Postmodern Augustinianism?

Radical Orthodoxy (RO) is a relatively new current within Christian theology. Despite its name, it has nothing in common with the Eastern Orthodox Churches. RO's foremost representatives are John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward. All three are Anglicans. RO's project is difficult to describe in one short paragraph, but has been described as post-secular and postmodern. Milbank at one point called his ideas "postmodern critical Augustinianism". RO is usually considered conservative, but its theology looks like a very curious mixture of Iamblichus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and postmodernism, all suitably reinterpreted in ways many scholars find questionable. At least theologically speaking, this is therefore anything but "orthodoxy" as traditionally conceived.

"Introducing Radical Orthodoxy" is regarded as the best introduction to RO. This is somewhat ironic, since James K. A. Smith is a critic of the new movement. Smith writes from a Reformed perspective and frequently references Kuyper and Dooyeweerd. In a later chapter, he turns out to be critical of them, too. Be that as it may, I did get a relatively good grasp of RO after reading Smith's book. Indeed, most of the book is relatively non-polemical, and it's obvious that the author wants a dialogue with RO rather than an outright confrontation.

RO challenges modernity in the name of both postmodern and "pre-modern" themes. At the same time, they have a kind of double attitude towards postmodernity, both challenging and appropriating it. They seem eager to assimilate the postmodern ideas that there is no "objective" truth, that all objectivity is really "mythos", and that no neutral reason exists. Smith himself is positive to these notions, and ties them to Reformed versions of presuppositionalism. RO's presupposition is that the Bible as interpreted by the traditional Christian creeds is true, while admitting that this cannot be proven by appeals to a neutral, objective reason. However, since nothing else can be proven in this way either, it's really a contest between the Christian mythos and the secular mythos. The problems and contradictions of this position are roughly the same as with other forms of presuppositionalism. Thus, RO seems to believe that the Christian story is more consistent than the secular ones, which are self-contradictory. But so what? Is "consistency" a neutral term? Why is consistency desirable, anyway? Some people seem willing to live without it! When the chips are down, it seems that we'll never know the truth, unless the Holy Ghost opens our unregenerate hearts... Note also that some presuppositionalists accept evolution. RO doesn't seem to be creationists, and neither were Kuyper or Dooyeweerd. Where does the idea of evolution come from? Divine revelation at some church council? I think not. Here's a clue: Charles Dar...! This little detail is enough to create havoc in any presuppositional scheme which wants to incorporate the findings of modern science.

RO's weird parasitism upon postmodernism is a pity, since some of their other ideas are more interesting. RO wants to challenge the dualism and crypto-Gnosticism they believe is inherent in much Christian theology. They want Christians to have a positive view of creation, the body, political engagement, sexuality and aesthetics. RO therefore puts a lot of stress on the idea of "participation": the material world "participates" in God, and exists only due to this participation. In and of itself, the material world would be nothing. Matter can be blessed and positive only because it participates in a higher, transcendent reality which both creates it and graces it. This idea, which to me sounds like panentheism, is apparently taken from Neo-Platonism, especially the theurgical version of Iamblichus. Interestingly, RO claims that Plato too was really a this-worldly philosopher with a positive appreciation of the physical and material. This, Smith is at pains to point out, is hardly the traditional view of Plato! (Smith is sympathetic to RO's pro-material stance, but regards Plato as the dualist par excellence. However, he also criticizes RO for downplaying the Fall.) Personally, I found RO's position intriguing, since some other writers have cracked the idea that Plato was really a "descender". Ken Wilber comes to mind. Another is Dominic O'Meara in his book "Platonopolis", which even attempts to turn Plotinus into a thinker oriented to this world.

RO have also reinterpreted Thomas Aquinas, claiming that he didn't really believe in an autonomous reason, an independent realm for secular philosophy, natural theology, etc. Rather, Aquinas considered the world to participate in God in Neo-Platonist (Augustinian?) fashion. Therefore, one cannot properly *know* even a material object without knowing its divine telos, which in turn is impossible without an explicitly Christian-theological perspective. Autonomous reason cannot give us any true knowledge. While this interpretation of Aquinas is presumably also idiosyncratic, I have seen it before.

