I write here about a range of things; a loose collection of posts and reviews about things that I am passionate about. For the most part that means you’ll see lots of posts about my faith and about Jesus’ ministry through me here at St. Anselm’s, Hayes. You can also find any sermons or broadcasts I may have delivered (although I’m not entirely consistent in posting them).
I’ve been riding motorbikes since I was 17. I know that those of you who have come to know me over the last five years or so may be surprised to discover that before I became a Priest my socials (and indeed this blog) was wall to wall bikes and adventure travel. I vary rarely wrote about ‘work’, but did create a lot of content about motorbikes, travel, and adventure (with some cooking thrown in for fun).
My first bike was a CZ125. My father bought it for me when I was in Caerphilly (two valleys over from home) doing my engineering apprenticeship with GE Aircraft Services. It cost £800 and my dad bought it for me because I was stuck in Caerphilly and we had just lost my step-mother to a heart attack. It meant I could get home to him most days and help where I could. It also meant freedom.
In those first early months the bike meant I could be there for my dad, but perhaps more selfishly it meant I was able to be in control of my own life.
If I wanted to run down to Cardiff to see friends, no problem. If I wanted to nip up to see my grandmother in Brynmawr, no problem.
If it was all a bit too much I and I wanted some time to myself, no problem.
It was that final use that really cemented the motorbike into my daily life. The ability to exit whatever situation I was currently in and just go away. It didn’t matter where, but it did matter that it was just me and my thoughts in my helmet.
The utter concentration riding a motorbike means you have to enter into a state of ‘flow‘. The CZ was a sod of a bike to ride. In many ways it was the perfect machine to take me away from it all. Not because it was fast, not because it could take me huge distances, but because it required every ounce of mental focus I could muster to keep it on the road (and I didn’t always achieve that).
In those early years of biking all I cared about was being on the road. The bike was a tool and one I didn’t look after properly. I blew it up less than a year after I had it because I didn’t maintain it properly – so the next bike – an MZ125 was cared for rather more carefully.
In many ways it was the maintenance of this tool that took me away from it all, that taught me the discipline of maintenance in my daily life. I understood how important riding was to me, but not why, and now I understood if I didn’t look after that tool I would loose it.
Without meaning to I’d discovered that my own wellbeing and mental health was something that required constant care and maintenance.
Then came the big bikes. By this point I’d left engineering to pursue nursing (long story), had moved to Birmingham via Swansea and was now in Nottingham (and London) with my wife who I had met whilst presenting the weekend breakfast show on Bridge FM in South Wales. (Never has so much been glossed over in such a short paragraph).
The first big bike was a Honda CBF600.
To ride this machine I’d needed to undergo new training and get a new licence. It was hard work and I failed the first test. But this machine was different to all the others that had gone before it. For the first time it didn’t feel like a tool I was deploying to escape, but a part of who I was.
I’d learned how to keep a bike on the road, how to maintain it, how to ride it – but now I had to learn how it could help me stay on the road, how it could help me maintain my mental health and how it could help me learn how to navigate an increasingly difficult and complex life.
Catherine and I had moved to Nottingham after I had got a new job with the BBC in London (I’d previously been at the BBC in Birmingham). Catherine was applying for jobs in London but they were not materialising and I was trying to live in two cities at once. Commuting on a Monday morning and Friday evening back and forth and camping during the week in a miserable bedsit in Muswell Hill.
The bike became the thing that held everything together. It was on one hand the easiest way for me to get in and out of work and back and forth to Nottingham. On the other hand it continued to be my tool of escape; but now that escape was twofold.
Not only was I able to spend time alone in my helmet (many hours on the M1!) I was also able to go further afield. With the new 600 engine a run out to France was entirely within my grasp and it was at that point that I discovered the joy of planning.
Now my bike could help my mental health as I commuted, and took weekend trips with a tent, as well as being able to expand that sense of wellbeing by planning trips away on the bike.
It may well be that I was planning trips that I would never take, but the action of sitting in the living room with an enormous map of Europe plotting trips and figuring out how long they would take, how much fuel I’d need, where the best place to camp was… extended that sense of wellbeing and joy.
All this planning inevitably led to planning extraordinary trips. Morocco and Russia were the first two insane ideas, both of which happened. In planning those trips I also discovered another great upside of riding a bike – a pleantiful and ready supply of fellow blokes who have discovered this amazing hobby already.
