I realize the blog has been silent for a few days. This is the fault of John Milbank. I’ve spend the last couple weeks rigorously editing his forthcoming volume with Cascade Books, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology. Whatever disagreements I and anyone else might have with Milbank, the man is an incredible genius, having a grasp of western philosophy and theology, the likes of which is rarely seen in a theologian.
The forthcoming book promises to be a very good one, containing a lot of superb essays from Milbank that really get at the inner-workings of his theopolitical vision and his theology as a whole. Here is the contents of the book:
I Theology and English Culture
1 Coleridge: Divine Logos and Human Communication
2 Religion, Culture, and Anarchy: The Attack on the Arnoldian Vision
3 What is Living and What is Dead in Newman’s Grammar of Assent
II Theology and British Politics
4 Were the “Christian Socialists” Socialist?
5 The Body by Love Possessed: Christianity and Late Capitalism in Britain
6 On Baseless Suspicion: Christianity and the Crisis of Socialism
III Theology and Social Theory: Responses
7 Enclaves: or Where is the Church?
8 On Theological Transgression
9 The Invocation of Clio
IV Political Theology Today
10 Sovereignty, Empire, Capital, and Terror
11 Liberality versus Liberalism
12 Stale Expressions: The Management-Shaped Church
V Theology and Pluralism
13 The End of Dialogue
14 The Conflict of the Faculties: Theology and the Economy of the Sciences
15 Faith, Reason, and Imagination: The Study of Theology and Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century
VI Theological Agendas
16 Postmodern Critical Augustinianism: A Short Summa in Forty-Two Responses to Unasked Questions
17 The Transcendality of the Gift: A Summary in Answer to 12 Questions
18 The Future of Love: A Reading of Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est
Personally, I found the essays in the sections on Theology and Social Theory and “Theological Agendas” to be the most engaging and interesting. In particular, I think Milbank’s article, “Enclaves, or Where is the Church?” is one of his best pieces. In it we get an utterly rich reading of Paul’s ecclesiology in the Corinthian epistles. Milbank’s engagement with Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclial, Deus Caritas Est is also a superb piece. All in all, I think anyone interested in contemporary theology in general, and Milbank’s work in particular will find this book very helpful. I look forward to it going into production soon.
I’ve read probably half of these essays and I still can’t wait to buy the book. I hope it is reasonably priced?
thanks for the heads up about this volume. do you have any idea when it is going to be released?
I’m not sure what the pricing will be. It’ll depend on final page count. Depending how fast we can move through the final stages (everything is really busy right now), I say we can expect to see the book sometime in early October.
Is the “enclaves” essay also a reprint? If so where has it been published before?
This volume does look very interesting.
Oh man… Can’t wait for this one!
Patrik,
That’s in a really great isue of New Blackfriars from 1992 — special issue on Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory…
It also contains responses from Graham Ward, Aidan Nichols, Kieran Flanagan, Fergus Kerr, and Rowan Williams. Really very good.
Although, maybe better (without Milbank’s response) and also in 1992, there was an issue on TST in Modern Theology that has a really excellent summary (just astoundingly accurate in the most straightforward of terms) by David Burrell, and the most astonishing, and brilliant response I have ever seen given to Milbank by Nicholas Lash — who sometimes refers to milbank as “Cardinal Milbank”! Great piece.
That’s the issue that includes the article “Enclaves” that you asked about, Patrik.
Yeah, sorry Patrik, I should have included the whole citation:
John Milbank, “Enclaves, or, Where is the Church?” New Blackfriars Vol. 73, Issue 861 (June 1992), 341-52.
Peace.
Does anyone know if “The Transcendality of the Gift: A Summary in Answer to 12 Questions” is a new essay or a reprint, and if the latter where was it originally printed?
Any chance he responds to Stout anywhere in this volume?
Thank you for you responses, I will look up that issue.
When will this volume be available? Does anyone know? I’ll be teaching a course of the theology of Radical Orthodoxy this Spring at Duke and want to review it as a possible text for the course.
Prof. Carter,
Thank you for your comment. The book now needs to be typeset and proofread, but this should take no more than a few weeks. I anticipate the book being out sometime in early-mid October. When it is available, I will email you and let you know.
-Halden
The Newman piece looks interesting – I wonder if it’s new as I’ve never come across anything written by Milbank on Newman?
I’ve only ever seen a few passing references which is perhaps a little strange given the affinities between Newman and Milbank.
zzzzzzzzz…