ABSTRACT

When He Comes in Glory:

Theatre and its Resources for Theology

Kaley Branstetter

Director: Junius Johnson, Ph.D.

Theatre has consistently held an uncertain place within the Christian faith. Early church fathers like Tertullian and Augustine argued that Christians should have no association with drama. Tertullian viewed the theatre as a temple of idolatry, while Augustine believed that the theatre provokes passions that have no part in a faithful Christian’s walk. In my thesis, I address Tertullian’s and Augustine’s criticisms of theatre, and then suggest that both authors actually provide hints that there is something of Christian value to be redeemed from the realm of theatre. I will draw on Hans Urs von Balthasar and his work Theo-Drama as an example of theology that relies on theatrical concepts and terminology to make sense of the drama of the incarnation. For the last chapter of my thesis, I will explore possible ways to use the realm of stage to understand God’s active role in the salvation of mankind and examine how the way an actor inhabits a role might hold useful analogies for understanding how Christ became man and how a Christian becomes more like Christ in everyday life.
.

APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS:

______

Dr. Junius Johnson, Department of Great Texts

APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM:

______

Dr. Elizabeth Corey, Director

DATE: ______

WHEN HE COMES IN GLORY:

THEATRE AND ITS RESOURCES FOR THEOLOGY

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

Baylor University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Honors Program

By

Kaley Grace Branstetter

Waco, Texas

May 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ...... iii

Dedication ...... iv

Introduction ...... v

Chapter One: Tertullian ...... 1

Chapter Two: Augustine ...... 18

Chapter Three: Hans Urs von Balthasar ...... 32

Chapter Four: Creative Constructions ...... 42

Bibliography ...... 57

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would have been impossible without the support and inspiration of my superhero thesis advisor, Dr. Junius Johnson. From the moment that he prompted me to think about what I would write my thesis on if I could write about anything, he has proved himself to be everything a student could hope for in an advisor. He has pushed me above and beyond what I thought possible for my senior thesis project, and has taught me a great deal about work ethic, dedication, and flexibility of intellect. I am so grateful. I would also like to thank my thesis pod, Rachel, Andrew, and Robin, for being noble comrades on our quest for sanity during thesis season.

I am also especially grateful to Dr. DeAnna Toten Beard for welcoming me into her theatre history family, and to Dr. Michael DePalma for being the first teacher who created a space for me to write about the ways my spirituality intertwined with my passion for theatre. I am also grateful to Dr. William Weaver, who gave me the opportunity to learn valuable skills in both research and presentation.

Finally, I’m grateful to my family, for supporting me in everything from my first performance to the completion of Baylor degree.

DEDICATION

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” —John 17:24



INTRODUCTION

While considering theatre with theological intentions may not be the first idea to enter the head of a practicing dramaturg and intent theologian, the marrying of these two disciplines has the potential to be incredibly fruitful. Let it be noted that the scope of this thesis is only to present this coupling as worthy of consideration: time will not allow a thorough sounding of all the possibilities of such a relationship. However, I hope to relate enough to reveal why this realm of metaphor is one with real theological possibility.

I was first interested in this project as a high school student trying to balance my love for the theatre with my ideas of what a moral lifestyle should look like. I found it difficult to feel comfortable in the world of theatre as a follower of Christ who had a loyalty to an authority that far surpassed my allegiance to a director or producer. This thesis project does not directly address how a Christian might go about becoming an actor, but it does pursue realms of speculative theology that I hope will be helpful in making the ream of theatrical performance one that is attractive to faithful Christians.

In my thesis, I will first examine the arguments of Tertullian, one of the most famous ancient theologians to offer direct suggestions on how Christians should look at drama. While Tertullian feels that the pagan origins and content of Roman theatre should not be condoned or participated in by Christians, he none the less offers a subtle but surprising affirmation of theatre as he discusses the eschatological hope of the Christian. I then consider Augustine, who was also vocal about the dangers of loving the theatre over things that directly pertain to spiritual growth, but who also inadvertently provides



support for Christian participation in theatre within his “Egyptian gold” argument.

Finally, I will look at the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, who gives examples of understanding the divine-human relationships through theatrical metaphors. I will conclude with creative reflections n the ways that Christians might appropriate theatre for their own purposes.

The idea of melding these two disciplines is a whim of the imagination, but is rather founded in reflections concerning the character of God. There is much artistry in the way God crafted the world and wrote the story of salvation. Scripture is fraught with metaphor, imagery, poetry, and drama. It seems entirely fitting to make use of theatre, the most incarnational of art forms, in making sense of theological truth. Theatre is particularly adept at igniting the emotions and passions, and this is why some theologians, such as Tertullian and Augustine, have been concerned by the possible affects of pagan theatre. Dramatic performances call for a kind of emotional response.

Christian theology calls Christians to know God better, which should in turn cause their love for God to grow. To combine knowledge with an art form seems particularly useful for connecting the heart and mind for the purpose of worship. My hope is that this thesis will be a springboard for Christians to look at the stage not only as a place with ample resources for aiding Christian reflection but even uniquely helpful for understanding many of the theological ideas of the faith.



ACT ONE

Dramatis Persona: Tertullian Text: De Spectaculis Premise: There is no good in theatre

Although from a modern perspective Christian drama has a lengthy history, many of the ancient church fathers living before the era of medieval morality plays had concerns about dramatic activity. Not only were they disturbed by the fact that Christians were attending the theatre, but they also doubted the possibility of any sort of Christian good stemming from theatre itself. Tertullian, writing De Spectaculis in the late 2nd century AD, argued that the “conditions, reason, and law”1 of the Christian faith inherently forbid followers of Christ from enjoying the spectacle of theatre. Tertullian specifically addresses what he considers to be the crimes of the Roman theatre including circuses (chariot races) and gladiator fights, but his denunciation extends beyond Roman dramatic entertainment to theatre as a whole.

Tertullian acknowledges that theatre does bring pleasure, yet he does not think the enjoyment of such pleasure is without moral consequence. Tertullian addresses one pagan argument that declared that God must be neutral toward theatre because it is outside the religious realm and must be harmless so long as it does not directly harm

God’s honor.2 Tertullian believes that such an argument assumes a false sense of the


   

    


 Ibid, 231.


separation between faith and practice. For Tertullian, the force of dramatic pleasure both perverts spiritual knowledge and prolongs ignorance. The theatre possesses a power of pleasure so insidious that it can distort knowledge by cloaking the truth as audience members distort their natural sensibilities and subvert their understanding of reality in order to fully embrace the enjoyment of the show. For Tertullian, this view embraces an ignorant separation between the secular and the sacred that prevents men from a proper understanding of how God wants the elements employed in dramatic arts to be used.3

Other pagans felt that Christians should put aside the theatre along with all other pleasure because a life without pleasure is easier to renounce. These men categorized

Christians as “a race of men ever ready for death”4 and assumed martyrs must have weaned themselves away from the delights of this life, for men who loved pleasure could scarcely bear to be separated from it. Yet such an attempt to attribute the Christian ability to sacrifice his life to human prudence and forethought rather than divine command has no savor for Tertullian.5

Another secular argument in favor of theatre suggests that theatre is good because

God, who has made all things good, created it. Tertullian responds by clarifying that God has created a thing to be good insofar as it is used in a specific way (a distinction that

Augustine expounds upon in his explanation of use versus enjoyment).6 When a thing’s use is perverted, it is no longer good. Tertullian states, “There is a great difference

3 Ibid, 235.

4 Ibid, 233.

5 Ibid, 239.

6 We will discuss Augustine’s opinion in greater detail in the next chapter.


between the corrupted and the uncorrupted because there is a great difference between the Creator and the perverter.”7 He gives the example of iron: a thing created by God, but used by man to destroy other men. Simply because God created the iron does not mean

He condones it as an instrument of murder. A thing that offends God has ceased to be his, and when it has ceased to be his, it offends him.8

When Tertullian states that a thing that offends God has ceased to be his,

Tertullian means that the thing is not doing what it was created to do. He writes that “man himself, author of every kind of guilt, is not only the work of God but also His likeness; and yet in body and spirit he has fallen away from his creator.”9 We were not created for sin, yet we misuse our bodies by performing sinful actions. “Whatever God created, He never created to issue in acts which He condemns, even if those acts are performed by means of what He has created.”10 By a thing “ceasing to be his,” Tertullian does not mean that such a thing is outside God’s control. Rather, it is no longer pleasing to him and it has ceased doing what it was made to do.

Yet can God not take something in the broken state of the world that cannot be termed “good” and use it for good? Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery, yet “as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”11 Isn’t it the case that

7 Ibid, 235.

8 Ibid, 237.

9 Ibid 237.

10 Ibid, 237.


  




Tertullian would agree that in this passage a wicked scenario has been used for good?

Joseph’s brothers acted in a manner offensive to God, but God’s will was still carried out.

Therefore, by saying that theatre offends God, Tertullian cannot mean that God will not or cannot use theatre for good. The actions of Joseph’s brothers were no doubt offensive to God. All of mankind is offensive to God in their sinful state. Tertullian writes that “[The devil] changed the whole material world, his possession, created like man for innocence; he changed it along with man to be perverted against the Creator.”12

If the entire material world has been corrupted, then Tertullian must leave room for God to work goodness out of the things that have gone terribly wrong, or no one who dwells on this earth could have any substantial hope. Yet Tertullian seems to be teetering toward denouncing the theatre as a God-forsaken, devil-glorifying place in which the Christian should have no part.