The best bit of discovering all these brilliant blokes was that the only thing they cared about was bikes… not where you’d come from, what job you did, or how much money you had.
If you arrived on two wheels and could talk about motorbikes then you were mates for life.
It was in this period of my life that I made two of my best friends. Patrick and Stace. I joined a bikers group in London called londonbikers.com and we’d organised a curry out at Brick Lane.
I didn’t know many people at that point but I found myself sat next to Patrick and opposite Stace. I inevitably started talking about my plans to ride as far east as I could in three weeks and Stace and Patrick both agreed they wanted to take part. It was your typical drunken curry with delusions of grandeur… but the odd thing was… we actually did it.
The trip was plagued by delays and fallings out. We argued with each other. We shouted at each other. Our bikes broke down. There were crashes. It was far from an ideal trip away with your mates. The difficulty was we’d ploughed too much planning into it and the trip had become something it could never be.
What we learnt on that amazing journey was that our bikes are tools to get away from things, of freedom, of time alone in our helmets – but they were not magic wands to solve the issues we were running away from. We had to tackle those head on.
Patrick and Stace remain two of my closest friends. Despite the fallings out and the arguing and things going wrong… perhaps because of those things.
The planning for that trip started a habit of my planning and running away. In fact in 2008 I did the ultimate running away trick and emigrated to Australia to work for Lonely Planet – leaving Catherine behind in London.
The moment I landed I bought a new motorbike so I could get out exploring and over the next two years I jetted around the world riding my new Yamaha XT and where I couldn’t take that I hired bikes.
A few years later I came back to London and Catherine and I moved to Bledlow in Buckinghamshire where we spent a good deal of time trying to figure out who we were and what was next. It was time to stop running away, and much as we’d had to on the way to Russia, actually deal with the issues in front of us.
That was hard and painful. I was without my bike (it was on a ship heading to the UK from Australia) and in more ways that one I couldn’t run away any more.
The running away aspect of biking may have been taken away from me, but the lessons I’d learnt about maintenance and planning now needed to be deployed in the real world.
After six months the motorbike arrived from Australia and our lives where somewhat calmer. Catherine and I had settled into village life and I’d returned to church after a period trying to be a Buddhist.
It turned out that going back to church in our little village started a chain of events that brought me to discerning a call from God to become a Priest. That journey took the better part of seven years and in that time the bike had gone back to being a tool that enabled time in my helmet to reflect and heal and was no longer being used to run away.
Then came Edmund, my little boy.
To start with I was determined the the birth of my son wouldn’t change a thing. Edmund would be strapped to the back and off we’d go on adventures! But I hadn’t considered the huge impact his being born would have on my riding. My confidence was shot, when I slung my leg over the saddle all I could think of was Edmund.
I still rode, but now only when I really needed space and time alone. It was almost like going right back to the start of my relationship with bikes – it was a simple tool that had some wonderful side effects.
As I entered theological college at Ripon College Cuddesdon we were encouraged to strip away all aspects of our lives to date. This ‘formation’ was designed to enable us to discover exactly who God had called us to be. Put away all worldly things and concentrate solely on God.
It sounds great, and in many ways it was, but this concept only works if you enable people to pick up those things that have sustained their lives to date. The thing about grown ups is that we’ve often figured out what enables, supports and enriches our mental health – and to remove all of that without encouragement to re-engage or find new ways to do so is at best, unhelpful, and at worst down right abuse.
I found myself riding less and less as the all encompassing world of the church surrounded and took over. In the end we decided to sell the motorbike. I can still see it going off on the bike of a trailer and to this day regret it.
But, scroll forward a couple of years and I found myself in London after a fairly horrid time in Hereford in my first curacy. Never was good mental health more vital in my life and never was I further away from it.
That was until I found myself outside Stanmore tube station waiting for Catherine to pick me up after meetings in town.
Under the arches was a tiny bike shop. And outside the tiny bike shop was a shiny 2005 Vespa 125. I bought it there and then on my credit card and rode it up and down the little private road outside with a huge smile on my face… at which point Catherine and Edmund discovered me!
I rode the little machine home with a very cheap helmet and gloves and stored it around the back of our tiny little flat in Belmont. I’d take it out most days and it was 100% fun. I couldn’t really maintain it as such, there was no way I was going to be planning great big trips on it, it was pure joy.