Smith points out that there is a curious parallel between RO and Francis Schaeffer on the genealogy of secular modernity. Both traced its theological roots to the High Middle Ages, Schaeffer to Aquinas while RO singles out Duns Scotus as the main culprit. According to RO, Scotus made the philosophical category "Being" more fundamental than God. Both God and created things partake of Being, which implies that the difference between them is one of degree, not one of kind. This opened the door to the flattened ontology of modernity. Radically unhooked from God, matter becomes meaningless, leading to the ironic situation that the materialist cannot consistently honour matter. Materialism and secularism are therefore ultimately nihilistic. A body without a soul is, after all, just a corpse. The transcendent dimension is needed even by those who want to celebrate their bodies and the goodness of the material world. In a strange kind of way, materialism is an inverted Gnosticism, since both are forced to regard matter as meaningless or evil.

Materialism is also unable to explain difference. Materialism, after all, is monist. The only kind of "difference" materialists can affirm is oppositional conflict between particulars. Without a higher dimension, these conflicts are impossible to solve. War and strife are eternal in a flattened cosmos. By contrast, RO believes it can propose an "ontology of peace", including a call for harmony in society. RO also has a political side, which I don't think is fully explicated in the book. Smith calls it "socialism" but it obviously cannot be socialism in the Soviet or Chinese sense. My guess is that RO wants a form of communitarianism with government interventions in the economy and harmony between the classes. (I suppose Marx would have called this bourgeois socialism, or, less charitably, feudal socialism!)

"Introducing Radical Orthodoxy" isn't an easy read. I've read most of the book, but I gave up when Smith started to articulate the Leibniz-Deleuze view of matter as an alternative to RO. Frankly, the postmodern angle rubs my onion. Why even bother engaging Deleuze, Derrida, Foucalt or Zizek? The way to Hell is paved with the names of pomo luminaries!

That being said, I nevertheless recommend James K. A. Smith's book to advanced students of theology who, for whatever reason, don't yet feel advanced enough to take on Milbank's, Pickstock's or Ward's own writings. Or those of Deleuze, for that matter.

The meek shall inherit suffering

Daniel Bell's book “Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering” is a difficult book to comprehensively review, since it covers a lot of philosophical and theological ground. Bell is a Lutheran, but sounds like a Catholic and supports the Radical Orthodoxy current within the Anglican Communion. He mobilizes Bernhard de Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucalt to bolster his case. And, I suppose, John Milbank. Let me also say already at the outset that I disagree with Bell, in fact, “disagreement” is too weak a word. Bell is something as amazing as a stereotyped hypocritical black-coat telling the poor and the oppressed to stop their resistance against the oppressors, until the Second Coming, when the oppressors will be…forgiven by God! And this in a book published in 2001! If this is the much-vaunted social and political program of Radical Orthodoxy, I'll rather take my chances with some colour revolution. A slightly “pink” one, perhaps?

Bell's book is to a large extent a criticism of liberation theology, a leftist and Marxist-inspired form of Catholic theology (although one the Catholic hierarchy opposes), popular in Latin America. Although Bell is actually more conservative than the liberation theologians, he constantly attempts to portray himself as more “radical” and “anti-capitalist”. Bell doesn't believe that liberation theology can effectively challenge capitalism, but his alternative isn't socialism or even social liberalism. Rather, he sees the Church polity as a political and social formation in its own right. Does this mean that the Church should take political power over society? Apparently not, since Bell's ideal are the Cistercian monastic communities of the Middle Ages. This would have made sense if Bell was actively calling on Christians to leave the sinful world and isolate themselves in communes. In practice, he wants the Church to become less political and activist, while staying put inside society, supposedly spreading love, charity and communion all around itself, thereby healing society from class conflict. He even refers to this as “therapy”. I'm not a Marxist, but I'm tempted to quote Marx on this: “Religion is the heart of a heartless world, it is the opium of the people”. Bell's “anti-capitalist” alternative to liberation theology is for the Church to play precisely this role, and to administer more “opium”. But, of course, this is simply the traditional function of certain Churches throughout history. They never abolished capitalism, not even in favour of medievalist “feudal socialism” (the traditional Catholic position). Radical Orthodoxy turns out to be “orthodoxy” with more radical-sounding rhetoric.

