ABSTRACT
Radical Orthodoxy is a movement of intellectual, ecumenical and cultural mediation. It protests equally against assertions of pure reason and of pure faith and against indifference to church order and against theology as an adaptation to unquestioned secular assumptions. Hence Radical Orthodoxy's apparent moderation in distancing itself from the soi-disant conservatism of revelatory positivism, or a high papalism, or a purely self-referential theological discourse, is actually a sign of an extremism. Perhaps the most crucial instance of this simultaneous moderation and extremism can be seen in Radical Orthodoxy's stance towards Protestant neo orthodoxy. This situation of Radical Orthodoxy with respect to twentieth century Protestant thought is complemented by its situation with respect to Roman Catholic thought in the same period. The theological turn against nihilism is common ground between Radical Orthodoxy and French Catholic phenomenologists-cum-theologians. But again Radical Orthodoxy seeks to mediate between French phenomenology on the one hand, and an Anglo-Saxon focus on language on the other.
