Postmodernity as Opportunity for Church

"Milbank suggests that there is an 'inevitable, if wary, affinity, which must exist between Christianity and postmodernity' (BR, 196). This affinity is neither an identification of the two nor an accommodation of one to the other but rather the discernment of an opportunity afforded by the contemporary situation. Postmodernity's critique of modern epistemologies may represent a chink in modernity's armor that provides both an opportunity to launch an internal critique of modernity and occasion for the church to be alerted to its complicity with modernity."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 141

Church's Antithesis to Political Unity

"In seeking to achieve peace without grace (a correlate of an original war without sin), the state not only pretends to be a church or soteriological institution but must also save us from the church. If the telos of the state's mission is a unity without difference, a peace without faction, then 'the Church is perhaps the primary thing from which the modern state is meant to save us' (RONT, 188), for the church, as a transnational body, must necessarily both transcend the boundaries of the state and also be a fractive force within the state precisely because it asserts difference - an antithesis."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 134

Worship Challenging Caesar

'every worship service is a challenge to Caesar' (Leithart, Against Christianity, 67)

Quoted in: James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 133

The State As Salvific Institution

"Thus, 'the modern state is best understood... as a source of an alternative soteriology to that of the Church' (RONT, 182). The advent of modernity and the birth of the secular, therefore, do not entail the creation of a secular public space where the state merely manages temporal goods, distinguished from a private sacred space where individuals and communities are free to pursue a supra-temporal telos. The state does not take a merely temporal regulatory role and leave salvation in the hands of the church; rather, the modern state seeks to replace the church by itself becoming a soteriological institution."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 132

Only Option is True vs. False Religion

"…the ineradicable religious structure of human selfhood, when marred by sin, does not lead to irreligion or to no religion but to a distorted religion – in short, idolatry."

"… Even the democratic Sunday Times reader –committed to justice as some kind of end in itself – is committed to false gods."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.115

No Virtue in Being Religious

"Unlike for Caputo, for Augustine there is no virtue in being religious. This is because, for Augustine (and earlier St. Paul and later John Calvin), being religious is constitutive of being human. Human beings – as created in the image of God – cannot help but be religious. Hence, being religious is not a notable achievement. We might describe this as Augustine’s account of formal or structural religion."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.113

The Church IS the Politics

"But the Church does not have a cultural critique; it is a cultural critique. Its politics is an ecclesiology. "

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.80

Primacy of Liturgy for Theology

“Since god is not an item in the world to which we might turn,” Milbank concludes, “he is only first there for us in our turning to him. And yet we only turn to him when he reaches us; herein lies the mystery of liturgy – liturgy that for theology is more fundamental then either language or experience, and yet is both linguistic and experiential.” (Milbank, “Programme of Radical Orthodoxy,” 43) "


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 78

Only Transcendence Supports Immanence

"When the world is so flattened that all we have is the immanent, the immanent implodes upon itself. In contrast to such nihilism and materialism, only a participatory ontology – in which the immanent and material is suspended from the transcendent and immaterial – can grant the world meaning. …. Following Augustine, every created reality is absolutely nothing in itself…."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.75

Against Pure Faith and Pure Reason

"Thus, RO ‘protests equally against assertions of pure reason and of pure faith; equally against denominational claims for a monopoly of salvation and against indifference to church order; equally against theology as an internal autistic idiolect, and against theology as an adaptation to unquestioned secular assumptions …. However, it further asserts that the apparently opposite poles refused are in secret collusion: more specifically it contends that the pursuit of pure faith is as much a modern quest as the pursuit of pure reason; that the investing of salvific security entirely in institutions and formulae is as modern as the individualistic neglect of such matters, while the eschewing of all apologetics is likewise as modern as regarding apologetics as the essential foundation for a truthful theology.’ (Milbank, “Programme of Radical Orthodoxy,” 33.)"


