I have been an admirer of John Milbank since discovering Radical Orthodoxy. This tendency in contemporary theology is quite elitist and not always easy to follow, but it is largely based on Plato’s realist metaphysics and seeks a spiritual understanding of theology.
However, Milbank does seem to have a disturbing tendency to promote the Roman way of teaching doctrine infallibly and the ex opere operato mindset to some extent. How do we go from post-modernism back to pre-modernism? I have an intimate understanding of what it was like to yearn for an infallible Church and the forceful suppression of dissent and intellectual freedom.
Though I hardly go along with ‘liberal’ theology based on idealist metaphysics, I have become weary and sceptical of the certitudes of conservative Christianity. Traditionally, Anglican comprehensiveness made dialogue and conversation possible. Milbank’s thought is more subtle than that of conservatives, but the tendencies need to be closely examined and discussed.
Three observations about contemporary Anglicanism:
— Almost ubiquitous liturgical chaos, where many evangelicals and liberals alike have little sense of what worship is for.
— The increasing failure of many priests to perform their true priestly roles of pastoral care and mission outreach, in a predominantly “liberal” and managerialist ecclesial culture that encourages bureaucratisation and over-specialisation. This has often led to a staggering failure even to try to do the most obvious things – like publicising in the community an Easter egg hunt for children in the bishop’s palace grounds! To an unrecognised degree this kind of lapse explains why fewer and fewer people bother with church – though the underlying failure “even to try” has more to do with a post 1960s ethos that assumes decline and regards secularisation as basically a good thing, or even as providentially ordained since religion is supposedly a “private” and merely “personal” affair after all.
— Perhaps most decisive is the collapse of theological literacy among the clergy – again, this is partly a legacy of the 1960s and 70s (made all the worst by the illusion that this was a time of enlightening by sophisticated German Protestant influence), but it has now been compounded by the ever-easier admission of people to the priesthood with but minimal theological education, and often one in which doctrine is regarded almost as an optional extra.
The Blue Flower 
Well, I’ve read the article, and like the commenter Daniel Viles, I may not have appreciated all the points. But, in general, I agree with commenter John MD: John Milbank seems to ultimately want to ditch some very significant Anglican modes or characteristics simply to facilitate becoming a Catholic. Personally I do not like the unilateralism involved in the unity project, as if one element – the Roman – needs no change whatsoever. What I see when I survey the Christian landscape, I see debris and fractures all over the place. The fact that one or other fragments are a little larger does not, in my view, make them any less broken. I admire Rowan Williams immensely, and think the Anglican Church will miss him.
I agree with you. As I discussed many times on the English Catholic, I do not accept the Roman Catholic Church as the “perfect Church” to which all others are called to convert, but a part of a higher truth to which we are all called to converge by better following our own traditions and particularities.
The Anglican world has known Dr Williams over the last dozen years, and I find his theology profound and spiritual. He is criticised variously for being too conservative and too liberal. The one we don’t know is who is going to succeed him.
I wonder to what kind of “Roman way of teaching doctrine infallibly” Millbank is attracted, if indeed he is. After all, he is strongly in favour of both women’s purported ordination and church acceptance and recognition of homosexual “partnerships.”
I know about this from personal experience: he and his wife, on the one hand, and I, on the other, had quite a heated discussion of the WO issue in October 1978 in a corner of the back garden of Little St Mary’s Vicarage in Cambridge, at the annual garden party of the then Vicar, the late Fr. James Owen, to which we (with many others) had been invited. (And I have read much over the years concerning his endorsement of SS.) Millbank was so put out by my unqualified rejection of WO that he offered to arrange a meeting between me and “a brilliant young theologian at Westcott House,” who would set me straight, he claimed, on the subject — which is what led to my one and only personal meeting with one Rowan Williams a few days later. It appears, though, that my disposition is irremediably “crooked,” since I was both unconvinced and unimpressed by his views on the matter.
It would be interesting to see a discussion on what theological arguments such Anglican academics use to support women’s ordination and same-sex marriages. It is one thing to say that people should have an easy life and no moral constraints, and yet be considered good Christians, but I’m not sure that this is what Dr Williams and Dr Milbank would argue for.
I will add to my previous comment, that now having read Millbank’s whole article, he appears to reject “homosexual marriage” but not church recognition of “homosexual partnerships” — on the basis that a “homosexual marriage” is impossible to “consummate.” Well yes, but …
I share the admiration for Abp Williams, who was very catholic in his theology and liturgical orientation. I suspect he is the last of a generation. I doubt any future Archbishop of Canterbury will match up to him. Seminarians in the CoE today are nowhere near the intellectual level of their predecessors (that is also very painfully true of the Irish Church, as anyone familiar with Maynooth seminarians will know).
In retrospect I suspect he was too good to be a bishop.
“How do we go from post-modernism back to pre-modernism?”
Seems straight-forward enough to me. If post-modern thought is to stand *for* something, it eventually has to find it. And pre-modern thought provides ample alternative to the passing fad of the modern age. I personally know many people who came to very traditional, pre-modern philosophical positions by way of the post-modern critique.
I don’t want to sound awkward, but can you define “very traditional, pre-modern philosophical positions” as opposed to American (and European) right-wing conservatism which I only see as part of the modern dialectics?
“I share the admiration for Abp Williams, who was very catholic in his theology and liturgical orientation.”
I certainly do not share it, and consider ridiculous beyond words to write such tosh as “very catholic in his theology” to characterize one who ordains women and favors the blessing of sexual perversity.
Thank you William for that very polite and constructive response.
The issues you mention have to do with modern quaestiones disputatae, they do not impinge upon the Apostolic Faith.
Politeness at the expense of truth is a small virtue indeed. To let pass, in the name of politeness, the attempt to use the word “catholic” to mean whatever the commenter would like it to mean would be a failure to defend the truth.
If “catholic” means anything, it means that which is conformable to the Vincentian canon. That’s not a robust enough definition for all the uses the word “catholic” must serve, but it will do for a start in this context. “Catholic” surely does not mean less than that. By that standard neither the ordination of women nor the blessing of homosexual relations comes close to passing muster.
Properly understood, the quality of catholicity does not admit of degrees, because it pertains to “fullness.” If there is anything missing, or anything wrong or corrupted, one cannot be “catholic.” That is why Dr Williams’s stance on the ordination of women and homosexuality disqualify him from being called “catholic.” Those views are a corruption of the Catholic faith.
Perhaps we can say that parts of RW’s theology is Catholic and others less so. I find RW’s stuff on spirituality, especially his little book on the Desert Fathers, to be very truthful. There is a profound spirituality to the man.
“The issues you mention have to do with modern quaestiones disputatae, they do not impinge upon the Apostolic Faith.”
According to whom? Not the Catholic church; not the Orthodox Church; not the Oriental Orthodox; and not any Protestant bodies that are faithful to the foundational confessional statements. And, in any event, any early Unitarian (when the Unitarians were serious about being “Christians”) might have said the same about the Trinity itself. In other words, more tosh — this time from you.
I am closing this thread lest this blog should go the same way as the English Catholic.