Tertullian declares that every pagan defense of theatre is based in a fear of losing something delightful and enjoyable. For Tertullian, it is highly troubling that men would be more concerned with a danger to their enjoyment of theatre than with shunning something that could be a danger to their lives. Readers may find a similar lament in

Augustine, who bemoans his sorrow for literary characters, stating, “For what more miserable than a miserable being who pities not himself; but weeps the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, instead of weeping his own death for want of love to Thee, O God.”13

This misdirection of affection seems to be a key element of the problem Tertullian finds

12 Ibid, 239.

13 Augustine, Confessions, 17-18.


with the theatre. He is quite apprehensive of the pleasure of theatre, noting that that it is something that perverts knowledge and promotes ignorance.

Christians took another route for defending drama, claiming that because

Scripture has not explicitly commanded man to abstain from public shows, one could not take a firm stance either for or against the theatre. Tertullian responds by pointing to

Psalm 1:1: “Happy is the man who has not gone to the gathering of the impious, who has not stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilences.”14 In order to make his point stronger, Tertullian changes the statement so that it describes the negative inverse of the happy man. He asserts, “he is unhappy who has gone into any gathering whatever of the impious, and stood in any way at all of sinners, and has sat in any chair of pestilences.”15 Here Tertullian has both added to the scripture (“any gathering whatever of the impious”) and shifted the focus from what makes a man happy to what will lead him to unhappiness. Tertullian goes on to describe how the gathering of the impious described in this verse applies to the theatre, for at the public shows “there is sitting in the seat and standing in the way.”16 Tertullian explains how he derives this specific interpretation from a verse with a more general intention, stating that if a group of Jews could be called a gathering of the impious, how much more could the heathen gathered at the theatre be called such?17 “When God recalls the Israelites to discipline or upbraids them, it surely applies to all men…every sinful race is Egypt and Ethiopia, in the same

14 Tertullian, De Spectaculis, 239.

15 Ibid, 241.

16 Ibid, 241.

17 Ibid, 241.


way as every public show is a gathering of the impious, the general class covering the single case.”18

It is worth noting that Tertullian has taken literary liberties with Scriptural phrasing in this passage from the Psalms in order to convey his point. In On the

Resurrection of the Flesh, Tertullian addresses those who corrupt “the Word of God

Himself” by “mutilating or misinterpreting the scripture, and introducing, above all, apocryphal mysteries and blasphemous fables.”19 Yet he asserts that the solution to such dangers is found in the effusions of the Holy Spirit’s gracious light upon the scripture, which explain the mysteries, allegories, and parables through new prophecies.20

Tertullian wants to argue that the scripture dictates a particular moral stance on the theatre, yet must rely on a sort of expansion on the text to support his idea. If Tertullian sees scripture as something better clarified by new revelation, should he be using the scripture to make his denunciation, which proclaims itself to be self-sufficient

(Revelations 22:1821)? The fact that he needs to alter the scripture in order to make his argument weakens the validity of what he is trying to assert.

Tertullian shifts the focus from scriptural evidence, suggesting that if it can be established that both the equipment and essence of public shows is idolatrous in a historical sense, then none of the arguments in favor of theatre as morally neutral will

18 Ibid, 241.

19 Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 594.

20 Ibid, 63.9.

21 “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.”


stand. Tertullian draws his readers back to the definition of a Christian: someone who has professed faith, entered the waters of baptism, and thereby renounced idolatry (worship or communion with the devil, his pomp, and his angels). Idolatry is anything done “ in honor of demons,”22 and Christians should not be associated with such things. Yet he leaves room for theatre to remain permissible for Christians; for if “among these anything shall be found unconnected with an idol, we shall pronounce it to have no bearing on idolatry.”23

Yet, using a thorough and historically accurate treatment of the origin, equipment, places, arts employed, and authors of the plays, Tertullian comes to the conclusion that nothing in the theatre is unconnected with idolatry. The Etrurians established games and entertainment (ludii) as a part of their pagan religion. The games were also called

Liberalia, which are associated with Father Liber (Dionysus), and Consualia, which is in honor of Consus. Horse races were conducted in honor of Mars. Not only were these games connected to the honoring of pagan gods, but also to ancestor worship. The

“games began with shamelessness, violence, and hate, and a founder who slew his brother and was the son of Mars.”24 The pomp of circuses (chariot races) also offends

God, according to Tertullian, because the pomp of the events includes a long line of images, succession of statues, cars, chariots, carriages, thrones and robes. Tertullian writes that, “idolatry in any form, meanly equipped, moderately rich, splendid, is still

22 1 Cor. 10:20

23 Tertullian, De Spectaculis, 243.

24 Ibid, 247.


reckoned idolatry in its guilt.”25 From Tertullian’s perspective, there is seemingly no divide between the secular and the sacred in the origins of these entertainments.

While clearly identifying the origins of the public shows and their adornments as idolatrous, Tertullian acknowledges that Christians can enter the theatre without sinning.

Merely inhabiting these places does not make us fall from God. Tertullian states that places do not defile us; it is participating in the things done in those places that defiles.

Satan and his angels are unavoidable: they fill the streets, the market, the baths, the taverns, and Tertullian describes Rome as a whole as a place “where demons sit in conclave.”26

Although the art presented in the theatre may not be idolatrous in and of itself, when performed in honor of a pagan god, these arts become idolatrous. Here he is implying an argument he employed earlier in the text: that a thing is good when being used in the way God meant for it to be, but when a thing’s use is perverted, it is no longer good. He notes that the various things that make up the public shows (“the horse, the lion, the strength of body, and charm of voice”)27 are good when put to their appropriate use.

But games were played in which men were trained to kill each other, and beasts were added to tear men’s bodies to pieces. He concludes that if you believe that these things are good, even if they were not used for idolatrous and murderous practices, then your knowledge of God is severely defective.

25 Ibid, 251.

26 Ibid, 251.

27 Ibid, 233



Because Tertullian sees theatre as a sort of “ceremony” in honor of idols, he compares the theatre to a pagan temple. He describes that even the ornaments of the circus are “in themselves so many temples.”28 He makes this claim because he see idolatrous intention in every part of the crafting of the temple. Tertullian also condemns the use of masks to change the image of man as God has created him. A closer look at the history of Greek masks reveals that worshippers of Dionysus wore masks in their worship ceremonies. The Greek words for mask is “prosopon,” meaning face, and male actors frequently used masks to make themselves look like females.29 While there were likely other purposes of the mask—adding universality to the character, creating a resonant chamber for the actors’ voices, and inciting dread in the audience30—masks were used to change a person into something other than he was. For Tertullian, false representation has no place in the Christian landscape. He condemns the cothurni, a part of the actor’s ensemble that could make an actor appear taller, as making a liar of Christ who says that

“no one can add a cubit to his stature.”31 Tertullian references Deuteronomy 22:5, which states that a man be “accursed who shall go dressed in women’s clothes.”32 God cannot approve of a man counterfeiting his voice, sex, or age, making a show of himself with

28 Ibid, 251.

29 Ley, A Short Introduction of the Ancient Greek Theatre, 17.

30 Ibid, 18.

31 Ibid, 287.

32 Ibid, 287.


false signs and tears: such actions are hypocritical.33 As the author of truth, God loves no falsehood.

For Tertullian, no part of the material world is detached from the spiritual realm.

Each aspect of creation has a spiritual and moral significance. The theatre holds spectacles and pleasures that a believer cannot partake in without blemishing his

Christian identity. A Christian at the theatre is like a man who deserts his army and

“throws away his arms…deserts his standards…and pledges himself to death with the enemy to whom he deserts.”34 He goes on to claim that the theatre was originally devised by demons for the purpose of turning man from his Lord and binding him to the glorification of demons.35 This interpretation may stem from his Montanist tendencies to take passages from scripture and jump to allegorical conclusions, but regardless, he states that “nothing connected with the games pleases God”, and the theatre belongs to the devil, who “owns everything that is not God’s or does not please God.”36

By the end of Tertullian’s explanation, he has determined that every part of theatre is originally associated with an idol. This of itself is enough for Tertullian to dismiss the theatre as something the Christian is under moral obligation to forsake. But he goes on to show that the theatre is characterized by traits that are opposed to the character of God. He goes back to his concession that dramatic spectacles are in fact pleasurable. But this is not to their advantage. Where there is pleasure, there is

33 Ibid, 287.

34 Ibid, 289.

35 Ibid, 261.

36 Ibid, 289.


eagerness, and where there is eagerness, there is rivalry, and where there is rivalry, there is also madness, bile, anger, and pain; there can be no public spectacle without violence to the spirit.37 These are direct opposition to the characteristics God instructs us to approach him with, which are tranquility, gentleness, quietness, and peacefulness.38

There is nothing in public entertainment, according to Tertullian, that will make a man turn his thoughts to God. Tertullian asks mockingly if a man cheering for the charioteer will have peace of soul or if his mind will be learning of purity as it is fixed on the actors?39 He suggests that nobody going to the games thinks of anything but seeing and being seen, and that the “mere over-nice attire of women and men” will be enough to direct his mind away from thoughts that are pleasing to the Lord.40

Tertullian acknowledges that there is something in shows that is “sweet, agreeable, and innocent.”41 Yet the agreeableness is only to cover up the deadly poison and venom of spectacles. He writes, “the deadly draught [the devil] brews, he flavours with the most agreeable, the most welcome gifts of God.”42 If we share heathen joy now, then we may share their ultimate mourning, too.43 Our pleasure ought to be where our

37 Ibid, 261.

38 Ibid, 269.

39 Ibid, 289.

40 Ibid, 289.

41 Ibid, 293.

42 Ibid, 293.

43 Ibid, 295.


prayer is. He encourages Christians to consciously curb their dangerous delight in dramatic affairs; the pleasure is not worth the risk.44

By this point in Tertullian’s argument, he has clearly crossed beyond condemning the elements specific to Greek Theatre as idolatrous to condemning the entire project of the dramatic arts as something that has no value for the Christian. He writes, “For what sort of conduct is it to go from the assembly of God to the assembly of the devil?...Those hands you have uplifted to God, to tire them out clapping an actor?”45 Even a man who enjoys stagecraft in a moderate fashion cannot keep his mind from being stirred or his feelings from being agitated. “They are plunged in grief by another’s bad luck, high in delight at another’s success.”46 Theatre makes audiences feel without reason; “their love is without reason, their hatred is without justice,”47and Tertullian finds this contrary to a

Christian lifestyle, where men are taught to refrain from cursing even with just cause and to bless those who curse them. Tertullian gives drama a demonic power to captivate the souls of man and delight them so much that they no longer seek the delights of Christ.

The theatre not only unduly stirs emotions, but also asks men to declare what is not acceptable to do off stage to be permissible to watch on stage. Tertullian argues that we should not hear what we may not speak, because even buffoonery and idle words are judged by God. If a man is forbidden to act in a certain way, how can it be right for him

44 Ibid, 293.

45 Ibid, 291.

46 Ibid, 273.

47 Ibid, 273.


to give money and time to support others performing such action?48 Tertullian also simply sees the theatre as a waste of energy: why direct one’s emotions to some false reality when a Christian has a reality before them that demands their engagement.

Perhaps a Christian could argue that watching plays could help the audience learn to lovingly empathize with people external to them, but Tertullian declares that the actions performed on stage are not appropriate to find sympathetic. Tertullian’s Christianity is certainly one that acknowledges intentions to be as important as actions.

Tertullian suggests that “nowhere and never is what God condemns free from guilt.”49 One might question how far Tertullian intends to take this idea. He gives us an answer by condemning wrestling as the devil’s trade because the devil first crushed men.

“Its very movements are the snake’s, the grip that holds, the twist that binds.”50 Tertullian declares that in God’s truth all things are definite. He quotes 2 Corinthians 6:14, which states, “What has light to do with darkness? What have life and death in common?” What is truly good can never be anything but good, nor what is evil anything but evil. What is good? God. There is nothing, according to Tertullian, in the games or public shows that will direct man to think of God, and therefore there is nothing worthy to be found in theatre.

From a modern perspective, Tertullian’s first main argument concerning the idolatrous origins of theatre can be helpfully addressed by looking to another portion of the scripture. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul discusses the manner in which a Christian should

48 Ibid, 277.

49 Ibid, 281.

50 Ibid, 277.


approach food sacrificed to idols. Paul declares that an idol has no real existence and there is no God but one.51 Therefore, a Christian can eat food sacrificed to idols and be without sin before God. Paul writes, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.”52 In the same way that the food in the passage is offered to idols yet is not perverted, so the theatre, which was originally made to honor foreign gods, does not necessarily corrupt viewers who enter into its walls.

Paul’s words certainly allude to the fact that one can still sin by eating food offered to idols if it causes another person to stumble, but the food itself is still good for eating. As we established earlier, it does not seem that Tertullian would claim that God is unable to use theatre for good. Theatre, although intricately connected to the religion of the Greeks, is not by its very nature idolatrous. Rather, it becomes idolatrous when performed “in honor of demons.”53 Thus, Tertullian’s argument against the pagan origins of the theatre hold no real substance, unless perhaps these pagan origins are causing Christians to stumble by judging those of the faith who do attend the theatre.

Tertullian’s second argument against the theatre concerning the ungodliness of things done there is defeated by the fact that he doesn’t ultimately conclude that dramatic pleasures have no place in Christianity. Near the end of his work, Tertullian describes the pleasures of Christianity as holy, eternal, and sufficient spectacles, in contrast to pagan pleasures, which are unnecessary. He declares that all the things we long to find in theatre can be found in the teaching and practice of Christianity. He seems to encourage a

51 1 Corinthians 8:4

52 1 Corinthians 8:8

53 Ibid, 267.



Christian to “close his eyes” to the pleasures of theatre and enjoy the rich drama to be found in Christ. Lewis, however, writes of a different sort of Christianity. “I believe in

Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it

I see everything else.”54 Does Christianity shine light on what is true and good to help us avoid the darkness, or does knowledge of goodness and truth illuminate the rest of the world? I think Tertullian would ultimately agree with Lewis that Christianity helps men to see the goodness of the world, intermingled with wickedness and immorality though it be. Yet Tertullian still suggests that there is no good whatsoever to be found in theatre, although he acknowledges several times that there is pleasure to be found in theatre.

While pleasure is not necessarily derived from something “good” (i.e. we can find pleasure in adultery, which is not good), generally the word pleasure does refer to something good or at least something good that has been perverted. Tertullian seems to rely on a distinction of good and evil that leaves no room for things that have the possibility for both. For Tertullian, any part of the material world can either draw a man closer to God or away from God. Theatre is either of the Devil or it is of Christ. He states that it is the Christian duty to “hate these assemblies and gatherings of the heathen.”55 Yet a more nuanced definition of the world would seem to do more justice to the complexity of the situation: that there is good, sweet pleasure that can come from theatrical art as well as the corrupted pleasure.

As we have previously stated, Tertullian acknowledges the appeal of theatre, but reserves the right to say that the nature of Christian pleasure is a spiritual one. A

54 Lewis, The Weight of Glory (“Is Theology Poetry?”), 92.

55 Ibid, 293.


fascinatingly ironic aspect of Tertullian’s objection in De Spectaculis is that when he describes the delights of a Christian as opposed to the delights to be found in the theatre, he uses theatrical terms. Even if it is argued that Tertullian only does this for literary artistry, using theatrical analogies seems inconsistent with claims he has made about the nature of theatrical pleasures. Yet he writes that the spectacles of a Christian are trampling the gods of the gentiles, expelling demons, effecting cures, seeking revelations, and living to God.56

“Are you so ungrateful as not to find enough in the great pleasure…given you by God, and not to recognize them? What has more joy in it than reconciliation with God, the Father and Lord, than revelation of truth, recognition of error, and forgiveness for all the great sins of the past? What greater pleasure is there than disdain for pleasure than contempt for the whole world?”57

Tertullian’s closing question is a paradox that seems to open space for dramatic elements to find a home in Christianity. Perhaps a longing for dramatic pleasure trains you for a longing that quite right within the Christina landscape, such as the second coming of Christ and the building of the new Jerusalem, which Tertullian describes as all the spectacle we truly need. Although they are things which no eyes has seen nor ear has heard, they are of greater joy than “circus, theatre, or amphitheatre, or any stadium.”58

We await a feast, a marriage festival, that is “not yet…you are too dainty, O Christian, if you long for pleasure in this world as well as the other.”59

56 Ibid, 297.

57 Ibid, 295.

58 Ibid, 301.

59 Ibid, 295.



Perhaps unknowingly, Tertullian is here suggesting that it is right and proper that humans long for spectacle and drama. And by using theatrical terminology and concepts to illustrate the wonders of the second coming, he unwittingly refutes his own premise that there is no good to be found in theatre. Tertullian takes an art form that had been used for ugliness and destruction and death and uses its resources to describe the pleasure and spectacle of the Christian life. While he directs this spectacle toward something spiritual and of the future, he seems to feel the need to use descriptions based on the material world. And this is part of the beauty and usefulness of the dramatic world: the ability to take physical forms and material properties and order them in a way and on a stage that allows the audience to see their deeper significance in the midst of revealing a larger narrative. And while Tertullian is nearly unable to see the utility of an art form that had been so corrupted by the brokenness of Roman culture, even he ends up allowing the possibility that the theatrical world might shed light on things of a higher spiritual order.



ACT TWO

Dramatis Persona: Augustine Text: De Doctrina Christiana Premise: Pagan art (except theatre) may be used for Christian purposes

Although Augustine lived a few centuries after Tertullian, Roman theatre still dominated the entertainment of his world. Like Tertullian, Augustine also felt the tension between maintaining Christian practice and attending theatrical performances.

Augustine’s understanding of theatre is colored not only by his aversion to specific elements of Roman entertainment but also by his personal interaction with stage-plays, and he condemns the theatre in both the Confessions and De Doctrina Christiana. Yet

Augustine’s fervor in shunning theatric activity seems to contradict other important commitments that he holds. In fact, Augustine provides an interesting argument for justifying the use of pagan arts for Christian purposes in De Doctrina Christiana that could potentially be extended to theatrics.

In the Confessions, Augustine describes his youthful fascination with the theatre:

“Stage plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries, and of fuel to my fire.

Why is it, that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would no means suffer? Yet he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, and this very sorrow is his pleasure”.60 Augustine questions the purpose of the emotional engagement that drama demands. He states that the “more a man is affected by these

60 Augustine, Confessions, Book 3.


actions, the less he is free from such affections”.61 He denies that the feelings generated by the theatre serve any meaningful purpose, but rather are willfully lustful and intentionally without heavenly clarity. Augustine describes his infatuation with the theatre as a foul disease, reiterating how he “loved to grieve, and sought out what to grieve at…[he] loved to suffer”62. He describes how he sympathized with lovers when they sinfully enjoyed one another, and how he was secretly delighted by the “sorrow” he felt for them. Augustine implies that the feelings the theatre incited in him were not valid and profitable, for to delight in feeling sorrow is certainly at odds with human experience.

Augustine’s concerns about theatre are not to be lightly disregarded; yet his cautions against the theatre reveal his belief that the false reality portrayed on stage has worthwhile connection to convictions about his sin in real life. The trivium serves as an interesting example within the church liturgy that encourages us that it is good to feel sorrowful at the remembrance of Christ’s death, although we know that Christ rose from the grave and remains alive today. Paul’s words in Romans 12:15 could also be pertinent for countering Augustine’s suggestion about the vanity of enjoying the theatre, for he writes that we should “Weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice.”

Augustine clearly experienced the negative impact the theatre could have on the spiritual state, and his personal history with drama certainly informs the way readers should interpret his perspective on the validity of the art form for the Christian.

In De Christiana Doctrina, Augustine prescribes a method for reading and interpreting scripture. His ideology can be extended beyond the realm of Christian


Augustine, Confessions, Book 3.

62 Ibid, Book 3.


revelation to guide interaction with pagan artistic creations. Augustine begins by distinguishing between things and signs. Augustine says that a “thing” is something that is not employed to signify other things, such as “logs, stones, sheep, and so on”63. A sign, however, is something whose whole function consists in signifying. Every sign, therefore, is also a thing, but not every thing is a sign.

Augustine further specifies that there are things that should be used and things that should be enjoyed. Things to be used fulfill “the purpose of obtaining what you love—if indeed it is something that ought to be loved.”64 Useful things assist us as “we press on towards our happiness, so that we may reach and hold fast to the things which make us happy.”65 To enjoy something rather than use it, we “hold fast to it in love for its own sake.”66 Things to be enjoyed make us happy, in the truest sense. Therefore, the things that are to be enjoyed are “only the eternal and unchangeable things.”67 Augustine says that the only thing that can be properly enjoyed is the Trinity (a single, supreme thing which is shared by all who enjoy it).68 Therefore, anything that we use should lead us to hold fast to the Trinity in love. The Godhead is that which should be valued above all other things.69

63 Augustine, De Christiana Doctrina, 8.

64 Ibid, 9.

65 Ibid, 9.

66 Ibid, 9.

67 Ibid, 16.

68 Ibid, 10.

69 Ibid, 10.



Yet if Christians enjoy things that ought to be used, their advance toward happiness is impeded. They are put off because they are “hamstrung by love of lower things.”70 Augustine notes that the enjoyment of something that ought to be used is an abuse of the thing; for the purposes my thesis, the enjoyment of theatre could lead to idolatry, while the use of theatre could lead to understanding of signs pointing to greater eternal truth. Augustine describes Christians as travellers who are journeying to our home where we can be happy. To arrive home, “we must use this world, not enjoy it, in order to discern ‘the invisible attributes of God, which are understood through what has been made’71 or, in other words, to derive eternal and spiritual value from corporeal and temporal things”72. However, our ability to discern the light of God in his creation is flawed. Our minds must be purified so that we may “perceive that light and then hold fast to it.”73

For Augustine, God making his wisdom accessible through temporal things is a magnificent gift. Men would be unable to draw near to God through character and virtue

“if wisdom itself had not deigned to adapt itself to our great weakness and offered us a pattern for living, and it has actually done so in human form because we too are human.”74 This wisdom is everywhere present to the “inner eye that is healthy and

70 Ibid, 9.

71 Romans 1:20

72 Ibid, 10.

73 Augustine, De Christiana Doctrina, 12.

74 Ibid, 13.


pure.”75 Augustine explains how heavenly wisdom avails itself to mortals by referencing the way a concept in our mind becomes a sound in order to be conveyed to a listener’s mind. This is called speech. The concept itself is not changed by the fact that it has been converted into a sound. In the same way, “the word of God became flesh in order to live in us but was unchanged.”76 There is something significant in the transfer of a concept that is explained verbally and then reabsorbed by another mind. Through speech, a thought is suddenly given a physical presence in the world. It has an existence that can suddenly be shared by two minds in the same moment. This is different than the experience of reading, where an idea can be transferred between the author and reader but never in the present tense. This element of relational interact with an idea can happen between one person and a crowd of people through activities such as preaching or, perhaps, theatrical performances.

How does the transfer of heavenly wisdom into earthly ways of communicating push us toward our heavenly home? The scripture states that Christians should love the

Lord with “all your heart, all your soul, all your mind”77 and in doing so, “no part of our life [is] free from this obligation”78. Every part of our life, including participating in theatrical entertainment, ought to help us enjoy God. Performing the tasks we have been called to by God has been infused “with positive enjoyment” through perception of the

75 Ibid, 13.

76 Ibid, 14.

77 Matthew 22:39

78 Augustine, De Christiana Doctrina, 17.


divine light in creation.79 Thus enjoyment, or pleasure, is established a Christian good

(although Augustine certainly acknowledges that the church is often purified through disagreeable medicines). It is important to note that pleasurable things are not the only things that He describes as fitting accompaniments for our journey: “It is not the case that all things which are to be used are to be loved; but only those which exist in some kind of association with us and are related to God…the martyrs, certainly did not love the wickedness of those who persecuted them, but used it to win their way to God.”80 This point fits in well with a position that finds flaws with Tertullian’s total denunciation of theatre: Augustine clearly asserts here and later that God uses things that cannot be loved for his good purposes. He of course acknowledges that things that should not be enjoyed but can be fittingly used can be misused as well. To lust is to misuse the body. He defines lusts as “the habits and inclinations of a soul to enjoy what is inferior.”81 Christians ought to reform the flesh and resist the spirit with its unruly impulses. Every energy should be directed toward loving God.

Not only are we commanded to love God, but to love our neighbor. We should love both those who help us, and who need our help; those to whom we give no benefit and those from whom we do not expect any benefit. “But it should be our desire that they all love God together with us, and all the help that we give to or receive from them must be related to this one end.”82 Thus, no sinner ought to be loved as a sinner. Rather every

79 Ibid, 15.

80 Ibid, 18.

81 Ibid, 19.

82 Ibid, 22.


human being, as a human being, should be loved on God’s account. God should be loved for Himself.83 It is at this point that Augustine brings up one of the few direct references he makes to theatre, which he calls a “den of wickedness.”84 He states that a theatre-goer who loves an actor also loves all those who share his love, not on their own account, but on account of the actor they equally love. He describes how such a one passionately longs for other audience members to feel as much love for the actor as he himself feels, and how he vehemently hates anyone who does not share his appreciation of the actor. He goes on to say that this is not the attitude we ought to have towards other people in regard to the love of God. He writes that we can be freed from any fear that God will fail to satisfy anyone to whom he becomes known: “it is God who wants himself to be loved, not in order to gain any reward for himself but to give to those who love him an eternal reward—namely himself, the object of their love.”85 Note that Augustine here uses an analogy from theatre in order to instruct believers how not to behave toward other people.

Augustine goes on to detail how Christians should behave toward others. He writes that we should show compassion to all, in the way that Christ shows us compassion, and that just as God pities us, we in turn pity one another so that we may enjoy God. This also establishes empathy as another Christian good. We have seen

Augustine stating that both pleasure and empathy are goods that ought to grace a

Christian life. This is potentially useful for our project because it could be argued that both these goods are furthered through theatrical art.

83 Ibid, 21

84 Ibid, 22.

85 Ibid, 22.



In Augustine’s understanding, compassion for another person through God is enjoyment of God rather than another human being, “for you enjoy the one by whom you are made happy.”86 This allows the possibility that the love of something on earth can encourage the contemplation of the divine, but only if the thing is loved for its connection to God. But although the love of earthly things can certainly be transformed into a love of the heavenly, Augustine notes that we ought to love the things of our journey with a

“transient love” so that we make certain to love “the means of our transport only because of our destination.”87 The things that encourage us to properly ordered loves are thus worthy to be used, but not enjoyed.

After finishing his treatment of the proper use and misuse of “things,” Augustine explicates how Christians should interpret the other category of entities that communicate meaning, “signs.” Augustine defines a sign as a thing which of itself “makes some other thing come to mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses.”88 Note that in arguing for the use of theatrical analogies for explaining theological concepts, theatre should certainly be defined as a sign according to Augustine’s definitions. Augustine further splits the category into natural signs and given signs. Natural signs are things that

“without a wish or any urge to signify cause something else besides themselves to be known from them” (e.g. smoke, which signals fire unintentionally).89 Given signs are things that “living things give to each other, in order to show, to the best of their ability,

86 Ibid, 25.

87 Ibid, 27.

88 Ibid, 30.

89 Ibid, 30.


the emotions of their minds, or anything that they have felt or learnt.”90 He remarks that words have “gained an altogether dominant role among humans in signifying the ideas conceived by the mind that a person wants to reveal.”91 He then goes on to comment on the difference between prose and poetry in regards to the pleasure they give to readers.

He notes that one can learn the same lesson in plain words that one can learn from imagery. “Yet no one disputes that it is much more pleasant to learn lessons presented through imagery, and much more rewarding to discover meanings that are won only with difficulty.”92 This is also in favor of pleasure as a Christian good. Thus, it seems plausible that Augustine would agree that artistic form could present theological truth in a more pleasing and memorable manner than straightforward doctrinal teaching.

Augustine goes on to note some observations about proper reading of scripture.

He declares that true understanding of scripture is necessary as one strives to love his neighbor and have compassion on them. If a man is equipped with a belief of the truth, other ideas presented as “truth” will “then be unable to take possession of his unprotected mind and prejudice him in any way against sound interpretations or delude him by their dangerous falsehoods and fantasies.”93 Therefore, one caveat in looking toward theatre for a source of theological understanding is that one ought to possess as a prerequisite a foundational understanding of scripture

90 Ibid, 30.

91 Ibid, 31

92 Ibid, 33.

93 Ibid, 25.



Augustine denotes two kinds of learning that are concerned with understanding signs (even of the kind pursued in pagan societies). One sort is “things which have been instituted by humans,” and the other consists of things that have been divinely instituted and then observed by humans.94 Of the things instituted by humans, “some are superstitious, some not.”95 Augustine notes that there are certain passages in the scripture that are further illuminated by knowledge of music, which could be placed in the superstitious category because it is associated with the pagan superstitions in the Roman religion concerning music as under the dominion of Apollo and the muses. Yet Augustine says music is not to be avoided by Christians as long as “there is a possibility of gleaning from it something of value for understanding holy scripture.”96 He also states that “we are not wrong to learn the alphabet just because they say that the god Mercury was its patron” (47).

Augustine’s perspective on Christian usage of music and the alphabet is exactly in line with his infamous “Egyptian gold” analogy. He writes that Christians ought to claim anything that is truthful in pagan philosophers and pagan authors for their own use. “Like the treasures of the ancient Egyptians, who possessed not only idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel hated and shunned, but also vessels and ornaments of silver and gold and clothes, which on leaving Egypt the people of Israel, in order to make better use of them, surreptitiously claimed for themselves (they did this not on their own authority but at God’s command)” (65). Augustine is here giving a direct answer to

94 Ibid, 47.

95 Ibid, 45.

96 Ibid, 47.



Tertullian’s problem with the pagan origins of theatre. He writes, “A person who is a good and a true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who…‘exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the image of corruptible mortals.’”97 Augustine notes that every truth finds its source in the Lord. Of course, Tertullian might argue that there is no goodness or truth in theatre, but he does make use of theatrical analogies and suggests that there is genuine sweetness and innocence to be found in dramatic performances.

Augustine states that there are treasures “like the silver and gold, which they did not create but dug, as it were, from the mines of providence”98 which can be used wickedly by pagans but can be applied for their true function in the preaching of the Gospel.

The Egyptian Gold argument is another answer to Tertullian’s suggestion that good things are always good and have always been good and the bad things have always been bad. Augustine seems to presume that things that have misused by pagans have really, deep down, been good all along. The misusage of the things does not change their origin or intended purpose. Augustine notes that the pagans would never have given the

Hebrews these “arts” if they had suspected “that they would be adapted to the purpose of worshipping the one God, by whom the worship of idols would be eradicated.”99

Therefore, he seems to suggest that learning about music or reading can be placed in

97 Romans 1:23

98 Augustine, De Christiana Doctrina, 65.

99 Ibid, 65.


either the “superstitious” or “not superstitious” category, depending upon the way they are used.

Surprisingly, theatre is not treated with the same liberality as music or the alphabet, in which the pagan origins may be dismissed. Instead Augustine says that we should not, “be captivated by the vanities of the theatre if we are discussing something to do with lyres or other instruments that may help us appreciate spiritual truths.”100

Essentially: if Christians are using music to help them understand biblical concepts, they should not get distracted by the fact that the theatre also includes music and conclude that theatre has valuable resources for their commitments.

He goes on to discuss signs that have been instituted by human presumption, which he says, “must be classed among those contracts and agreements made with devils.”101 While Augustine does not directly claim that theatre is in under this category,

Tertullian certainly gives theatre demonic power. It remains pertinent to consider the possibility of theatre in this category, as it seems that Augustine would not be opposed to such a suggestion. Augustine references 1 Corinthians 10 where Paul talks about eating the food of idols. He, however, points out that what Paul wants Christians to avoid is attitude of attentiveness toward fanciful signs that draw people to the worship of idols or

(and this is the important addition to what Tertullian says) to the “worship of any part of the created order or any parts of it as if they were God.”102 Thus Augustine makes a more subtle distinction than Tertullian, saying that idolatry can happen through the direct

100 Ibid, 47.

101 Ibid, 51.

102 Ibid, 52.


worship of idols or through the “worship” of the created order. Considered in this light, suggesting that Theatre has demonic powers seems less reminiscent of the Salem Witch trials and more legitimate. It seems quite likely that Satan would wish to use created things to draw our love away from the Lord through something both pleasurable and able to inspire intense emotion, such as theatre.

It is important to realize that Augustine is not declaring that theatre is irredeemable. For Augustine, there is not a necessarily sacred or secular distinction between signs; rather signs are “null and void unless accompanied by the observer’s agreement.”103 He notes: “even now if a person unfamiliar with these frivolities goes to the theatre his rapt attention to them is pointless unless someone tells him what the movements mean.”104 He says that those human institutions that “involve an alliance with demons are, as I have said, to be completely rejected and abhorred, but those which men practice along with their fellow men are to be adopted, in so far as they are not self- indulgent and superfluous.”105 Human institutions are not to be avoided unless they are purposely committed to satanic sources. Augustine’s final bit of advice regarding human institutions is to point Christians towards the virtues of prudence and discernment. He says: “do not venture without due care into any branches of learning which are pursued outside the church of Christ, as if they were a means of attaining the happy life, but discriminate sensibly and carefully between them.”106 He writes that we ought to be wary

103 Ibid, 53.

104 Ibid, 53.

105 Ibid, 54.

106 Ibid, 63.


of the speculative ideas of fallible people, especially if they involve an alliance with demonic power. He states that in subjects that pertain to the senses, the watchword must be “nothing in excess.”107 Ultimately, he points back once again to his Old Testament analogy, noting the insignificance of the amount of gold, silver, and clothing that the

Hebrews took from Egypt in comparison to the wealth later attained from Jerusalem.

“This is the measure of the insignificance of all useful knowledge that is collected from pagan books, when compared with the knowledge contained in divine scripture.”108 Yet this observation is tempered by the warning Augustine gives to his readers in the prologue, cautioning them not be prideful and disdain teaching simply because it comes from creatures who reside in the creaturely world. He states: “The human condition would be wretched indeed if God appeared unwilling to minister his word to human beings through human agency.”109 Augustine is quick to acknowledge the power of speech and words in communicating Truth. In fact, it is because his heart was so powerfully drawn into the dramatic storytelling of theatre as an unbeliever that he is so unwilling to grant that theatre is available to be used rather than enjoyed. Although his personal experience may prevent him from utilizing theatre as a way of enjoying God, his acknowledgement that God provides access to His wisdom through temporal things and that Truth, wherever it is found, belongs to the Lord provides a landscape in which theatrical art that encourages pleasure in God and empathy toward other humans may add to a flourishing Christian life rather than detract from it.

107 Ibid, 64.

108 Ibid, 67.

109 Ibid, 5.



ACT THREE

Dramatis Persona: Hans Urs von Balthasar Text: Theo-Drama Premise: Theatre is uniquely suited for representing particular theological concepts

While Tertullian and Augustine represent the standard Christian view on theatre in the 3rd century, some modern theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar find theatre not only a legitimate part of a Christian life but also as a viable realm for providing greater understanding of God’s work in the world. In his extensive theological text Theo-Drama,

Balthasar articulates a Christian understanding of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Under the category of good, Balthasar is particularly interested in the ethics of relationship between the divine and human. He sees theatre as a way of creating an image for how we understand the active work of both God and man on the earth. Although God created the stage and the script, man has a real role to play and God takes part in the play he wrote. Balthasar does not, however, turn a blind eye to the tension that has existed between the theatre and the church. He does not criticize past arguments against theatre, but argues that theatre can be useful for Christians by giving evidence for how it can provide fitting constructs for explaining and understanding God.

For Balthasar, God’s activity in the world is not static. Rather, it demands a response. He declares that if two or more parties are involved in an encounter, the parties participate in a conversation. Christ’s coming into the world to reveal a divine God to mankind involved two parties. “We encounter and perceive the phenomenon of divine


revelation in the world” through a conversation.110 Man and God are thus in conversation.

A conversation implies that someone says something, and another says something back.

In Christianity, man’s response to God is an echoing of what he said in the first place. For as “one man has died for all,” therefore, “so all have died and can no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14). God’s revelation is not an object to be looked at, rather, “it is his action in and upon the world, and the world can only respond…through action on its part.”111 We are given “a part to play” through divine revelation, but we share responsibility for our own understanding and expression of it.

