ABSTRACT
The dominant tradition is indebted to Weberian sociology and Niebuhrian realism. It views pluralist western democracies as the best possible form of organized socio-political life. And this makes confessional Christian language problematic in the public realm. This dominant tradition finds many aspects of modernity worth embracing, although it is critical of the premodern medieval church and the postmodern ‘balkanization’ of politics. Because modernity is embraced while postmodernity is eschewed, some within the dominant tradition find a conspiracy occurring against the wisdom of modernity. In particular, Novak and Stackhouse find an ‘adversary culture’ of elites who have derailed modernity into postmodernity. They find postmodernity to be less extension and intensification of modernity than a well-intentioned, yet misguided, effort to undo modernity’s gains.1 The vociferousness of their attack against post-liberal and liberation theologians has to be understood in light of their admirable concern that the public role of theology has been compromised by a self-righteous privatization of theological discourse.
