Contemporary Pragmatism Editions Rodopi Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 2004), 123–135 © 2004 A Pragmatism Without Plurality? John Milbank’s ‘Pragmatic’ New Christendom Mary Doak John Milbank argues for a new Christendom on the grounds that the “narrated practice” of Christianity provides our only hope for peaceful harmony amid differences. He defends this claim on the basis of a “pragmatic linguistic idealism,” in which our various narrative traditions compete to appeal to our taste; he decisively rejects the possibility of any other criteria of evaluation or of a mutually critical dialogue. This oppositional stance toward other perspectives reveals the instability of Milbank’s position, however, in that it denies the possibility of harmony among differences upon which his defense of Christianity depends. Given that our hedonistic, market-dominated, and increasingly violent culture is flourishing and dominating the world despite criticisms from the left and from the right, John Milbank’s claim to provide a truly viable (indeed, the only viable) alternative cannot be easily dismissed. His magisterial work, Theology and Social Theory, in which he defends his new version of “no salvation outside of the Church” on the grounds of a pragmatic linguistic idealism, continues to provoke considerable attention (both positive and negative) even though it is now almost fifteen years old.1 His insistence that only a return to the practice of a radically orthodox Christianity (with a distinctly Anglican hue) can save Western culture from its self-destructive orientation to nihilistic violence has been taken up by several other theologians, who together with Milbank understand themselves to be part of this theological movement called “Radical Orthodoxy” in opposition to central aspects of Western society, its intellectual culture, and our current theology.2 Pragmatist philosophers may be interested (and possibly infuriated) by Milbank’s use of a Rortian form of pragmatism to make his case, while Christian theologians could be flattered by the importance he gives to our work (if we are not too outraged by his insistence that we have gotten it all wrong and are actually responsible for this nihilistic post-modernity). Notwithstanding our various professional and party interests, however, those who share Milbank’s sense of the 124 MARY DOAK seriousness of our cultural situation will want to consider whether he has not, in fact, discovered (or at least pointed to) the way forward to a more peaceable and humane future. There is insight to be gained from his argument, but I believe that his proposal is not a viable alternative because (among its other defects) it is finally incoherent: the alternative he proffers as the only option for avoiding an ontology of violence is based on the same presumption of ineluctable and radical conflict that he has diagnosed as the basis of the ontology of violence he seeks to counter. Indeed, though we can learn much from Milbank’s insights and even from his mistakes, I will argue that Milbank’s vision of a new Christendom fails to satisfy the criteria of coherence, consistency with what we otherwise know to be true, universalizable interest, and aesthetic appeal that we both judge to be necessary for a valid theological position. 1. Milbank’s Narrative of the Western Decline into Violence Milbank’s almost unmanageably comprehensive Theology and Social Theory is best read as an attempt to provide a Christian metanarrative that “out-narrates” all alternative readings of Western cultural and intellectual history, a strategy that he explicitly maintains is the only viable theological method. In order to defend my claim that Milbank’s grand story does not work because it is essentially self- contradictory, I will first briefly summarize the basic outlines of this attempt to out-narrate our other options. The gist of Milbank’s necessarily wide-ranging and detailed account is that Christianity interrupted the ancient world’s emphasis on heroic virtue to reveal its implicitly competitive and inherently violent implications, and Christianity did so primarily by practicing an alternative narrative of true justice in a society of non- competitive reconciliation and harmony among differences. However, the Christian failure to maintain our authentic narrative of peaceful reconciliation ushered in a modernity which marginalized theology through the development of an autonomous secular realm that organizes knowledge and social government according to the presumption of an unmasked will-to-power and irresolvable difference. Notwithstanding Milbank’s acute criticisms of modernity, he judges that post-modern critiques of modernity are at best a mixed blessing: on the one hand, they have exacerbated the implicit violence and nihilism in our culture by insisting that all perspectives are arbitrary manifestations of a will-to-truth; yet, on the other hand, they have served unintentionally to lead us back to a true Christianity by making it possible for us to see the arbitrariness of presuming that a will-to-power is foundational. We have now before us, Milbank concludes, the stark alternatives of either returning to an authentic Christian practice of peaceful reconciliation, or continuing the now-revealed-as-arbitrary appeal to power that is the practice of modern/postmodern secularity.3 .