When someone uses “faith traditions”:
John Milbank and Adrian Pabst (The Politics of Virtue, 269) argue that secular critiques of liberalism cannot hit home because “they are incapable of making the key argument that various different faith traditions are able to make—that nature is neither external to humanity, nor should humans ever aspire simply to dominate their own or external nature.”
Well, if you ask me, a faith that goes by “faith tradition” has already inhaled a good degree of liberal secularism. But oh how warm and fuzzy if feels to unite with Hindus, Muslims, and Jews in criticizing modernity.
Peter Leithart adds:
This is crucial. To deconstruct X as socially constructed, one has to be able to distinguish culture cleanly from nature. If that distinction is messy, then there’s no space for the easy deconstructive critique.
But isn’t faith tradition “socially constructed”? And isn’t it a tad messy to disaggregate Christians from Hindus so that once both sides unite to overturn liberal secularism, they can turn on each other? Messy indeed.
So is looking to Milbank as someone who will have your back when you’re teaching the Westminster Confession (and the Divines were English even).
Old Life 