I re-discovered the thing that had kept my mental health in check and in balance for the better part of 17 years… motorbikes.
At first the Vespa was all I needed, especially as we entered the first lockdown and there was little opportunity to go very far. But as the world re-opened that travel bug and long trip desire started to re-appear and I found myself riding the very underpowered Vespa 150 miles to Walsingham for the Priest and Deacons retreat.
This was perhaps not the best idea I’ve ever had. But, I found myself once again riding for four or five hours at a time with just my thoughts and I in my helmet.
I came to terms with some things I couldn’t fix, I put aside things that I had held on to too tightly, I embraced things I didn’t want to embrace.
I returned from Walsingham and was determined to replace the Vespa with something that would enable that kind of space and fun once again.
To my surprise the opportunity to do so came not very long after my mammoth journey to Norfolk in the form of the 60th Anniversary Blessing of the Bikes organised by the ’59 Club at Westminster Abbey.
My friend Dan and I found ourselves invited to the run out from the Ace Cafe down to Westminster Abbey by Fr. Andrew Gough – a long time member of The 59 Club. Fr. Andrew thought the club needed a few more biking vicars and we were pleased to oblige – although I stuck out like a sore thumb on my bright red Vespa!
On the ride down I had been following a bike I’d not seen before. It rode ahead of me through the traffic and for a big bike was doing so with ease and style. The engine noise was stunning and it moved with such grace and poise. I fell in love with the bike as I followed it and told Dan I was going to buy one! I didn’t know what it was or who the rider was… but I wanted that bike.
It turned out to be an Aprilia Tuareg 660 and was being ridden by Saffron Wilson from MCN as part of a long term test with the bike for the paper.
I headed home and without discussing it with Catherine arranged a test ride. I did what all self-respecting bikers do and rang my best mate Stace up and we arranged a date.
I think the smile on my face after just 30 minutes with the bike tells you everything you need to know. The test bike was missing the front screen and the dealership I was testing it with had no idea what it was or how it worked (they really just sold scooters and Aprilia had sent this big bike). Whilst we sat having a cup of coffee half way into the test ride I rang another dealer who I’d spoken to previously and paid the deposit on a brand new bike.
The Vespa went up for sale and the Tuareg was on its way.
Interestingly, with Edmund much older, I wasn’t facing the same crisis of confidence and all I could think about was sharing this wonderful life on two wheels with him.
Catherine was less impressed with that idea and we agreed we’d wait a few years for Edmund to be a little taller and little more sensible before I started taking him out on rides.
That went the same way as many promises made by men to their wives about bikes and within the year Edmund is on the bike – albeit only for very short journeys.
Since then Edmund and I have been to our first motorbike festival and have more planned. We’ve started planning trips together and I once again find myself pouring over maps planning journeys that may, or may not, happen.
The bottom line is I’ve re-discovered the single best way to keep myself mentally healthy. Swinging my leg over a motorbike and heading out into the sunset. The best thing is… I’ve figured out how to do it with my son.
So to all of you who’ve got to know me in the last few years when motorbikes were a minor part of my daily life… now you know why they’re so important to me and why you’re seeing quite so much of them on my socials. It’s a return to my standard place of being.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in all of this it’s to trust what we discover in our lives helps us along. To embrace it and to never allow an outside influence take it away from you.
Here’s to many more years and miles on the saddle!
It feels like an age since I last wrote a review on this blog about actual bike stuff… but I’ve been so impressed with a pair of boots that I have to sit and share why I think they’re so good.
I bought these TCX boots whilst my new Aprilia was having its first service. I was hanging out at the retail bit of On Yer Bike up past Aylesbury – always a dangerous exercise for my wallet – and after a summer of bouncing around the city with my good old Dainese boots (great for commuting, less good for short runs in heavy traffic) I wanted something that was a little more versatile and would look better with my new riding jeans.
To be honest I wasn’t expecting to find anything. I’m a size 12 (UK) and have big calves. The reason I was still using my nearly 20 year old Dainese boots (despite hole in the bottom) was because they were just about the only comfy boots I’ve ever found.
I wandered to the back of the shop and looked at all the very lovely shoes, boots, trainers and other quite stylish motorbike accessories and asked the chap if they had anything in a size 12. To my absolutely shock he said he thought he had pretty much everything in a 12, what did I like?
I spotted a pair of stunning brown boots with armour in the right places, a solid sole and laces (would they fit around my calves?) He nipped out the back and came back with a pair in less than a minute. I tried them on and fell in love.
