1 See, for example, Milbank, John, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)Google Scholar; Milbank, , Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milbank, John, Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People (Oxford: Blackwell, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milbank, John and Pabst, Adrian, The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016)Google Scholar; Smith, James, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004)Google Scholar; Oliver, Simon, “Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: From Participation to Late Modernity,” in The Radical Orthodoxy Reader, ed. Milbank, John and Oliver, Simon (London: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar; Deagon, Alex, “On the Symbiosis of Law and Truth in Christian Theology: Reconciling Universal and Particular through the Pauline Law of Love,” Griffith Law Review 23, no. 4 (2015): 589–611CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deagon, Alex, From Violence to Peace: Theology, Law and Community (Oxford: Hart, 2017)Google Scholar.

2 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Audi, Robert, “The Place of Religious Argument in a Free and Democratic Society,” in “Symposium: The Role of Religion in Public Debate in a Liberal Society,” special issue, San Diego Law Review 30, no. 4 (1993): 677–703Google Scholar; Audi, Robert, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Audi, , Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the sake of simplicity in this article, I conflate Rawls and Audi as the differences between them are not relevant for the purposes of this article. I consider them more deeply elsewhere. See Deagon, Alex, “Liberal Secularism and Religious Freedom: Reforming Political Discourse,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 41, no. 3 (2018): 901–34Google Scholar.

3 Ahdar, Rex and Leigh, Ian, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 49, 66–69Google Scholar; Christopher Eberle, Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 144–46; Plant, Raymond, “Religion in a Liberal State,” in Religion in a Liberal State, ed. D'Costa, Gavin, Malcolm Evans, Tariq Modood, and Julian Rivers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 9–37, 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linda Woodhead, “Liberal Religion and Illiberal Secularism,” in D'Costa et al., Religion in a Liberal State, 93–116, 96; McConnell, Michael, “Why Protect Religious Freedom,” Yale Law Journal 123, no. 3 (2013): 770–810Google Scholar.

4 See Milbank, John, “Against Human Rights: Liberty in the Western Tradition,” Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 1, no. 1 (2012): 203–34, 203–04CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milbank, John, “Hume versus Kant: Faith, Reason, and Feeling,” Modern Theology 27, no. 2 (2011): 276–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Milbank, “Against Human Rights,” 217.

6 Napel, Hans-Martien Ten, Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom (London: Routledge, 2017), 94–97, 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Ten Napel, Constitutionalism, 106.

8 See Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue, 6–7; Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 10, 164.

9 Hurd, Elizabeth, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 13–14Google Scholar; Hallencreutz, Carl and Westerlund, David, “Introduction: Anti-Secularist Policies of Religion,” in Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics, ed. Westerlund, David (London: Hurst, 1996): 1–23, 3Google Scholar. For a more detailed review of the literature on the secular state, see Deagon, Alex, “Secularism as a Religion? Questioning the Future of the Secular State,” Western Australian Jurist, no. 8 (2017): 31–94Google Scholar.

10 Hurd, Politics of Secularism, 5.

11 Laborde, Cecile, “Political Liberalism and Religion: On Separation and Establishment,” Journal of Political Philosophy 21, no. 1 (2013): 67–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more detailed exposition of Rawls and Audi, see Deagon, “Liberal Secularism.”

12 See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed.; Milbank, Beyond Secular Order; Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue for details.

13 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 83–100 for the full version of the argument.

14 For more details see, for example, Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 49–61.

15 See, for example, Hankey, Wayne, “Theoria versus Poesis: Neoplatonism and Trinitarian Difference in Aquinas, John Milbank, Jean-Luc Marion and John Zizioulas,” Modern Theology 15, no. 4 (1999): 387–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hedley, Douglas, “Should Divinity Overcome Metaphysics? Reflections on John Milbank's Theology beyond Secular Reason and Confessions of a Cambridge Platonist,” Journal of Religion 80, no. 2 (2000): 271–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hankey, Wayne and Hedley, Douglas, eds., Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy: Postmodern Theology, Rhetoric and Truth (London: Ashgate, 2005)Google Scholar; Ruether, Rosemary Radford and Grau, Marion, eds., Interpreting the Postmodern: Responses to Radical Orthodoxy (London: T. and T. Clark, 2006)Google Scholar; Mulcahy, Bernard, Aquinas's Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac: Not Everything is Grace (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Hyman, Gavin, The Predicament of Postmodern Theology (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Hedges, Paul, “Is John Milbank's Radical Orthodoxy a Form of Liberal Theology? A Rhetorical Counter,” Heythrop Journal 51, no. 5 (2010): 795–818CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Isherwood, Lisa and Zlomislic, Marco, eds., The Poverty of Radical Orthodoxy (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2012).Google Scholar