Balthasar’s understands God’s action in relation to man as fundamentally

“dramatic.” There are multiple definitions of “drama.” Drama can mean the

“complications, tensions, catastrophes, and reconciliations which characterize our lives as individuals and in interaction with others.”112 Drama can also refer to the phenomenon of the stage. The stage is both related to the drama of reality and removed from it. It is both existential and aesthetic.113 The responsibility of drama is to make “existence explicit” by translating an image of reality into something conveyed through the human body’s power of expression as well as through the audible word. Drama, especially on the stage, shows an interplay of relationships that reveal to us the questionable nature and ambiguity “not

110 Hans urs Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama (Volume 1), 15.

111 Balthasar, 15.

112 Ibid, 17.

113 Ibid, 17.


only of theatre but of existence itself.”114 The conceptual categories of secular drama can only offer a “preliminary understanding of theology; they cannot offer anything like a complete grasp.”115 The stage does not provide univocal analogies. Dramatic terms remain at the level of image and metaphor.116 Yet what von Balthasar declares he is concerned with is not precisely the ambiguity found in the stage but rather the “abundant wealth of material, relationships, and connections” in theatre (even in its ambiguity) that provide a ready-made set of categories which can be used to portray God’s action.117

If we consider God’s relationship with man in terms of the stage, we must recognize that the stage is God’s. “It is God who acts, on man, for man and then together with man; the involvement of man in the divine action is part of God’s action, not a precondition of it.”118 God and man will never appear as equal partners on stage. Yet man has a real role to play. “Man is a spectator only in so far as he is a player: he does not merely see himself on the stage, he really acts on it.”119 God’s action in relation to man can be defined as fundamentally good, but is understood through the ambiguities of the theatre of the world precisely because it was an action (“something done”). What God has done is to “work salvation, and to reconcile the world to himself in Christ.”120 The
























































 



 



 



 



 



 



 



perception of the act may be beautiful, and the utterance of the act may be true, but only the act can be “good.”121 Without the “goodness” of God’s totally free love, his glory would not be beautiful nor his word true. The work that God does is clearly good, and it can not ultimately be drawn into the ambiguities of the world. But penultimately, God must deal with man in a way that man understands. This involves “treading the stage of the world and becoming implicated in the dubious nature of the world theatre.”122

Here, the divine drama does not function as a metaphor for the earthly drama.

Here they are connected. On the human stage, God “plays” through human beings and ultimately as a human being. Some of the ambiguities of human existence bring confusion to the divine incarnation. What does it mean for God to hide behind a human mask? “Is he only to drop this mask in death, when the play reveals who the actor in reality was (‘This man was truly the Son of God’ Matt. 27:54) ?”123 Can God really die?

These questions are ultimately resolved, but because God’s drama has come in contact with the world theatre, God’s truth must be fleshed out in divine reality and human reality. “The good which God does to us can only be experienced as the truth if we share in performing it (‘If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority’ John 7:17); we must do the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), not only to perceive the truth of the good but, equally, in order to embody it increasingly in the world, thus leading the ambiguities of world


 



 



 



theatre beyond themselves to a singleness of meaning that can come only from God.”124

This is the case of a play within a play: our play “plays” in his play.125

The stage stands as a legitimate way of understanding theology in that it is asking a question about how to interpret human existence in light of an existence that is beyond it. In the very act of playing a role, the actor is acknowledging a sort of transcendence that is beyond himself. “The theatre owes its very existence substantially to man’s need to recognize himself as playing a role.”126 Theatre also reminds us that this higher existence is not static, but dramatic. The events that play out beneath it are not external to it or relative to it. Theatre maintains “the existential character of existence against attempts to relativize it.”127 Because the Christian life demands activity, it is fitting that existence represent itself dramatically. This present life is the time for questioning and playing one’s part; active faith plays out what love looks like. A dead faith is inactive and therefore has no understanding of love. We cannot merely contemplate what takes place as onlookers. We must look at an event, and grasp it as the “here-and-now.” Otherwise, it will slip into unreality.128When the scripture and its message are treated as merely historical, the word loses force and even goodness. “The libretto of God’s saving drama which we call Holy Scripture is worthless in itself unless, in the Holy Spirit, it is constantly mediating between the drama beyond and the drama here. It is not a self-


 



 



 



 



 



sufficient armchair drama.”129 In Scripture, God uses different people to speak the same text, from different perspectives, angles and dramatic dimensions.130 All of these characteristics leads Balthasar to suggest that theatrical concepts have a rightful place in the “toolbox” of the Christian theologian.

Balthasar is aware that for much of Christian history, Christianity and the theatre were “fundamentally alien” to each other.131 In the Ancient World, theatre was primarily coarse, lewd, and often cruel. Even pagans turned away from it. Yet, there was also more noble comedy and tragedy based on ancient myth. However, regardless of the sort of show, the lower nature was unleashed.132 Plato criticized “Homer and its dramatic derivatives” for its ambiguous portrayal of the gods; the sort of gods portrayed on stage were not ones Plato wished to worship. At the root of the ancient church fathers’ opposition stands a theological problem with theatre’s association with myth and revelation.133 Tertullian (Balthasar mentions the “prospect of the eschatological drama”).134 Balthasar also picks up on Tertullian’s noting of the inconsistency in ancient times of people honoring the art of drama but holding disdain for actors…Tertullian proclaims that “the artist is branded while his art is extolled.”135 Clement of Alexandria
























































 



 



 



 



 



 



 



actually uses theatrical terms for making theological analogies just as Tertullian does at the end of De Spectaculis. However, both authors offer a harsh treatment of theatre as an art form. Balthasar points out that Augustine responds with particular sharpness to the theatre because he was once “bitten” by the so called theatre bug. Augustine wanted to exclude actors from baptism and the Eucharist.136 He forbids allowing our sinful curiosity for seeing forbidden things to overcome us, and recommends contemplating the Christian drama of the martyrs instead. General church practice was to expel actors from Christian fellowship unless they renounced their trade. Theatrical performances in ancient days often placed Christians as the butt of jokes.137 Christian emperors did not trust actors.

Theodosius only allowed plays on special festival days, but not on Sundays.138 People still had a taste for theatre, but the reputation of the actors remained dishonorable.

Later on, drama was reconstructed for the purposes of the church139, but was completely shut down in England during the period of commonwealth. Even after the restoration in 1660, the debate about theatre and Christianity continued. In Germany, it was the clergy who zealously opposed theatrical activity. In France, the passages from early councils concerning actors were mercilessly applied. Balthasar finishes reviewing the past conflict of Christianity and the theatre by concluding that the whole history is illogical. Christian society both promoted and admired the works of artists, yet cast them


 



 



 



 



out of their midst.140 When the Church lost her power in society, she also lost her power over theatre. But did she overcome her former feelings about theatre, or merely suppress them? “Does not this rivalry between the drama of the play and the drama of life, between man as ‘appearance’ and man as ‘truth,’ perhaps express a fundamental problem?”141 Balthasar suggests the heart of the controversy is that the actor embodies a dangerous temptation for all of us, but especially Christians: the possibility of not being ourselves.142 He acknowledges that the struggle between Christianity and the theatre continues as a sort of “scandalous contradiction” of toleration and encouragement on the part of some believers and rigorous condemnation by other people of the Christian faith.143

Balthasar affirms that Christians should synthesize theology and drama, for he states that in drama “we have much material at our disposal.”144 He declares that it is not a project of recasting theology into a new shape; rather, it is the task of drawing out the

“drama” of theology that is already integral to it. Theology is “the history of an initiative on God’s part for his world, the history of a struggle between God and the creature over the latter’s meaning and salvation.”145 We don’t know how the fifth act will turn out. We cannot answer this question now, but we encounter it everywhere. As much as we long
























































 



 




 



 



 



 



for a systematic presentation of theology, “we must leave room for this dramatic aspect and find and appropriate form of thought for it.”146

Theology is both inwardly contemplative (pondering that which has been revealed) and outwardly focused in a dialogue with the rest of the world (apologetics, criticisms, and polemics). Balthasar gives examples of theological conversations, including the dramatic monologues of Augustine and Boethius, the imitation of Platonic dialogues, and even oratorical contests. 147 The drama of theology is played out in the gospel itself. We cannot guess what Christ will say when he is questioned; all answering comes from the creative Holy Spirit. “The Spirit is empowered to utter a fresh and central answer in every situation; this produces not only the genuine pluriformity of theologies but at the same time their genuine unity—albeit not of the kind found in textbooks.

Christ’s Church is always and from the very outset the integration of these apparently irreconcilable.”148

Theology is thus full of dramatic tension. “God has given freedom to his creatures, but as Creator, is always involved in the world, and ‘this means that there is always divine-human dramatic tension,’”149 We are all actors on a stage. We are all asking, “Who am I?, and we must give an answer.150 Balthasar thus describes his task,

“which is to draw an instrumentarium, a range of resources, from the drama of existence


 



 



 



 



 



which can then be of service to a Christian theory of theo-drama in which the ‘natural’ drama of existence (between the absolute and the relative) is consummated in the supernatural drama between the God of Jesus Christ and mankind.”151 He says that he will begin with using the world as the theatre, but will reach the point of examining dramatic categories in relationship with human existence.152 He points to the dangers of taking such a journey, asking, “Where is the path that leads between the twin abysses of systematics in which God, absolute Being, is only the unmoved before whom the moving world plays out its drama, and a mythology which absorbs God into the world and makes him to be one of the warring parties of world process?”153 In the end, he states that is only by implementing the method that we can see what resources it has to offer (particularly for refuting Gnosticism, which denies the goodness of matter). Balthasar provides a helpful model for the aim of this thesis: to consider not so much how a Christian should be involved in theatre practice but rather how “dramatic categories can be used to promote an understanding of revelation.”154 Yet Balthasar is primarily concerned with utilizing theatrical metaphors for his particular theological project (namely, the ethics of divine and human interaction), while I am interested in embarking on an exploration of theatrical analogies for a broader range of theological concepts.


 



 



 



 




ACT FOUR

Dramatis Persona: Kaley Branstetter Premise: Theatre can be useful in making analogies for a large range of theological concepts

For Christians living in the twenty-first century, many of Augustine and

Tertullian’s concerns about theatre are antiquated. It is important, no doubt, to situate these authors in their historical context: Roman entertainment culture, with its rampant immorality and ardent idolatry, forcibly subverted the possibility of theatre as a place ripe for Christian participation. Christians today find themselves in an artistic world that is similarly dominated by non-Christians and possibly unfriendly to a faithful Christian lifestyle. Even Christians who are not struggling to decide how much to directly involve themselves in theatre practice must decide how to think about popular culture and artistic work. For the Christian, all aspects of life must be examined as having spiritual importance. Most Christians would certainly agree that drama has a reasonable place in time spent in leisurely activities, but the stakes become higher when Christians begin to consider what role the theatre may play in worship, contemplation, and spiritual living.