Bell criticizes the liberation theologians for having (in practice) a purely distributive view of “justice”. He also criticizes them for having a liberal and too individualist view of “rights”. Indeed, Bell believes that all of modern Catholic social teaching, the official versions included, is based on erroneous conceptions of “rights” and “justice”. These concepts are easily co-opted by free market or welfare state capitalism. To Bell, the correct view of right and justice was laid down by Bernhard and Thomas. Justice has little or nothing to do with giving people “what is their due” on the basis of “rights”. Rather, it’s a unitive force bringing society together in love in a quest for perfection, ultimately the beatific vision of God. This is a “thick” conception of the common good. Capitalism, by contrast, has a much thinner vision of the common good, where “justice” is an external arbiter between acquisitive and competitive individuals, who each claim a “right” to existing resources. While the preferred way of arbitration is through the legal enshrinement of free market relations, the same idea is also compatible with a welfare state (and, of course, with socialism). “Justice” as an arbiter between competing claims to get “what is their due”, will at best be an external pacifying force in a deeply divided society. The social peace will sooner or later break down, since society isn't based on love and a common quest for perfection in God. Bell constantly uses the term “terror of justice”, and I get the impression that he really means it literally. Since “justice” in the liberal/welfarist/socialist sense is ultimately impossible, a consistent attempt to enforce it would presumably lead to a terrorist regime. Like the Jacobins, perhaps? Once again, Bell's criticism of “capitalism” turns out, on closer inspection, to be an attack on social liberal, Social Democratic and Communist *alternatives* to free market capitalism!

Bell spends considerable time discussing “desire”. On his interpretation, Christianity doesn't reject desire as such, only fallen or distorted desire. (This sounds correct, but could be influenced by Radical Orthodoxy's somewhat beer-swilling perspective on the Christian life.) Without healing desire and restoring it to its proper place, as a desire for mutual love and God, “justice” will simply degenerate into terror, as various groups in society will demand satisfaction of their respective warped desires for more worldly goods. Liberation theology is incapable of doing this, presumably because it simply reverses the roles of the rich and the poor. And since most people are poor, even the abolition of the rich won't put an end to social strife, since various sub-groups among the poor will continue the perpetual war of all against all, attempting to satisfy their worldly desires. At least according to the author!

Daniel Bell's book is subtitled “the refusal to cease suffering”. A strange subtitle, but the author seems to mean this quite literally, as well. For what is his alternative to left-wing liberation theology? It turns out to be a kind of voluntary self-crucifixion of the oppressed, where the poor relinquish “what is their due” and the “terror of justice”, instead offering conciliation, forgiveness and healing to the oppressors. In this way, the poor and oppressed can start to heal their own desires in mutual love, and by extending the offer of forgiveness to their enemies, they are giving them, too, the chance to participate in the process. Bell writes about poor peasant communities in El Salvador who supposedly prayed for their persecutors during the civil war, etc. But what if the oppressors reject the offer? Indeed, what if they use the meek attitude of their victims to simply continue the oppression?

Here, Bell has no response. Indeed, he even admits it himself. He calls “the refusal to cease suffering” a “wager on God”, since there are absolutely no guarantees that the strategy will work in the here and now (i.e. in the real world). Perhaps it actually won't work at all. Perhaps the problem of the suffering of the poor and oppressed only has an eschatological solution. In plain English: let's wait until the Second Coming of Christ! Interestingly, Bell doesn't tell us how Jesus will solve the problem at the end of time. Will he throw Pinochet, Videla and the Salvadorean death squads into the lake of fire and brimstone? Somehow, I get the impression that's not the kind of God Bell believes in. Perhaps Christ will simply forgive his enemies, too…

Of course, in the real world, Bell's bizarre admonitions won't be heeded. If history is any guide, the poor and oppressed (or even the slightly crossed) do refuse to suffer, and that's how it should be. The real response to the “end of history” is to boldly declare “I am Spartacus”.

