Radner on Gregory

Read Ephraim Radner's review of Brad Gregory's Unintended Reformation (2011) in the new First Things. Pretty harsh. He sees Gregory's narrative as merely the latest instantiation of a problematic Catholic tradition of historiography, a tradition whose greatest representative was the 19th c. Catalonian Jaime Balmes (acc. to Radner). Against the Balmes/Gregory line, which traces Modernity's violence and division back to the Reformation, Radner calls for a "chastened Whig intepretation of history . . . reformulated in terms of Christian moral irresponsibility." Not sure exactly what that means, but he seems to be saying that the modern "progress" really has been a positive move away from the disappointing violence within Christianity, and this ought to chasten faithful Christians. At any rate, the whole review seems like an early advertisement for Radner's book A Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church, which is coming out in October.

It's a very important question: how are we to understand Christianity's relation to the development of modernity. I'm inclined to be skeptical of the straight Balmes/Gregory line also, which lays all the blame at the feet of the Reformers (and Scotus and Ockham before them), but Radner's view seems problematic, in that he wants to think of modernity's origins as rooted above all in problematic Christian practice, while downplaying the importance of Christian thought. That's an either/or I don't want to choose between.

Now back to the reading I really should be doing: Mong's book on Newman (which is poor enough in quality to make periodicals look tempting!).