Christ and Radical Orthodoxy

The papers in the seminar on the recent Duke publication Theology and the Political: The New Debate were dense, difficult, and hard to follow. And then Graham Ward got up and said, essentially, that the whole point of Radical Orthodoxy was to start with Christ; all the philosophical apparatus arises as second-order reflection on what is revealed, particularly on the incarnation. Thus, the debate about ontology is not about analogy or participation per se, but about trying to formulate a “Christic ontology,” which Ward admitted has not been achieved. He spent a good bit of his time discussing passages in Colossians and 1 Corinthians.

The contrast was pretty breath-taking, and raises a question about the direction some of those influenced by Radical Orthodoxy have taken. For all his Anglo-Catholicism and facility with Continental philosophy, Milbank is driven by an evangelical impulse, and Ward as well, perhaps even more. Conor Cunningham exhibits the same orientation; talking about the nihilism of Deleuze, he cited Jesus’ words that “without me you can do nothing,” and suggested that “we take Him at his word.” But I wonder if that same impulse is driving his disciples, or if they get caught up in the heady philosophical elaborations and miss Milbank’s fundamental framework.