Balthasar offers helpful and thought-provoking suggestions for ways a Christian might look to theatre as a helpful tool for understanding theology. In particular, Balthasar saw theatre as having useful analogies for understanding the ethics in the relationships between divine and human persons. While his writing provides an important basis for utilizing theatre for Christian purposes, Balthasar is only interested in looking to theatre in so far as it is helpful for theological reflection in the particular metaphysical realms he


is interested in. However, it seems profitable to evaluate the unique constructs of theatrical performance with freedom from a particular agenda and thereby to creatively explore the usefulness of the theological metaphors that immerge.

One of the more subtle, but none the less foundational, elements of stagecraft is set design. A good set designer makes careful decisions that allow the correlation between form and content to become readily apparent. Two particularly interesting elements of set design include the position of the audience and the transparency of set changes. The audience may be located directly before the stage, clearly recipients of the action. If the audience is in the balcony, they look down on the stage as if it were a landscape. If they are on a ground level in the front, they may look up at the stage focused on the faces of the actors rather than the stage as a whole. This dynamic may be altered, however, if the actors choose to cross the fourth wall and enter the aisles and even the rows of seats. For example, an audience may surround the stage, as in a theatre in the round. This setting gives the audience a more intimate role in the action. The relationship between form and content in set design often pertains to the proximity of the audience. A set designer might choose a stage in which the audience does not surround the actors in order to effectively produce quick set changes or “stage magic.” In a theatre in the round or black box theatre, special effects are much more difficult to carry out: the backstage is not as easily accessible, and the audience is usually close enough to catch minute details of costuming and props. Thus, formal separation between audience and actors is useful for musicals and more elaborate productions that are often intent on helping the audience to escape out of the theatre and into another world. A more intimate setting may make it harder for the audience to forget they are watching a theatrical


production, while making it easier for audience members to engage in the emotions of the characters and perhaps even contribute to the stage action.

As with the location of the audience, the visibility of stage action is closely tied to the sort of performance it accompanies. A show that utilizes a large assortment of mechanical aspects is typically portraying a story set in a world where fantastical things happen (e.g. flying, rapid growth of plants, quick shifts of location). Often mechanical and digitized aspects of the set are used to quicken transitions. Stagehands in this production are typically behind the scenes (pulling curtains, cuing lights, manipulating turn tables) or absent altogether from the actual performance in lieu of pre-programed, highly adept machines. But as mentioned before, the overall purpose of these technically- elaborate sets is to help sweep the audience away from the theatre and into a far-off, other world. In performances where the audience is highly aware of the stagecraft—the stagehands come on and off stage to change the set—the production is not so much asking that the audience forget that they are in a theatre, but to willingly suspend their awareness of reality in order to be affected by the emotions of the characters and the progression of the storyline. In highly elaborate productions, the off-stage world is nearly as busy as the one being portrayed onstage; it is as if two simultaneous productions are going on, but the audience only participates in one. In a less elaborate production, where the characters themselves may even bring the set pieces on and off stage, the audience sees the worlds of stagecraft and performance merging together. One of these methods is not better or more meaningful than the other, but each one is suited towards a particular sort of production. A stage that is completely bare is not without meaning; rather, the


scarcity of traditional elements tells the audience something significant about the story being told.

Set design provides possibilities for theological metaphors that reside in two worlds: the natural world and the world before creation. Thinking of God as a set designer allows us to see the natural world as thoughtfully planned to highlight a particular story. Romans 1:20 states: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” A carefully crafted set does not overtly reveal the plot of a production, but it is clearly groomed and positioned to directly illuminate and complement the action of the play. People frequently refer to the “stage being set” for a particular event or something occurring “when the time was right,” and both of these phrases point to the helpfulness of understanding the circumstances surrounding events as being set up and cued by a designer. The cues in drama are generally performed in the present active: a particular line is said, and the actor walks off stage, or the lights dim, and the actor knows to enter. However, “cues” are planned out in advance by the playwright, pointed out by the director, and overseen by the stage manager. We may use this dramatic phenomenon to get a clearer idea of what it looks like for God know our actions before the beginning of time while we still genuinely “perform” these actions as an act of our own will. The idea of the simultaneous action occurring both onstage and backstage can also be a helpful way of understanding the way that spiritual and earthly action simultaneously occur. In a theatrical performance, a stagehand pulls a rope off stage, and a curtain rises. A stage manager cues a light technician, and a spotlight occurs onstage. The audience does not see the action that occurs off-stage, but it is essential to


the onstage action. Moreover, beyond merely occurring simultaneously, the backstage and onstage synchronization makes the storytelling possible. They are equally vital to each other. This is a human analogy for understanding things like Satan’s temptation of

Job (a divine reality having an impact of the physical well-being of Job and his family) and even merely God’s plans unfurling behind the scenes to bring about his purposes.

The a theatrical setting, the actors are aware that there is behind-the-scene work going on, but they are not conscious of the exact timing and mechanics of the actions that enable them to tell the story of the play. The actors, in fact, tend to forget that there is any backstage work going on until something goes wrong.

In the same way, Christians forget to be thankful for God’s spiritual work in their life while everything is running smoothly, but when unforeseen problems occur, they become hyper-aware of the divine power that is at work and usually respond with anger and dissatisfaction directed toward God. However, with God, the things the actors sees as unforeseen are in fact planned and may be allowed to continue to malfunction for sometime; in a dramatic performance, backstage error is unintentional and resolved as quickly as possible. Also pertaining to this theological is idea is the concept of audience location: at certain times in our spiritual walks as Christians, we may feel as if we are in an arena, looking down at the stage action from a distance, unsure of our role in the unfurling action of God’s kingdom work. At other times, we may feel as if we are in a black box theatre: intimately aware of and involved in the action occurring on stage.155


This idea will become useful when addressing the role of the audience in a more direct way later on.



Another interesting dramatic consideration156 to pull into the metaphor is the idea of unrepeatability. Every performance of a show, even a show that is played six days a week for multiple months, is unique. It is not because the playwright has necessarily written in flexibility to the delivery of lines or set movements; rather, the unrepeatable nature of the play lies in human imperfection. An actor forgets a line, and another actor must improvise: he is not changing the nature of the story, but reacting to something that does not go according to plan. Perhaps these sort of mutations are hard to reconcile with the idea of an omniscient, all-wise playwright: but there seems to be a sense in which

God’s plans for mankind interact with humanity’s failings. God made Adam and Eve to be in perfect communion with Himself. When the couple sinned in the garden, God’s plot for humanity seems to take an unexpected twist. But even in the garden future hope of an offspring who would crush Satan under his heel is revealed. The promised redemption of

Christ was needed as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin: pre-fall Adam and Eve did not need the Incarnate Christ in order to commune with the Father. But all the same, God’s plan for the redemption of mankind has been planned before time began. While error in performance does not adequately picture this, there is something about the newness of a performance that is helpful. The ending of the play does not change, but the rising action must still be performed in order for the ending to become pertinent.

While the appearance of the stage speaks to the content of the production overall, the appearance of the actors reveals the nature of the character played by the actor.

Tertullian and Augustine both addressed the dubious nature of the mask: can it be right to cover the face that the Lord has given? What value can there be in a smiling mask that



A consideration that will be brought in again when examining other aspects of stagecraft.


hides a tear-stained face? Yet makeup and the costuming allow the actors to separate their individual person from the character they are representing and thereby tell stories in a way that is essentially incarnational.

When considering the incarnation of Christ, it is fascinating to look at the way an actor both embodies a role and remains separate from it. An actor maintains his true identity while playing a role. When Meryl Streep plays Mother Courage, an audience may look up on the stage and point to Mother Courage, and say, “That’s Meryl Streep.”

But at the same time, and audience member could point to Meryl Streep on stage and say,

“That’s Mother Courage.” And that audience member would be just as correct as the one who pointed out Meryl Streep’s identity outside of the play. This idea is interesting when considering Christ as simultaneously fully God and fully human. He certainly maintains an identity outside of the constructs of the world and space and time, and yet at the same time he enters that world in an entirely real way. This analogy is not completely useful:

Christ is unique among all other humans in possessing two natures, while Meryl Streep’s simultaneous on-stage/off-stage identity is true for every single member of the dramatic troupe. If you extend the idea of every human having a spiritual nature that is separate from their human nature, you begin to separate humanity into souls and bodies that are distinct from one another (which cannot be the case if what it means to be fully human is to possess both a body and a soul). Christ’s ability also extends beyond merely having an identity onstage and offstage: he existed before the stage was even created and in fact helped write the script of the story he would go onto star in.

When considering the theological notion of free will (a concern that is certainly of popular consideration in the theology of our time), the fact that Christ participating in


writing the “script” of the Father’s plan does not mean he was forced to performed what was scripted for him. This point can be illuminated by understanding that just as Christ fully embraced His human nature with its particular defects and capabilities, so an actor fully embraces his character. Although Christ knew that he would end his life on Calvary and rise again on the third day, he did not fully reveal this to his family or his followers.

