses the problems of the onto‐theological metaphysical tradition in Western theology by analyzing Radical Orthodoxy's rediscovery of the philosophical and theological principles of participation and theosis as articulated in the patristic tradition and in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Using historical and analytical methods, this article will survey the biblical and patristic literature on theosis, as well as John Milbank's understanding of methexis and theosis in Thomas Aquinas. The result of this study will be to offer theosis, rooted in participation in God, as not only a soteriological model to reclaim for the West, but also a core metaphysical principle for Christian ethics that contravenes both onto‐theology and the materialistic reduction of ontology in secularism.

Radical Orthodoxy

The newest theological direction to be covered in this series, Radical Orthodoxy was launched in 1999 by Cambridge theologians John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward. It sought to contest secular culture and the sidelining of theology from academic and public discourse by demonstrating the insufficiency of any account of reality that excluded religion or theology. Key themes have included culture, participation, gift, liturgy, erotic desire and the body.

A review of the emergence of post-secular critical accounting and a provocation from radical orthodoxy

Abstract Pala Molisa's (2011) spiritual reflections on emancipation and accounting are important, not just because of the specific question they pose to critical accounting about the place of spiritual transformation in human emancipation, but because the crux of his argument sits on the arc of a more generally identifiable intellectual turn with which the critical accounting community has yet to fully engage. This commentary critically engages with Molisa's attempts to spiritualise the critical accounting project. Firstly, the paper positions his arguments specifically within the broader context of theological perspectives emerging within critical and interdisciplinary accounting research. It is argued that Pala's perspective both helps constitute a field of religious accounting enquiry and also shifts that field in a new direction. Secondly, the paper critically appraises Molisa's methodological engagement with the religious traditions and texts that form the basis of his arguments and the subsequent revelation of love as a key criterion for a spiritual and emancipatory accounting practice. The third section of the paper draws on this critical commentary to introduce an emergent theological and philosophical movement known as Radical Orthodoxy in an attempt to provoke further debate and discussion on the limited kinds of spiritual and religious perspectives that have thus far characterised this emergent field.

The political theology of red Toryism

Phillip Blond's British red Toryism is vying to influence the direction of modern conservatism. Yet its dependence on the ideas of the theological school, radical orthodoxy, has been hitherto inadequately explored. Examining both the ideological make-up of red Toryism and noting its insufficiencies on its own terms, in this paper demonstrate the necessity of the ontological grounding of radical orthodoxy to make sense of Blond's ideas. It will be further argued that this reciprocal dependence should not imply that red Toryism and radical orthodoxy are one and the same thing, but rather that their separation is indicative of the strategically esoteric political theology they are forwarding.

Trends and Directions in Contemporary Theology: Anglican Theology

This article provides a map of trends and directions in contemporary Anglican Theology. It divides the main protagonists into five camps: the liberals, the conservatives, those advocating ‘mystical theology’ and ‘radical orthodoxy’, those stressing ecclesiology and culture, and finally, in a camp all of his own the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The article argues that one of the enduring legacies of Rowan Williams may be the way in which he is influenced by all the other camps and is thereby influencing Anglican theology in a highly distinctive way.

Thinking Trivially About Radical Orthodoxy

Thinking Trivially About Radical Orthodoxy

Capital Shares: The Way Back into the With of Christianity

In the ten years since the publication of Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's Empire, the relationship between Christianity and global capital has received increasing theological attention among the adherents, critics, sympathizersssa, and apostates of Radical Orthodoxy. At stake in this conversation is the possibility that Christianity might provide a universal ontology sufficient to ground a counter-hegemonic, specifically socialist, praxis. One question that many of these authors rarely address, however, is the extent to which Christian universalism has been responsible for the emergence of global capital in the first place. This article will address this profound split at the heart of a tradition; that is, Christianity's culpability for and resistance to global capital. To this end, "Capital Shares" sketches the aporia of Christianity's relation to Empire and then appeals to Jean-Luc Nancy's "deconstruction of Christianity"; in particular, his attempt to find "a source of Christianity, more original than Christianity itself, that might provoke another possibility to arise."

Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy: Transfiguring the World Through the Word – Edited by Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider

Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy: Transfiguring the World Through the Word – Edited by Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider