A lot of Christians know that the language of Scripture requires us to develop and maintain a distinctive voice. And thus it is that when they are in the process of being swept up by the latest wind of doctrine, they claim that they are doing this as a “third way.” Lured and enticed by the vagaries of postmodernism, they claim that they are just accepting postmodernism’s critique of the idolatrous insolence of modernism. That is just fine to do, incidentally, but it is almost never the manifestation of a “third way.” In order to be a true third way, it would have to embrace, equally robustly, modernism’s critique of the incoherence of postmodernism. Either leave them both alone, or egg both of them on. Anything else is choosing sides, and choosing sides is not a third way.
It is quite true that Christians can agree with many feminist critiqes of the pornographers. But it is also true that we should agree with many of the critiques that pornographers could level at the feminists. We hardly ever think of doing the latter, of course, and so guess which error is gaining a seat of honor within the Church?
And no, I am not defending pornography. I am defending a Third Way, much discussed and praised, and hardly ever traveled. Christ is Lord — not Derrida, and not Descartes.