John Milbank argues for a new Christendom on the grounds that the "narrated practice" of Christianity provides our only hope for peaceful harmony amid differences. He defends this claim on the basis of a "pragmatic linguistic idealism," in which our various narrative traditions compete to appeal to our taste; he decisively rejects the possibility of any other criteria of evaluation or of a mutually critical dialogue. This oppositional stance toward other perspectives reveals the instability of Milbank's position, however, in that (...) it denies the possibility of harmony among differences upon which his defense of Christianity depends. (shrink)