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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 21 Article 10

January 2008

Comparative , Comparative , and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method

Kristin Bloomer

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Recommended Citation Bloomer, Kristin (2008) ", , 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, , , and , and to the partiCUlarly since 's critique of earliest writings of what we now call . ,l a 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 , theology and the be responsibly more responsive to the ever­ history of . "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 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 Poss~ssion in Tamil Nadu, South India (University of Chicago, 2008), is an ethnography of Marian possession in India's most south­ eastern state. Her areas of specialization include the , religion and the body, self and subjectivity in the study of religion, and Christianity in India.

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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 or asked herself why her neighbor is (in terms of borrowing) and negative a worshipper of some other god or gods­ (, 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 and philosophies, at least as far as the Talal Asad, Eric Sharpe, .and Samuel J. Preus, beginnings of Judaism, . 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 , , 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 (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 . 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 , I would argue (along with (Glaubenslehre, or The Christian , 1821) others such as David Tracy, Keith Ward, Francis as a feeling of 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 , , Bernard premodern period, comparative elements-that Lonergan, , Wilfred Cantwell

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Smith, and , among many others. It is though she may acknowledge her intellectual an argument appreciable for its contribution to debts to preceding scholars of religion or locate the comparative study ofreligions in its stress on herself in a particular school of scientific similarity (without which one cannot do thought (anthropological, sociological, comparison), but one also which is due psychological, etc.). The hermeneutic or refutation, along with many other contemporary methodological categories employed by the scholars of religion, for failing properly to comparativist working from a history of recognize distinction. religions approach may, like those employed by About half a century after Schleiermacher the comparativist working from within a published Glaubenslehre, "comparative theology of religion(s), encourage the judgment religion," or what came to be known as the of one religion as lacking in relation to another, historical, critical and comparative study of as less "doctrinally developed," for example, or religions of the world, .came into wide public as less symbolically rich. The categories she attention. This coincided, in the l860s and 70s, employs may leave certain forms of religion with the rise of empiricism and the new "science outside the field of comparison altogether. of religion.,,9 Friedrich Max Muller, the The most recent, famous example expatriate German philologist and man of letters, highlighting the potential.blind spots of such an famously introduced the discipline "Science of approach was outlined by Asad in his critique of Religion" on February 19, 1870 in an address to Geertz's definition of religion as a cultural the Royal Institution in London. This "science," system. 12 In a one-two-three combo punch, Asad as opposed to the "science of theology" outlined first criticized Geertz for unwittingly by half a millenium earlier, constructing his definition out of features was to be significantly different from theology. bearing an uncanny likeness to his own cultural­ Notably, Muller did not use the terms religious background (the jab: white "theology" or "comparative theology" anywhere ). Second, he critiqued Geertz for in his address. Rather, his use of the word projecting a distinctly modem, post­ "science" seemed to suggest a study of religion Enlightenment bias regarding the ess"ential that would analyze historical forms of religion nature of religion as something separate, as opposed to theoretic theology, which Tracy distinguishable or able to be teased out from defines as an analysis of the philosophical other aspects of life-such as aesthetics, history, conditions of the possibility for a religion. 10 The science, the quotidian. Third, he revealed some work of David Hume or G.W.F. Hegel would of the historical shifts and discursive processes exemplify the latter type of theology.ll that have contributed to the production of our Alternately, in 1871, on the heels of Muller's concept of religion as a trans-historical essence. address, James Freeman Clarke published Ten Asad explored the processes by which this Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative concept came to seem natural, through the Theology, which concentrated on the history of effects of discipline and power in medieval religious in different traditions. Christianity and Islam. "My argument," Asad A scholar attempting to do comparative wrote, "is that there cannot be a universal theology from within a historical approach - that definition of religion, not only because its is to say, from within a history of religions constituent elements and relationships are approach - may still theorize a systematic meta­ historically specific, but because that definition structure through which she analyzes two or is itself the historical product of discursive more religions. One difference between her and processes.,,13 If this was true, many scholars of a theoretical theologian or a theologian of religion were down for the count. religion(s), however, is that she, the historian, Though perhaps not the full count. may be more inclined to work without making Many scholars mulled, while lying on their her (sometimes latent) religious or a-religious backs: How do I proceed without universal standpoint explicit, or without necessarily defmitions?-and got up again. Bruce Lincoln, revealing the religious underpinnings of her in his Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion supposedly neutral hermeneutical categories- After September 11, commented that while the

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second part of Asad's above statement was changing autonomous subject, but as a result of "wonderfully insightful," the reasons for the the interactions of a cultural-linguistic system absolute prohibition in the fIrst part-that there with changing situations. Religious traditions cannot be a universal defInition of religion­ are transformed when a religious interpretive were not entirely clear. "Is not all language 'the scheme develops anomalies as it is applied in historical product of discursive processes?" new historical or cultural contexts. 16 Lincoln asked. 14 That this is the case "hardly The experiential-expressivist model renders futile all attempts at defmition, forwarded by liberal theologians-called such ... particularly when one understands these as because of its roots in the idea that all religion is provisional attempts to clarify one's thought, not the expression of a shared, underlying to capture the innate essence of things.,,15 In experience-suggests that "the various religions other words, a defInition or a methodology are diverse symbolizations of one and the same based on proposed universals may be useful to core experience of the Ultimate, and that forward a position from a particular therefore they must respect one another, learn standpoint-and then, perhaps, to move on to from one another, and reciprocally enrich one another position. another.,,17 The cultural-linguistic model, on the Despite some of the working benefIts of other hand; 'locuses on particular religions as forthrightly assuming an underlying unity of separate language systems. These systems may religious experience-including the benefIt of perchance be commensurable-their doctrinal providing a common ground for discussion that similarities may happen to overlap in places­ can encourage interreligious dialogue-the but as a whole they are not various expressions