Why the instant reaction? These boots are COMFY. They don’t feel like bike boots, they feel like high end street boots. They’re snug in all the right places, they sit beautifully on my heel and run up the back of my calf like they were custom made.
The laces allow a degree of flexibility, with tightness and space around the upper part of my foot, and the back has a little loop in exactly the right place to pull them up and over your foot when putting them on.
They’re stylish enough to pass for standard boots, so when I’m dashing into town wearing my bike jeans and jacket, I don’t look like I’ve just completed the Dakar. They’re light and breathe well and have been a fantastic pair of summer boots.
But what about the weather? What about winter?
I’ve worn these over a winter in London and through rain, wind, and icy temperatures.
Most recently I wore them on a run up to Walsingham (c150 miles, 3 hours ride) in temps of about 1c-5c. My feet were warm throughout (I suspect more down to the knee length walkers socks I was wearing) and only towards the end did I start to feel cold creeping in. The leather does a good job of keeping icy winds out allowing good socks to do their job of keeping your feet warm.
In rain my feet have remained dry on a 1 hour run, but I suspect they’d give in at some point – I’m not sure I’d wear them for a known wet run of over an hour – or without some sort of waterproof outer.
On the recent run up to Walsingham I used them as my only shoes throughout – wearing them everyday as walking boots and you wouldn’t have known they were actually motorbike boots. I walked several miles each day and my feet thanked me for them.
In short I can’t recommend these boots enough. This new range from TCX are not just pretty to look at, not just great motorbike boots, but are also fantastic boots full stop.
If you’re looking to buy a pair I recommend the great team up at On Yer Bike Clothing Store or get them direct from TCX.
As I watched my XT660 be taken away on the back of a trailer in 2016 I instantly knew I’d made a dreadful mistake.
I wasn’t riding like I had been – that was mainly because my son had been born at the end of 2012 and my time at home was suddenly far more precious. The bike was sitting there gathering far too much dust and so had to go.
Barley three years later I was coming home from central London on the tube and popped out at Stanmore. Catherine was due to pick me up in the car but was running late. I spent the time looking at some bikes outside a little garage under the arches and before I knew it I’d bought a fabulous little red Vespa.
I’ve been riding that all over the shop for the last three years and have been having a blast. My latest big run was up to the Priest and Deacons retreat in Walsingham, Norfolk. It was on that ride that I think I knew in my heart that it was time for another big bike.
I had a play with a few configurators on various websites but it wasn’t until I joined in with the 59 Club for their ride from the Ace Cafe down to Westminster Abbey for the annual blessing of bikes that I actually saw a bike that I utterly fell in love with.
As we rode into town I sat behind an Aprilia Tuareg 660 – the brand new mid weight adventure bike that is causing a storm in the adventure travel market.
It was solid on the road and was clearly happy in the traffic and the stop start avoidance of a large number of bikes on busy roads.
I got home and immediately googled the bike to discover dozens of reviews that confirmed my observations on the road and went further to say it was brilliant in the dirt and amazing in the twisty a-roads.
Speed forward two weeks and after much agonising (and negotiating) I’ve put a deposit on it. It’s due with me in the coming weeks. I had a test ride last Saturday and it produced the biggest smiles I think I’ve ever had on a bike.
I can’t wait for it to arrive and a new chapter in my biker life to begin.
by Father Sam McNally-Cross
Bibliography
- Thomas Merton: The Inner Experience, notes on Contemplation
- Contemplation in a world of action
- Spiritual Direction and Meditation & what is contemplation
- New seeds of Contemplation
Thomas Merton – Contemplation. What does it mean to be a contemplative in a world that prizes business and activity. Thomas Merton is a Trappist monk, prolific spiritual writer, and prophetic mystic – who peeled back the veil of monastic life in the 1960s leading to a blossoming of vocation. In this lecture we will be introduced to the wayward soul of Merton, who found faith and Catholicism in spite of himself and see what he can teach us.
