ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the connection between Milbank's argument about Christian non-violence, a "peace beyond the law," and his desire to "sketch out a theology aware of itself as culturally constructed, yet able to elaborate its own self-understanding in terms of a substantive and critical theory of society in general". John Milbank defines his theological project as an attempt to divorce Christian theology from what he calls "secular reason". Methodologically, Milbank's distinctly postmodern theology is an attempt to reinsert linguistic mediation at the core of Christian theology, mediation that he argues secular reason, and more specifically Christian theology indebted to secular reason, implicitly denies. The difference between Milbank's and Cohen's projects is that while Milbank's theology and social theory are ultimately attempts to reject secular society and "secular reason," Cohen's theology and social theory are attempts precisely to embrace secular society and "secular reason".