17 See, for example, Cunningham, Conor, Geneaology of Nihilism (London: Routledge, 2002)Google Scholar; Hanby, Michael, Augustine and Modernity (London: Routledge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pickstock, Catherine, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance,” Modern Theology 21, no. 4 (2005): 543–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cavanaugh, William, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Common Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 48–51, 57–61.

18 See, for example, Milbank, John, “A Response,” in Theology and Sociology: A Reader, ed. Gill, Robin (London: Cassell, 1996), 461–70Google Scholar; Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., xi–xxxii.

19 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 35–42.

20 Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 51–54.

21 Smith, 59–61.

22 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 78–81; Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., xx–xxi.

23 See below, the subsection “The Law of Love as Revelation.” For example, Milbank has also received critique on the point that the Trinity provides a model for perfect equality and peace through unity in diversity. See Coakley, Sarah, “Why Gift? Gift, Gender and Trinitarian Relations in Milbank and Tanner,” Scottish Journal of Theology 61, no. 2 (2008): 224–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where Coakley critically examines the way in which Milbank appears to propagate an unequal human gender binary by restraining the work of the Spirit in terms of Trinitarian gift. A framework grounded in scripture might develop a response along the lines that in Christ “there is no male or female” in the sense of promoting patriarchy, for all equally participate in the divine love by faith. Galatians 3:28.

24 Milbank, John, “Sublimity: The Modern Transcendent,” in Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond, ed. Schwartz, Regina (New York: Routledge 2004), 207–30Google Scholar; Milbank, John, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2009), 150–53Google Scholar.

25 Fallers-Sullivan, Winnifred, Yelle, Robert A., and Taussig-Rubbo, Mateo, introduction to After Secular Law, ed. Fallers-Sullivan, Winnifred, Yelle, Robert A., and Taussig-Rubbo, Mateo (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011): 1–19, 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Fallers-Sullivan, Yelle, and Taussig-Rubbo, introduction, 3. See, for example, Jacques Derrida, “Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority” (paper presented at “Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice,” Cardozo Law School, New York, October 1–2, 1989).

27 Ahdar, Rex, “The Inevitability of Law and Religion: An Introduction,” in Law and Religion, ed. Ahdar, Rex (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 1–16, 5Google Scholar.

28 Ahdar, “The Inevitability of Law and Religion,” 5.

29 See Fallers-Sullivan, Yelle, and Taussig-Rubbo, introduction, 2–3; Ahdar, “The Inevitability of Law and Religion,” 5.

30 See further, Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 38–41.

31 Milbank, “Hume versus Kant,” 277.

32 Milbank, “Hume versus Kant,” 276–77.

33 See, for example, Augustine, , Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (London: Penguin, 2008)Google Scholar; Anselm, , “Proslogion,” in Faith and Reason, ed. Helm, Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 88–90Google Scholar, at 88–89; Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, vol. 1 (Chicago: William Benton, 1952)Google Scholar; Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion (London: Hendrickson, 2008)Google Scholar; Mascall, Eric, “Faith and Reason: Anselm and Aquinas,” Journal of Theological Studies 14, no. 1 (1963): 67–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sokolowski, Robert, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Plantinga, Alvin, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed.; Milbank, John, “The Grandeur of Reason and the Perversity of Rationalism: Radical Orthodoxy's First Decade,” in The Radical Orthodoxy Reader, ed. Milbank, John and Oliver, Simon (London: Routledge, 2009), 367–404Google Scholar, at 392; Deagon, From Violence to Peace.

34 See, for example, Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed.; Milbank, Beyond Secular Order; Deagon, “Symbiosis;” Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue; Deagon, From Violence to Peace.

35 See, for example, Deagon, “Liberal Secularism,” 921–23; Plant, “Religion in a Liberal State,” 19, 22; Fish, Stanley, “Liberalism Doesn't Exist,” Duke Law Journal 6, no. 1 (1987): 997–1001CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Ahdar and Leigh, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 17–18, 57–58 and references contained there.

36 See, for example, Zagorin, Perez, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ward, Bruce, Redeeming the Enlightenment: Christianity and Liberal Virtues (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010)Google Scholar; Witte, John Jr., and Alexander, Frank, eds., Christianity and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harari, Yuval Noah, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (London: Harvill Secker, 2014)Google Scholar.

37 Hyman, Gavin, “Postmodern Theology and Modern Liberalism,” Theology Today 65, no. 4 (2009): 462–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 469.

38 Kozinski, Thaddeus J., preface to The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), xiii–xivGoogle Scholar, at xiii. For other more detailed engagement with Rawls with similar arguments, see Deagon, “Liberal Secularism.”

39 Kozinski, introduction, to The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism, xxii–xxv, at xxii.

40 Kozinski, xxii.

41 Kozinski, The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism, 6.

42 Kozinski, 26.

43 Kozinski, 26.

44 Kozinski, 31.

45 Kozinski, 38.

46 Kozinski, 38. See also Ahdar and Leigh, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 99.

47 Campos, Paul, “Secular Fundamentalism,” Columbia Law Review 94, no. 6 (1994): 1814–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1825. See also Hurd, Heidi, “The Levitation of Liberalism,” Yale Law Journal 105, no. 3 (1995): 795–824CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Esbeck, Carl, “A Constitutional Case for Governmental Cooperation with Faith-Based Social Service Providers,” Emory Law Journal 46, no. 1 (1997): 1–41Google Scholar, at 5.

49 Ahdar and Leigh, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 65, 99.

50 Smith, Steven, “The Rise and Fall of Religious Freedom in Constitutional Discourse,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 140, no. 1 (1991): 149–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 150; Smith, Steven, Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 36Google Scholar.

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52 Scherer, Beyond Church and State, 134.

53 Scherer, 141–42.

54 Scherer, 164.

55 Scherer, 164–65.

56 Scherer, 7.

57 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 278–80.

58 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 3, 6, 67–77, 102–07. See specifically Cover, Robert, “Violence and the Word,” Yale Law Journal 95, no. 8 (1986): 1601–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Derrida, “Force of Law.”

59 Plant, “Religion in a Liberal State,” 11–12.

60 See Deagon, Alex, “Rendering to Caesar and God: St Paul, the Natural Law Tradition, and the Authority of Law,” Law, Culture, and the Humanities 13, no. 3 (2014): 469–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where this problem has been identified.

61 Derek McGhee, “Moderate Secularism in Liberal Societies,” in D'Costa et al., Religion in a Liberal State, 117–34, 119.

62 McGhee, “Moderate Secularism,” 119.

63 Gedicks, Frederick Mark, “Public Life and Hostility to Religion,” Virginia Law Review 78, no. 3 (1992): 671–696CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 681.

64 Stanley Fish, “Are There Secular Reasons?” New York Times, February 22, 2010, https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/are-there-secular-reasons/.

65 Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue, 16.

66 See Rawls, Political Liberalism; Audi, “Religious Argument”; Audi, Religious Commitment.

67 Milbank, John, “Paul against Biopolitics,” in Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology, ed. Milbank, John, Žižek, Slavoj, and Davis, Creston (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2010), 21–73Google Scholar, at 42–43.

68 Milbank, “Paul against Biopolitics,” 42–43.

69 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 332–33.

70 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 329.

71 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 172, 183–86.

72 Milbank, “Paul against Biopolitics,” 49–50.

73 Milbank, “Paul against Biopolitics,” 53.

74 Milbank, “Paul against Biopolitics,” 53.

75 Romans 13:9 (unless otherwise indicated, English Standard Version is used).

76 Romans 13:10.

77 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 7.

78 Augustine, City of God, 873; see also Deagon, “Rendering to Caesar and God.”

79 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 8–9.

80 Milbank, John, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 134Google Scholar.

81 Milbank, Word Made Strange, 134. See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 188–93.

82 Philippians 2:3–8.

83 See Colossians 3:8–9, 12–13.

84 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 127–32.

85 Milbank, Word Made Strange, 250.

86 John 12:32–33.

87 Luke 23:34.

88 Milbank, Word Made Strange, 251.

89 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 183.

90 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., xvi.

91 Augustine, City of God.

92 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., xvi–xvii.

93 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., xvii.

94 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., 278–79.

95 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., 279.

96 Milbank, John, “Postmodern Critical Augustinianism: A Short Summa in Forty-Two Responses to Unasked Questions,” in The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, ed. Ward, Graham (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 265–79Google Scholar, at 274.

