I just received my review copy of The Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation.

John Milbank from the Foreward:

Without any question, the essayists below have done Radical Orthodoxy and me the immense service of taking seriously our concerns.  All the readings of Radical Orthodoxy writings are careful and never caricatured.  This is rare.

Yikes.

Opening quote is from Yoder in the first chapter:

The Niebuhrian or the Sartrian has no corner on clean hands.  The question is not whether one can have clean hands but which kind of complicity in which kind of inevitable evil is preferable.

I am gathering the general tone of this work will aim at transcending any simplistic dialectic between purity and comprise in the social and political realm.  While most (did I say most?) Mennonites recognize they are not ‘perfect’ I hope this work will go a long way towards dismantling the stain of perfectionism that still contaminates much of our personal and social activity (or inactivity).

Look forward to a more sustained engagement with book!