Fr Sam McNally-Cross is the vicar of St Thomas, Kensal Town in the Diocese of London. He has completed a Masters degree in Christian Spirituality through Heythrop College, which focused on monastic spirituality and the subjective life of Thomas Merton being rooted in the objective life of the church. He was invited to present his thesis at the International Thomas Merton Conference held in Rome in 2018.In 2020 he began his Doctoral studies at Anglia Ruskin University researching the Promethean Theology of Thomas Mertonand applying it to those who are outside of the church and yet have some natural longing for the Divine. He is a published poet, the editor of the magazine of the Society of Mary and a sometime guest lecturer at St Mellitus College, London and Plymouth.
by The Reverend Dr. Stacey Rand
Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) (1891-1942) was a German-Jewish philosopher, who later became a discalced Carmelite nun. She completed her doctoral thesis on the subject of empathy at the Universities of Göttingen and Freiburg. Her studies were briefly interrupted in 1915 by a period of voluntary service as nurse. Afterwards she worked for two years as an assistant to her doctoral supervisor, Edmund Husserl. Her attempts to establish herself in an academic career as a philosopher were not successful because she was a woman. While other avenues had started to open for women, academic philosophy was not one of them. Instead, she found other ways to pursue her philosophical work, alongside a teaching position at a Dominican school in Speyer (1923 to 1931). Her thought, writing and friendships led her to explore questions of faith. An important moment was when she read The Interior Castle, by the 16th Century Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila, whilst visiting a friend. She was baptised in the Catholic Church on 1st January 1922. While she had hoped to become a Carmelite nun, her spiritual director advised her to wait. It was not until 1933 that she entered the Carmelite monastery in Cologne. This was after she had been forced to resign from her recently-appointed post as lecturer at the Institute for Scientific Pedagogy, Münster, due to legislation passed by the Nazis. She later transferred from Cologne, along with her sister Rosa Stein, who had become an extern sister, to a Carmelite monastery in Echt, the Netherlands. Edith and her sister were arrested on 2nd August 1942 along with over 200 other baptised Jews, in an act of retaliation for a statement issued by the Dutch Bishops against the Nazis. They were imprisoned before being deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed on 9th August 1942.
The Reverend Dr Stacey Rand is a senior research fellow at the University of Kent, where her research focuses on family care, community-based social care, and social care outcomes measurement. She has been an associate of the Third Order of Carmel since September 2012 and is part of the Carmelite Companions of the Way (CCTW), an ecumenical dispersed community. She is currently a MTh student at the Carmelite Institute of Britain and Ireland (cibi.ie)
Well. Here we are. At the end of my curacy and about to start the next chapter. The problem with new chapters is that they inevitably mean leaving behind the last. Sometimes, that’s easy. Sometimes the last chapter wasn’t grand and it’s a huge relief to turn the page. But often it’s very tough.
St. Mary’s welcomed us from Hereford after a rather tough time. Things hadn’t gone to plan and whilst the vast majority of people in Hereford became dear friends there were a small monitory of people who made life very difficult for us. We arrived broken and exhausted. But Fr. Edward swept us up, rescued us from that period and patched us up with his enthusiasm and deep love.
Within a very short period of time we were made to feel part of the family. We were embraced and loved; encouraged and lifted aloft on a wave of friendship, passion and a deep understanding of the message of Jesus Christ in practice.
Bishop Jonathan and Bishop Sarah made a place for us in The Diocese of London and we are are over the moon that we can now make a more permanent home here.
We are heartbroken to be leaving St. Mary’s and its wonderful people – it’s been so hard to do so without a party… something St. Mary’s does so well! We will be coming back to St. Mary’s later in the year when lockdown permits and we will have that party, tell stories, laugh and cry together.
Over the last few months St. Mary’s and St. Anselm’s have become close family and we pray that will continue after lockdown.
by Dr. Paula Gooder
Paul, sinner, saint, apostle, and writer, quoted at length, in and out of context. A character that provokes strong reactions from many. But, because of his letters taking up great swathes of the New Testament and his mission tot he gentiles for which we owe a great debt, and therefore a character that cannot be ignored, no matter the controvert that surround and follows him. In this lecture we will experience Paul, the man we cannot ignore, wether we like him or not.
Canon Dr Paula Gooder – is a prominent New Testament theologian, speaker and writer. Her research areas focus on the writings of St Paul the Apostle with a particular focus on 2 Corinthians and Paul’s understanding of the body. She is passionate about enthusing people to read the Bible by offering the best biblical scholarship possible in an engaging way. Paula began her working life teaching at Ripon College Cuddesdon and then the Queens Foundation in Birmingham. This was followed by 8 years as an itinerant speaker and writer in biblical studies, before taking a post with the Bible Society as their Theologian in Residence, followed by becoming the Director of Mission Learning and Development for the Diocese of Birmingham. In 2019 Paula was appointed as the Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Paula is widely published, writing resources for Lent and Advent, contributing to The Pilgrim Course, New Testament scholarship and her most recent book, a historical fiction book entitled Phoebe: A story.