97 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 367.

98 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 332–33.

99 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 380–81.

100 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 423.

101 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 423.

102 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 416.

103 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 422.

104 John Milbank, “What Lacks Is Feeling: Mediating Reason and Religion Today,” in D'Costa et al., Religion in a Liberal State, 187–219.

105 Milbank, “What Lacks Is Feeling,” 195–207; see also Milbank, “Hume versus Kant.”

106 Milbank, “What Lacks Is Feeling,” 208–09.

107 Milbank, “What Lacks Is Feeling,” 208–09.

108 Milbank, “What Lacks Is Feeling,” 209.

109 John Milbank, “The Decline of Religious Freedom and the Return of Religious Liberty” (paper presented at “Religion and the Public Sphere Lecture Series,” London School of Economics, London, February 7, 2017), http://www.lse.ac.uk/lse-player?id=3716.

110 Milbank, “Decline of Religious Freedom,” 1–4.

111 Milbank, “Decline of Religious Freedom,” 5–8.

112 Milbank, “Decline of Religious Freedom,” 15–17.

113 Milbank, “Decline of Religious Freedom,” 19.

114 Milbank, “Decline of Religious Freedom,” 24.

115 See, for example, Ahdar and Leigh, Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 127.

116 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 170.

117 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 145. This affirmation of different kinds of communities and associations within the state is what Milbank calls “complex space” in contrast to the “simple space” of liberalism with a centralized state controlling individuals. See Milbank, Word Made Strange, 276–84.

118 Galatians 5:22–23.

119 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 141, 194. See also Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 228–36.

120 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 194.

121 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 145, 148.

122 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., 267–68.

123 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd ed., 268.

124 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 17.

125 Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 67.

126 See especially Shah, Timothy and Hertzke, Allen, eds., Christianity and Freedom, vol. 1: Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the chapters contained there. Milbank, too, addresses some of the historical Christian justifications for religious liberty in Milbank, “The Decline of Religious Freedom.”

127 See Timothy Shah, “The Roots of Religious Freedom in Early Christian Thought,” in Shah and Hertzke, Christianity and Freedom, 1:33–61.

128 See Robert Wilken, “The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom,” in Shah and Hertzke, Christianity and Freedom, 1:62–89.

129 Shah's “Roots of Religious Freedom” frankly acknowledges this.

130 See, for example, Fletcher, Joseph, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Niebuhr, Reinhold, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

131 Cavanaugh, William, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Common Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

132 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 55–57, 142–43, 176–79.

133 See, for example, Connolly, William, Why I Am Not a Secularist (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Asad, Talal, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Warner, Michael, VanAntwerpen, Jonathan, and Calhoun, Craig, eds., Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Calhoun, Craig, Juergensmeyer, Mark, and VanAntwerpen, Jonathan, eds., Rethinking Secularism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Williams, Rowan, Faith in the Public Square (London: Bloomsbury, 2012)Google Scholar.

134 Taylor, A Secular Age, 737–42.

135 Taylor, 737–38, 742.

136 See Williams, Faith in the Public Square, 14–15.

137 Williams, 3.

138 Williams, 4.

139 Williams, 33.

140 Williams, 4.

141 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 187; Deagon, “Symbiosis,” 608–09; Deagon, “Rendering to Caesar.”

142 Milbank, John, “A Closer Walk on the Wild Side: Some Comments on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age,” Studies in Christian Ethics 22, no. 1 (2009): 89–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 103. See also Taylor, A Secular Age, 743.

143 Matthew 22:34–39; John 14:15.

144 See Deagon, From Violence to Peace, 187; Deagon, “Symbiosis,” 608–09; Deagon, “Rendering to Caesar.”

145 Hyman, “Postmodern Theology and Modern Liberalism,” 470. This also strengthens the claim made above in relation to the imposition of Christianity through violence. The contingent development of enlightenment liberalism out of Christianity actually privileged ultimately Christian virtues obscured in medieval Christianity.

146 Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, xiv–xv.

147 Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 115–16.

148 Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 264.

149 Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 10.

150 Milbank, Beyond Secular Order, 10.

151 Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue, 7.

152 Milbank, “Against Human Rights,” 232–34.

153 Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue, 6–7.

154 Milbank and Pabst, Politics of Virtue, 7.

155 Haggai 2:7 (King James Version).

156 O'Donovan, Oliver, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

157 1 Corinthians 13:4–8.