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 72

Confronting, Not Correlating Values

"…the way to engage the contemporary world is not by trying to demonstrate a correlation between the gospel and cultural values but rather by letting the gospel confront these (apostate) values."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.69

More Consistent Postmodernity

"What we need is a more consistent postmodernism, one that follows through on the internal deconstruction of the Enlightenment project rather than halting it at the point of liberal politics and the classical critique of religion. The church, authentically conceived, should be the quintessential site of such a post-secular engagement."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.61

Relative Truth of Nihilism

‘Nihilism is nearer the truth than humanism, because it recognizes the unknown and indeterminate in every reality and because it is true that without God there is nothing. One can add that humanism is nihilism unable to recognize itself and therefore also naïve or cynical or both’ (Radical Orthodoxy: Twenty-four Theses,” thesis 7)


Quoted in: James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 43 note.44

There is No Secular

"In short, there is no secular, if by “secular” we mean “neutral” or “uncommitted”; instead, the supposedly neutral public spaces that we inhabit – in the academy or politics – are temples of other gods that cannot be served alongside Christ."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 42

Captured by One's Own Creation

"For although man made gods it didn't follow that he who made them was not held captive by them, when by worshipping them he was drawn into fellowship with them."

Saint Augustine, The City of God ... (need citation)

God Against Theology

"What would you do if you were God?"
"Put a stop to all this theology."

Peter Devries, The Blood of the Lamb, p. 105

Confronting Fanatics (of any stripe?)

"In a head-on collision with Fanatics, the real problem is always the same: how can we possibly behave decently toward people so arrogantly ignorant that they believe, first, that they possess Christ's power to bestow salvation, second, that forcing us to memorize and regurgitate a few of their favorite Bible phrases and attend their church is that salvation, and third, that any discomfort, frustration, anger or disagreement we express in the face of their moronic barrages is due not to their astounding effrontery but to our sinfulness?"

David James Duncan, The Brothers K, p. 227

Worshipping the Wall of Separation

"Having never challenged the way they worshipped here, she'd never experienced the limitations. But the instant she stood up, alone and desperate, it seemed dreadfully obvious that some antiseptic, ill-tempered god of propriety had built a transparent wall between the congregaton and their own lives, and that what they now worshipped was that wall."

The Mom, preparing to intervene on her son's behalf during church.
David James Duncan, The Brothers K, p. 541

Desperate, Sarcastic & Sincere Prayer of Protest

Older son, Everett, describing the only prayer that would make sense if God were really God:

" 'Hello there, God. I know Thy Will is being done today, as usual, and I think that's terrific as usual. Of course to me Your Will looks like a crazy mess that's getting the rich richer and the poor poorer and the innocent killed and babies stomped and starved and the whole world in danger of being blown up any minute by atom bombs and all. But You know all about me thinking that, since You made me. So, uh, sorry. And please, go right ahead and do Your Will no matter what I think, even if it kills us. Talk to You tomorrow, Lord! Love, Everett.' "

Peter and Irwin were both grinning, but Everett looked dead serious from beginning to end. "That," he said, "is why, at supper, I was gonna propose to God, if there is one, not that He change His will, not that He remake or unmake the life he gave Papa, but just that He hand me enough of the rotten part of Papa's life, and Papa enough of the good part of mine, to get him back out on the ballfield. You see? But now" -he sat down, sighed, and shook his head- "now I see that I was just being stupid."

David James Duncan, The Brothers K, p. 177

Hauerwas on Vulnerability & Holiness

Stanley Hauerwas talking to 'holiness' people about the weaknesses of their conception of personal salvation which he describes as follows:

"I had this experience of Jesus and it was great. Other people ought to have it too, that way we can all enjoy our narcissistic fascination with our own spiritual biographies. That's what Matthew 18 is against. It won't let you think that somehow or the other I just get to have my Jesus and my life too. It means that what it means to be a Christian is to find yourself in a body of people in which you're vulnerable to their demands and judgements, and that that's what holiness is.

Holiness isn't some kind of idea of personal purity. I mean, that might be okay but it won't take you very far. Holiness is to be part of a body of people through which your body is made vulnerable to judgements that will save you from being captured by the powers that will otherwise possess your life. And don't ever trust your own presumptions that you're free from them."


Hauerwas talk/interview at Renovatus Church on June 29, 2008. Podcast available here.