40 Bicycles

I’ve not read a great deal of Radical Orthodoxy. I think that Milbank’s protest against the sociologization of Christian theology was absolutely justified, spot on, and it needed somebody with that ability and depth to say it at such length and with such detailed analysis that it would actually be heard. If it had been a 150 page book, people would not have even noticed it. There are two obvious problems with Radical Orthodoxy, one its proponents have made a virtue of dense prose. People sometimes accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury of writing densely, and of course he was the teacher of some of the Radical Orthodox, including Milbank, but they have gone even further down that route. And it is almost as though if they said it in plain English - do they have the oomph to say it in plain English and be heard? And they probably do, but it would nice to see it. As a result a lot of people simply don’t know what’s going on. The second thing is, that in their attempted repristination of the Medieval tradition – which in all sorts of ways is something that we’ve got to do – they don’t know what to do with the Bible. And a would-be Christian theology which really does seem a bit puzzled with to do with the Bible, I think there’s a warning light going on there. It’s early days, yet, but it will be fun to see how that plays out.