Final point. Although I don't consider myself a conservative, I happen to agree with some of Bell's criticisms of the modern conceptions of “justice”, “right” and “common good”. Yes, the ideal society would indeed be based on mutual love, a quest for perfection, and so on. It would also have to become less acquisitive. Indeed, even for pragmatic reasons (peak oil, climate change etc) a “healing of desire” would be in order. However, it's unlikely – to put it mildly – that such a society could emerge as the result of the slaves, the serfs, or the sweat-shop labourers simply laying down their arms and hoping for the best. As long as the oppressors refuse to cease causing suffering, the only way to reach the perfection craved by the author is…the terror of justice.

The boring Tory

John Milbank, the man behind both Red Tory and Blue Labour

“Red Tory” is a book by Phillip Blond, an Anglican theologian of the Radical Orthodox variety. This particular work doesn't deal with religion, however, but with British politics. Blond heads a conservative think tank called ResPublica, which at least previously supported British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The odd designation Red Tory stands for a (supposed) combination of social egalitarianism and anti-capitalism on the one hand, and traditional moral values on the other. The claim that Blond stands for egalitarianism is something of a stretch, since he explicitly sees Benjamin Disraeli, the Primrose League and various High Tories such as John Ruskin as his ideological forebears. Less visible, but always lurking in the background, is the Distributism of “Chesterbelloc”. Now, Hilaire Belloc wasn't what anyone would call an egalitarian! Indeed, Blond explicitly says in “Red Tory” that society needs a hierarchy based on virtue, and opposes high taxes on inheritance, making it possible for property-owners to pass on their property through the family line. He even says that such people need certain privileges…

That being said, “Red Tory” is nevertheless an interesting read, since Blond attempts – with varied degrees of success, to be sure – to apply a Distributist and communitarian form of conservatism to contemporary British conditions. Being equally critical of both the welfare state and the neo-liberal market (which, paradoxically, also breeds a strong state), Blond proposes to remake Britain in a more Distributist image by decentralization, the scrapping of repressive laws, a public sector controlled by the employees and users, more employee-owned businesses (“John Lewis” is his favorite), and various government-sponsored schemes to increase the savings of the poor. The author is pragmatic, and his concrete proposals are often less radical than his more theoretical positions, which seem to envisage the creation of a kind of Jeffersonian-Aristotelian elite within a relatively homogenous democratic polity (the American version of “Red Tory” is titled “Radical Republic”). As already mentioned, Blond's strategy is to act as a ginger group on the Conservative Party of David Cameron. Interestingly, Blond has connections to a kind of mirror image on the “left”, Blue Labour, which wants to transform the British Labour Party into a party simultaneously opposed to neo-liberalism and “liberal” social values. Both Red Tory and Blue Labour have been associated with Radical Orthodoxy.

Some contentious issues are studiously avoided in “Red Tory”. While the author explicitly opposes the Iraqi War and sees the War on Terror mostly as an excuse to repress civil liberties at home, it's not entirely clear *why* he does so. Isolationism? Or some other reason? The question of Islam isn't mentioned at all (sic), yet Britain has a sizable Muslim population which attempts to gain political influence and/or create independent communities ruled by the sharia. How does a conservative Christian communitarian look at this? Blond implies at several points that he opposes mass non-European immigration, since he bemoans the destruction of “White working class communities” by authorities which gave foreigners access to public housing, but this UKIP-sounding theme is never developed. (A colleague who saw me reading “Red Tory” actually wondered whether it was a UKIP book, which may tell us something about who is *really* seen as the opposition these days.)

The book also strikes me as contradictory and even unrealistic at some points. There is a tension between the longing for a morally and politically virtuous elite, and the more liberal idea that we are finite beings who can't know everything, and hence need to negotiate our respective truths with other citizens on the basis of individual human rights (rather than, presumably, natural law). Leo Strauss? There is also a tension between constant attacks on the super-rich and how they monopolize most wealth in society, and the absence of any concrete proposals how to remedy *this* situation. Does Blond imagine that a Distributist society could be created while the super-rich are still super-rich? The calls to decentralize the state sound more consistent with a Distributist perspective, but are unrealistic (unless the state simply collapses, at which point localization will take place automatically). In reality, a strong state is needed to redistribute property from the neo-liberal elites to the poor, the workers and the lower middle class. Belloc must have realized this at some point, since his later writings sound less libertarian than his earlier ones. Blond's proposals, while not without some interest, run the risk of becoming new poverty traps: the super-rich can live with “devolution” and cooperatives for the poor, as long as it doesn't affect their own hallowed property rights… Blond would have to come up with much more than this, to really become a “Red” Tory!

