ABSTRACT
One of the most lively, most discussed, and most criticized schools formed in contemporary Western theology in the decades around the turn of the millennium is the originally English movement of “Radical Orthodoxy.” From its modest beginnings at Cambridge University – officially dated to May 1, 1997 – it has succeeded in the course of a few years in exercising a sensational influence on theological debate. The following are usually said to be the founders of the movement: Graham Ward, formerly Dean of Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge; Catherine Pickstock, at that time Research Fellow at Emmanuel College; and John Milbank, who formerly taught at the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. Of these three, it is only Pickstock who has remained faithful to Cambridge up to now. Ward later became professor of contextual theology at Manchester University and has, at the time of writing, just been appointed as Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford. Milbank, after a period at the University of Virginia, became professor of religion, politics, and ethics at the University of Nottingham, where he also started “The Centre of Theology and Philosophy.” The book series “Radical Orthodoxy” (Routledge) also played an important role, but it has now been replaced by a new series with the same editors, “Illuminations: Theory and Religion” (Blackwell). Two other series of publications linked to the Centre founded by Milbank have also been launched: “Interventions” (Eerdmans) and “Veritas” (SCM Press). The importance of these series, especially the first, has consisted not only in spreading the ideas of the movement, but above all in giving a relatively clear form to the movement as such. Radical Orthodoxy is not a movement that one can apply to join. Rather, it expresses one particular theological standpoint that finds expression in a variety of projects and contexts.
