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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 21 Article 10 January 2008 Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion, and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method Kristin Bloomer Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Bloomer, Kristin (2008) "Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion, and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 21, Article 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1409 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Bloomer: Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion, and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion, and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method Kristin Bloomer University of Hawaii CONCERNS that likely inspired today's panel disciplines; and some confusion over attempts to can be traced textually to the beginnings of understand the boundaries of religion itself, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and to the partiCUlarly since Talal Asad's critique of earliest writings of what we now call Hinduism. Clifford Geertz,l a matter I will explore shortly. In the field of Hindu-Christian studies, these F or these and other reasons, both theologians concerns suggest ethnographic approaches that (Christian theologians in particular) and are not in themselves new, but which borrow in comparativists have been worrying over who potentially new ways from the methodological they are, what they are doing, and how they can tool-boxes of anthropology, theology and the be responsibly more responsive to the ever­ history of religions. "more-impressive fact of religious plurality. A quick perusal of academic journal entries Before trying to take a stab, first, at defining over the past twenty years shows growing "what" comparative theology might mean today, attention to questions such as "What is I want to try to understand it historically­ comparative theology?" and "What is the particularly since I agree with Asad that the comparative study of religion?" (These broad concept "religion" exists only as a historical questions suggest a sub-question, the topic of construct/ as does "comparative theology," this panel: "What is Hindu-Christian Studies, "comparative religion," "Hindu-Christian and how best might we do it?") Reasons for the studies," or any term for that matter. Which growing attention to such questions about practices and concepts we subsume under comparison are multiple. They include the "religion," or "theology" or "comparative pressures of globalization and, with them, a theology" depends, of course, on our theories, growing market-academic" and popular-for our experience, our worldviews-all of which studies and stories that deal with phenomena are shaped by discursive processes and events of related to globalization. Other reasons include a history. To understand something about the healthy self-doubt that has arisen generally in history of comparative theology, then, will help the humanities, particularly in the study of us see: first, how it, like any other term or religion among theologians and historians of practice, is a historical product of discursive religion. This self-consciousness arises from at processes; how, as such a,product, it is open to least four comers: the loss of objectivity that has the force of change; and how theologians and accompanied postmodernism; a post-colonial scholars of religion-themselves discursive anxiety regarding the study of non-Western subj ects working within the process of such religions; a post-Enlightenment concern about change, conditioned by the limits of its history whether theology, in particular, can or should be and the perceived needs of the moment-can considered an academic discipline at all, housed best correlate their work to these needs while under the same roof as other, more "scientific" trying to maintain a sense of integrity. Kristin C. Bloomer is an Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her dissertation, Making Mary: Hinduism, Roman Catholicism and Spirit Poss~ssion in Tamil Nadu, South India (University of Chicago, 2008), is an ethnography of Marian possession rituals in India's most south­ eastern state. Her areas of specialization include the anthropology of religion, religion and the body, self and subjectivity in the study of religion, and Christianity in India. Journal ofHindu-Christian Studies 21 (2008):33-42 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2008 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 21 [2008], Art. 10 34 Kristin Bloomer In a 1987 Encyclopedia of Religion article is, reflection on "other religions"-have been under the heading "Theology: Comparative present in the Christian tradition since its Theology," David Tracy points out that although beginnings, both in the philosophical traditions the work of comparative religion goes back to of Greece and Rome and in the Hebrew our very beginnings as humans-at least as far traditions of ancient Israel. These comparative back as the moment when the first worshipper of elements can be traced in leanings both positive a god or gods asked herself why her neighbor is (in terms of borrowing) and negative a worshipper of some other god or gods­ (exclusivism, tendencies to demonize).4 comparative work of any sustained scholarly The emergence of the very notion of religion fashion goes back, in traditional Western in Europe, furthermore, has been outlined by theologies and philosophies, at least as far as the Talal Asad, Eric Sharpe, .and Samuel J. Preus, beginnings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 3 whose book Explaining Religion: Criticism and Among other traditions, especially in India, Theory from Bodin to Freud traces a narrative of Tracy points out, the scholarly work of religious displacement in which religion as it is studied in comparison has been going on much longer still the human sciences is increasingly separated and with great philosophical sophistication from theology. Denying the possibility of (Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian transcendence arid replacing it with a naturalistic Philosophy, 5 vols., Cambridge, 1922-1955). paradigm, scholars of religion increasingly Despite the rich history of philosophical and adopted a critical outlook towards their object of theological scholarly work in India and the study and removed from it any appeal to a vibrant theological work being carried out there transcendent God. Key players in this paradigm as well as in other countries and traditions, one shift as Preus lists them are Bernard Fontenelle, of the greatest problems with the term David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich "theology" today is that it is still generally Schleiermacher, Emile Durkheim, E.B. Tylor, assumed to mean "Christian, Western theology," and Sigmund Freud, among others. at least within the confines of the Western Of these men, Schleiermacher, a Reformed academy. For the purposes of this paper, both theologian, is particularly key to the because of and in spite of this tendency-and for development of the study of religion as a human reasons of space-I will focus on the history of science-or particularly, at least, for theology. comparison within Christianity. Furthermore, Theologians such as Keith WardS, James while theologies of Islam, Hinduism and Fredericks6 and others have pointed out the Buddhism (though some Buddhist philosophical extent of Schleiermacher's influence on the treatises might better be described as a­ contemporary, comparative study of religion, theologies) have contributed significantly to the particularly on liberal theology and its claim to a formation of Christian theologies, it is Christian universal religious experience. theology that has most directly influenced the Schleiermacher's apparent appeal to a universal forination of the academic study of religion in core linking together all religions, first (On the so-called West. Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, While the term "comparative theology" has 1799) in the sense of an intuition, sense or received a fair amount of cache in recent years, feeling of the infinite/ and in later writings Christian theology, I would argue (along with (Glaubenslehre, or The Christian Faith, 1821) others such as David Tracy, Keith Ward, Francis as a feeling of absolute dependence,8 has been X .. Clooney, Eric Sharpe), has always been used as a basis for arguing for the comparative. Furthermore, it has always "transcendental unity" of all religions-an struggled to define itself in relation to other argument which has been shown to be highly disciplines, and with the notion of how problematic. Nonetheless, this transcendental scientifically or normatively neutral it can or unity has served, as a cornerstone for much should be. Tracy reminds us in his modem thought about religion and can be seen Encyclopedia of Religion entry that while the in works of authors including Rudolph Otto, term "comparative theology" was not used in the Ernst Troeltsch, Mircea Eliade, Bernard premodern period, comparative elements-that Lonergan, Huston Smith, Wilfred Cantwell https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol21/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1409
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