Wednesday 17th June, 7pm
by Fr. Peter Anthony
The Transfiguration, the story of Jesus’ remarkable display of Glory, described in the Synoptic Gospels. An often misunderstood and overlooked episode in the life of Jesus, but a staple of the Orthodox Church. This lecture touches on the teaching of both Origen and Tertullian. Origen of Alexandria was born around 184 and is a Church Father, Christian Scholar and ascetic who has written roughly 2,000 treatise in various and multiple branches of theology – he has been described as ‘The Greatest Genius the Early Church ever produced’ Tertullian was born around 155 in Carthage and was a prolific author – an early Christian Apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including Gnosticism. An important contribution was made to the development by Tertullian but despite this he was never formally declared a Saint by either East or Western Catholic tradition churches.
Fr Peter Anthony is the Vicar of the Parish of Kentish Town. He arrived here in the summer of 2013, having come from working in Oxford at St Stephen’s House and Merton College. He is originally from Bolton, but became an ordinand of the Diocese of London, after having worked as a pastoral assistant at St Paul’s, Tottenham. He was formed and trained for ordination at St Stephen’s House, Oxford, and served a curacy in Hendon. He is a Biblical Scholar of some note, teaches the Pastoral Assistants Scheme Theology Seminars, and is one of the Editors of the blog ‘All Things Lawful and Honest’
Wednesday 1st July, 7pm
by Fr. Thomas Plant
Ron Dreher’s Benedict Option has invited emulation and opprobrium in equal measure, with some Christians embracing his call to the cloister and others finding his vision isolationist, exclusive or worse. Is it possible to resist the relativist and consumerist ideology so inimical to a sacramental understanding of the world without complete withdrawal? Might Christians not find allies outside the fold? The 6th century writings of the monk who called himself Dionysius the Areopagite were inspired by S Paul’s mission in the marketplace of polytheistic Athens. They offer an ascetical, sacramental approach to the re-enchantment of the secularised world based on a metaphysical nondualism shared by the majority of the world’s ancient religious philosophies, leaving modern western secularism isolated in its dualistic tendencies. The method, means, metaphysics and influence of the Areopagite show a way for adherents of traditional philosophies to work together without conforming to the secular categorisation of mutually exclusive “religions,” relativised into discrete, commodified identities and lifestyle choices.
Priest, Platonist, Prayer Book provocateur, Fr Thomas Plant has served in parish ministry, school and cadet force chaplaincy, and as a university lecturer. A classicist-turned-theologian, he has studied at St Andrews, Bristol and Cambridge, where for his doctorate he compared the metaphysics and soteriology of Dionysius the Areopagite and the Japanese Buddhist Shinran Shonin. He is a frequent contributor to the Living Church: Covenant blog and publishes his own catechetical books on greatersilence.com. He moonlights as an Aikido instructor and writer of Lovecraftian horror fiction. Follow him on Twitter @thosplant.
Wednesday 24th June, 7pm
by John Millbank
Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) was a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher and economist who was elected to the Duma, a professor in Church Law and Theology, and helped to found l’Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge in Paris. He is a complex character who lived during a particularly turbulent period of Russian history. He faced accusations of heresy for his teaching on sophiology, but his work on what has been called “a Christian theory of cultural activity” has been seen as anticipating Radical Orthodoxy’s postmodern, metacritical methodology as well as its objective to “out-narrate” the secular by showing how the Christian tradition corrects the nihilism present within the logic of modernity.
John Milbank founded the radical orthodoxy movement. His work crosses disciplinary boundaries, integrating subjects such as systematic theology, social theory, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy, political theory, and political theology. He first gained recognition after publishing Theology and Social Theory in 1990, which laid the theoretical foundations for the movement which later became known as radical orthodoxy. John Milbank has named the Russian sophiological tradition, particularly the work of Sergej Bulgakov, as an intellectual ally and his interest in Bulgakov has been developing since at least 2002.
What is God calling you to do?
Listen to my Thought for The Week on BBC Hereford on Worcester about vocation and what God may be calling you to be or do