Though he's tremendously dense reading, I'm really enjoying Milbank's explorations/lines-of-thought more and more as I read him. This is part of the provocative, no-prisoners introduction to what is turning out to be one of the best books I've ever read:
'Contemporary "political theologians" tend to fasten upon a particular social theory, or else put together their own eclectic theoretical mix, and then work out what residual place is left for Christianity and theology within the reality that is supposed to be authoritatively described by such a theory. Curiously enough, theologians appear specially eager to affirm both the "scientific" and the "humanist" discourses of modernity, although one can, perhaps, suggest reasons for this. First, the faith of humanism has become a substitute for a transcendent faith, now only half-subscribed to. Second, there is a perceived need to discover precisely how to fulfil Christian precepts about charity and freedom in contemporary society in an uncontroversial manner, involving cooperation with the majority of non-Christian fellow citizens. Purportedly scientific diagnoses and recommendations fulfil precisely this role. ... I wish to challenge both the idea that there is a significant sociological "reading" of religion and Christianity, which theology must "take account of", and the idea that theology must borrow its diagnoses of social ills and recommendations of social solutions entirely from Marxist (or usually sub-Marxist) analysis, with some sociological admixture.'
-John Milbanks, Theology and Social Theory, p.3