An actor does not change the way his character is at the beginning of the simply because he knows the end of the play. Rather, he represents the character as a human, bound in time and space, and unable to see where the course of stage action will take him. Christ followed the rules for dramatic suspense: pointing toward moments in the Old Testament when the prophets predicted the appearance of messiah and identifying himself as the fulfillment of prophecy, and only overtly identifying himself as the Son of God in the proper time for the conflict to escalate.

There are a variety of considerations that go into taking on a dramatic role. At the most basic level, an actor tries to adopt the physical traits of the character that he plays.

Often times in professional theatre, an actor is cast as a particular part because his features and traits already align with the character that he is playing. However, sometimes a character must make tremendous changes to his natural appearance to play a particular role. This transformation typically occurs through makeup and costuming, but also through stance, manner of movement, vocal tone, and dialect. An actor may need to acquire new skills—singing or sword-fighting—in order to portray the character. The actor is in charge of these physical manifestations of character, but is also responsible for emulating the thought process and inward attitude of a character, at least to a certain extent. The goal of an actor’s analysis of a character’s inner motivation is not an attempt


to understand a character so well that he can check and make sure that the storyline accurately depicts his character. Rather, he looks at the internal life of a character in order to better and more truly represent that character through the lines he speaks in the story that is already written. The script is his proof-text for his understanding of the way his character is on the inside. The process of taking on a character is different depending on the school of acting that an actor adheres to. Some actors immerse themselves deeply into the character’s situation, imagining how they themselves would feel and act if they were in similar situations and then externalizing those imagined reaction on stage. Other actors take a personal experience in which they experienced great sorrow or joy in their own life, and then attempt to makes those moments easily accessible to themselves on stage so that they can portray realistic emotions on command.

The idea of an actor taking on a role has interesting implications for the theological ideas of Christians being called to imitate the person and life of Jesus Christ.

The idea of mimetic activity in Christianity is one of the cores of the faith. Verses such as

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me” (Galatians 2:20) reveal the sort of embodiment that is fundamental to the Christian idea of sanctification:

Christians die to themselves and live to Christ. While Christians do not literally bear the cross Christ bore on Calvary, we are nonetheless called to “pick up our cross and follow” him (Matthew 16:24). We are instructed to delight in what Christ delights in, and abhor what he abhors. There is a sense in which this analogy to role play cannot help but be faulty: as many early Christians would point out in their writing, actors are not only emulating goodness and virtue in their theatrical performances, but also those who love


wickedness and pursue immorality. But the way an actor approaches a role—meditating on the character, practicing the movements of the character over and over at rehearsal every night until they become almost second-nature, and knowing the script so well that it is embedded into their memory—seems potentially exemplary for Christians striving toward the imitation of Christ through prayer, Bible reading, and habitual exercise of virtue. It is also interesting to consider the Bible as a sort of script. The Bible is by no means to be read with an external agenda: rather, we are to come to the text with upon hands, treating it as an authority. This is quite similar to how directors approach scripts: no changes shall be made to the lines, unless the play is still the rough draft stages or the director has firm convictions about use of strong language or other such vulgarities (and even then, it is not necessarily kosher to attempt any kind of change to a copyrighted script). The idea of meditating on the scripture “day and night” (Psalm 1:2) is beautifully depicted by an actor’s studious, almost-reverent pouring over a script in order to commit it to long-term memory.

The idea of an actor inhabiting another character and fully embracing their sorrows and joys is also helpful for interpreting the way in which Christ “bore our burdens and shouldered our iniquities” (Hebrews) and sheds interesting light on the way

Christ took on the sins of the world. Christ was very much aware that he himself had committed no sin, just as an actor is very much aware that they themselves have not, in the greater scheme of reality, actually participated or willed the actions of their character.

Yet there is a very real sense in which an actor feels the sorrows and emotions of the character they embody; there is also a very real sense in which the actor’s body and voice

(if not mind and heart) is in every understandable way performing the actions of the


character they take on. This seems to be something of what it means for Christ to have both “known no sin” but still “became sin” on our behalf. Christ was not simply playing the part of a man: he was, in fact, a real, historical human being. Yet he allowed himself to take on sorrow on our behalf (weeping over Jerusalem and the death of Lazarus) and to feel every non-sinful human emotion that any man would have experienced in the face of death and punishment. The language of the beautiful hymn Paul quotes in Philippians

2:6-11 sounds is reminiscent of language one would use about an actor taking on a role:

“who, though he was in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man.” The difference between an actor’s dramatic persona and the reality of his life off-stage is distinguishable by space, time, and intention: the actor’s role is purposefully and knowingly enacted by the actor, and the role becomes imbedded into his identity (e.g.

Andy Serkis will forever be known as the actor who played the role of Gollum in the

Lord of the Rings movies; that role is forever part of his identity). Yet an actor’s time actually playing the role is limited to the time and space of the run of the shows. In much the same way, Christ will forever be known as the Son of God who became the man,

Jesus: this part of his identity can never change. However, the time and space of his

“performance” was limited to the 33 years of his life on earth, and until the millennial kingdom, his role as savior of mankind is not a part of man’s tangible, earthly experience.

Yet Christ remains Jesus in a spiritual reality, and in the same way that an audience member may re-access a play that has already been performed by watching the recording, so we re-access Christ’s life on earth through the Bible.



The final theatrical element to address as a potential area for helpful theological reflection is the audience. One could say that the purpose of theatre is to allow actors to have a place for creative, artistic expression, but it is almost universally acknowledged that theatre is ultimately for the audience. As far as possibilities for theological analogies, the drama of the incarnation could be said to correlate to the dramatic action on stage, or the whole story of the world’s history as the play. If we imagine Christ’s story as the play, all of humanity would be properly considered the audience. Christ took on the role of a human and entered the city of Nazareth for the purpose of revealing and enacting

God’s plan of salvation for all of mankind. God is the writer of the script and Christ is the primary actor. The disciples, Jews, and Romans who interacted with Jesus during his time on earth, like the chorus roles in a musical production, had the added the benefit of being both involved in the action and as well as the closest viewers of the dramatic action that they are supporting. Just like audiences at a dramatic performance, the audience of the drama of the incarnation has a choice to make. They may view the show as mere entertainment, laughing off the storyline and walking away without a second thought.

They may observe the story with disinterest, distaste, or may even storm out of the theatre halfway through the performance. Or they may see the play as something with deep significance and with a life-changing message. Sometimes plays must be watching multiple times before the deeper meaning surfaces, and this is surely true for the story of the life and death of Jesus Christ. The story of Christ is consistently a sold-out show: the audience changes as the years past, but the script does not change, and the demand for a response does not change, either.



If you understand the story of the world as a whole as the unfolding drama, however, God takes over the audience role as well as the role of primary actor and playwright. As the Westminster Confession reminds us, the sole purpose of mankind is to

“glorify God”; the world is the Lord’s, and everything that was made to move or breath exists because of God and for God and by God. In this way of viewing things, the incarnation would be the climax of the plot. It becomes interesting within this analogy to consider the liturgy as a sort of play within a play. Typically, such a dramatic device is used whenever the playwright wants to highlight the theme of the play or reveal some sort of dramatic irony about the stage action. The performance of a play within in a play is not just a device, however: it is a part of the action of the story. In this way, the liturgy can be seen as both legitimately participated in by church members as well as reflecting back on a larger story that has already been enacted.

It is particularly interesting to look at the second coming as an opportunity for

Christians to utilize theatrical analogies in order to stimulate their excitement and imagination for events are often beyond the grasp of theological analysis or intellectual dissection. Part of the reason that theatre is so adept at stimulating human emotion is not because it realistically mirrors life as we know it. Rather, theatre is a carefully orchestrated and intentioned construction of life that allows an audience to become a spectator upon ordinary things and see in them a connection to larger themes. The scripture is clear that the events involved in the end times are things beyond human knowledge: “But as it is written, ‘what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’—these things God has revealed to us through his spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9-10). Paul goes on to say, “No one


comprehends the words of God without the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:11b-13a). Our faith consists of things beyond human reason and understanding. Thus, it seems entirely fitting to utilize a form of art—one that takes the things of this world and uses them to symbolize complex realities of life that often cannot be captured in words or argumentation—in order to access the wisdom of the spirit. The life of the Christian is characterized by hope in that which is presently unseen, but will one day be revealed. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”

(Romans 8:19-21).

If we think of God as the audience of the play he has created, we know that the role of creation is ultimately to provide delight to its creator. We, too, are called to

“delight ourselves in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). As Tertullian noted, there is a dramatic element to the design of the second coming: bizarre, symbolic figures (a prostitute mounted on a dragon, the anti-Christ, the slaughtered lamb), the sounds of trumpets, a city of jewels, and the glory of every knee bowing and confessing that Jesus Christ is

Lord. We should long for this future day and cry with John in Revelations 22:20, “Come,

Lord Jesus!” Reflection on the way that theatre has been structured to both tell a story and ignite the passions brings clarity to seeing theatrical analogies as helpful for understanding the truths of the incarnation, sanctification, God’s sovereignty, and



Christ’s second coming. Such an exercise promises to both enliven our love for Christ and train our emotions rightly as we rehearse paradise in our imaginations.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Augustine, Saint. The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by Edward Pusey. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14, 2001.

Augustine, Saint. On Christian Doctrine, translated by J. F. Shaw. New York: Dover Philosophical Classics, 2009.

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Theo-Drama: Dramatic Theory, Vol. 1. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988.

Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.

Ley, Graham. A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theatre. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991,

Tertullian. Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh. Lenox: HardPress Publishing, 2012.

Tertullian. De Spectaculis. translated by T. R. Glover. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931. Print.