Final complaint. The book was immensely boring to read, so perhaps one shouldn't let a theologian write political pamphlets…

Blue cider and Labour paradox

“Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics” is a somewhat peculiar book, edited by Ian Geary and Adrian Pabst. Blue Labour is a political tendency within the British Labour Party. It's really the twin of Phillip Blond's Red Tory tendency within the Conservative Party. Both are inspired by John Milbank, an Anglican theologian of the “Radical Orthodoxy” variety. This gives Blue Labour a somewhat surreal quality, since its main talking point is that the Labour Party must adopt more conservative-sounding policies in order to defeat David Cameron's Conservative government. Yet, Red Tory simultaneously lobbies the very same Cameron, hoping that *he* will implement a similar political agenda! While Blue Labour claims to be based on the best traditions of the British labour movement, the contributors to “Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics” pays tribute to Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Benjamin Disraeli, G K Chesterton and the Romantic tradition, while occasionally referencing Blond's book “Red Tory”. Catholic social teaching, including Leo XIII's “Rerum Novarum”, is another important source of inspiration. The book comes with a foreword by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Many of the articles are written in a super-theoretical style and/or employ unfamiliar political terminology. Very often, the contributors call Blue Labour's politics “paradoxical”, but see this as something positive. The occasional references to good wines or fine ciders, or paeans to Wordsworth's poetry, make you wonder exactly how far removed from Labour's working class constituency these guys might be? It's as if we stumbled across a more political subset of the Inklings…

But yes, “Blue Labour” also contains political proposals. The main line of argument is opposition to both economic and social liberalism, and a return to more traditional values (sometimes identified as traditional working class values). The contributors oppose both the welfare state and neo-liberal capitalism in favor of Distributism, although this word is never actually used. The state-financed public sector should be decentralized and taken over by cooperatives of employees and users. Private businesses should be co-managed by workers. Guilds should take over vocational training and (perhaps) control employment opportunities, while immigration from both “East” Europe and the Third World should be significantly reduced. Regional banks that only lend to people living in “their” region should be established. Family values, a living wage, and opposition to a debt-ridden economy are other tenets of the Blue Labour message. For a supposed labour tendency, the book says little about unions, collective bargaining rights and the right to strike. Instead, it concentrates on community organizations, including some that are faith-based. Sometimes, contours of an alternative political system become visible, with “guildhalls” becoming some kind of second chambers to the local or regional councils. In other words, corporatism (but that word isn't used either).

Blue Labour's program strike me as utopian as it stands. It attacks the state, but the only way to implement the proposed program is through a strong state. Or does Blue Labour seriously believe that transnational corporations or “the City of London” will voluntarily accede to its demands? Certain elements of Blue Labour's program can easily be misused by the establishment, such as “family values” (to get female unemployed off the welfare rolls…back to the kitchen) or “decentralize the public sector” (to cut back on public expenditure and hence on corporate taxes). Just as Blond's “Red Tory”, “Blue Labour” never mentions what role, if any, Islam will play in a future Britain. Many Muslims can probably support Blue Labour's program, provided that it gives equal consideration to their communities and the sharia. Nor does the book say anything about foreign policy. “Red Tory”, for its part, sound isolationist. Of course, if the centralized British state collapses due to war, famine, peak oil or social conflict, something similar to Blue Labour's paradoxical agenda might emerge automatically, but that's a somewhat different proposition!

I'm not saying that every proposal found in this volume is wrong. I happen to agree that the hedonistic version of “liberalism” (right or “left”) is unworkable in a world hit by ecological crises, energy crises, permanently high unemployment, rampant terrorism and mounting great power tension. Nations (whether elective or ethnic) who want to survive will have to rebuild community and solidarity. More frugality, both personal and societal, is also necessary. Personally, however, I still feel that a democratic state has an important role to play in the process. So have nation-wide interest organizations, such as unions. If theologians with a taste for fine ciders can play a role, only time will tell…