ABSTRACT
Tending gardens, building bridges, sowing crops, and caring for children are in days not commonly perceived as religious activities. The immediate occasion for Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason must perhaps be sought in the increasingly oppositional stance of the Church of England toward the neoliberalist politics of the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher. Milbank rejects view that today's secular reason is the inevitable outcome of modernity. Milbank traces the roots of secular reason to the late Middle Ages, and especially to the debate concerning private ownership. Milbank discusses postmodernism in the part of Theology and Social Theory, which is called ‘Theology and Difference.’ An important element in Milbank's ontology is the concept of analogy. In modernity, the relationship between different ends and the lack of harmony was less clear. The medieval church failed to make its idea of harmony credible through its deeds, and as such paved the way for cynicism and a more radical embrace of violence.
