Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Milbank takes a shot at Ramadan

Wow! Well blogs that I often take a look at have been doing there best at taking shots at "Radical" Orthodoxy's head honcho John Milbank for his piece on Islam, the Enlightenment and Christianity.

What I find most interesting is how again Tariq Ramadan is framed as a poor academic; everybody seems to be attacking this guy. I haven't seen this kind of academic and frankly pseudo-academic attack since writers attacked the French Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida. Milbank thinks "the scholarly inaccurate "Religious Studies" view of Islamic history put forward by figures like Tariq Ramadan" is what clouds the judgment of Christian leaders like Rowan Williams. Again, Ramadan is critiqued for 1)sugarcoating the dark elements of Islam and 2) being a closet supporter of the freedom denying aspects of Islam. I still wonder if anyone (like Milbank) has read his books?

Of course Milbank thinks the best Islam is a mystical form; if he thinks this of Christianity as well then he has bigger problems than Islam.

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