The Gift of Difference is perhaps best understood in its ambiguous subtitle, “Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation.”  Just what is the relationship between these two expressions?  Any number of conjunctives or disjunctives could have been used; on, against, and, etc.  But this volume neither set out to define the relationship nor did some definitive view emerge.  In many ways the comma, noting a pause and space, a fragile jot, in the end may be all that is holding these traditions in relationship whatsoever.  While this volume at times offered an invigorating maybe even synergistic exchange where a “” could have been the best syntactical divide, however, for the most part I was not convinced anyone came out of the exchange changed.  In trying to clarify my view of this work I realized that my criticisms are with the whole while my great appreciation comes in the parts.  I will begin with the whole.

Continue reading “The Gift of Difference – Part I – A Review of the Whole” →