i I analytical disadvantages are, I believe, more of a shared, unifIed core experience. Rather, the I signifIcant. Asserting a unifIed fIeld of religious cultural linguistic model "stresses the degree to experience can actually discourage dialogue and which human experience is shaped, molded, and corrode critical scholarship. Other problems in a sense constituted by cultural and linguistic include the promotion of a subtle (or not-so­ forms.,,18 As a result, adherents of different subtle) theological and/or political imperialism, religions do not diversely thematize the same or the support of an uncritical that experience; they have different experiences.19 obscures real differences. In response to these The advantages of such a model-cultural problems I agree with Fredericks, who pits his particularity, historical specifIcity, analytical own defInition of a proper way to do precision, agreement with recent theories of comparative theology against a liberal theology language-are evidenced by the scholarly of religions, arguing that comparative theology ascendancy the model has enjoyed among must deal responsively and creatively with the historians, anthropologists, sociologists and plurality of religions, as opposed to a philosophers. The disadvantages, however, comprehensive theology of non-Christian remain signifIcant. How can a person who has religions based on an appeal to universal been trained to embody the skills of one religious experience. particular religion via its doctrinal rules ever On the other hand, I want to avoid the truly understand the embodied skills of another? extreme reaction to liberal theology as offered Even if this is possible, the idea that each by the cultural-linguistic position advocated by religion constitutes a world of its own and George Lindbeck and other "postliberal uniquely forms human experience might make theologians." Lindbeck's position, which theologians confronted with the daunting task of explicitly draws on the semiotic anthropology of navigating a new world feel safer turning Clifford Geertz, proposes that religion is a like a inward, into the world of their home religion. language, with its own rules of grammar, that They might turn to ecumenical dialogue-if the forms a perceptual and conceptual framework theologian is Christ~an, say, to dialogue between for shaping subjectivities. The grammar of this Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox religion, Lindbeck argues, is . Doctrines Christians-rather than to inter-religious change, Lindbeck asserts, not as a result of new dialogue or comparison, say, with or experiences that spring ex nihilo out of a Hinduism. While such dialogue and comparison

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might happen ad hoc, and while points of foundation in more than one tradition ... and by intersection between religions may indeed be reflection which builds on that foundation, rather found to exist in these moments, the job of the than simply on themes or by methods. already theologian working under such a model is not articulated prior to the comparative practice.,,22 thought to be one of inter-religious comparison. This third type of theology, Clooney argues, is A cultural-linguistic model generally functions "a theology deeply changed by its attention to "intratextually," that is, within its own the details of multiple religious and theological interpretive framework. Christians, according to traditions; it is a theology that occurs truly only this scheme, end up talking mainly to after comparison. ,,23 themselves.· The same goes for Buddhists or But not entirely after, I would' argue. Hindus, etc. "After," while gesturing in the right direction, While I am drawn to this cultural-linguistic suggests a stopping point for comparison, model for its attention to cultural and doctrinal following which the theological task begins. specificity, I am concerned about the Clooney acknowledges in theory that this is true, implications of its most extreme versions for but that there is "no time limit, no boundary inter-religious dialogue, scholarly understanding marker" necessitated by the word "after:" and comparison. At the same time, the model '" After' also implies consequence, 'in offers a helpful tool to avoid an equally accordance with,'" and may also suggest an on­ dangerous liberal approach that suggests one going q~ality to the work of comparison, unified, universal experience of religion. Clooney writes.24 Perhaps, then, we might One way out of the quandary of trying to acknowledge the existence of "an ever­ understand the religion of the Other is to limit evolving" theology or standpoint in relation to the scope of one's project, slow way down, and notions of , transcendence, and the take serious stock. Scholars may suggest, along metaphysical - a theological standpoint that is with Fredericks, Francis X. Clooney, S.J., and modified and brought into existence only others trained within the Chicago history of through dialogical study. This dialogue occurs religions tradition, that all academic exercises only in relation-not only between real scholars are tentative, and that comparative experiments but also between real people living in real, may lead to particularly "limited, very tentative specific, historical situations. We are now results. ,,20 Instead of offering encompassing beginning to point toward ethnography. theological theories based on claims for or One might infer from Clooney's stress on against a universal religious experience, "the constructive" element of the project that the Fredericks suggests that the comparative difference is one of identity as well as audience: theologian engage in "limited case studies in whereas an historian of religion could see herself which specific elements of the Christian contributing to (and therefore acting tradition are interpreted in comparison with constructively toward) the field of history, the elements of another religious tradition.,,21 He theologian could see herself as standing in the bases this suggestion on the that a fully stream of a particular way of talking about systematized theology of non-Christian religions divinity, or god(s), or ultimate reality-even if is not possible. she herself makes no appeal to the existence of a I am drawn to Fredericks' notion of limited transcendental being beyond this stream of talk. case studies, as well as to another interpretation She may seek to inquire into the ways selves (or, of the term "comparative theology" forwarded in certain cases, no-selves) are created and by Clooney - with a twist. Clooney's approach molded by the words, concepts and practices of could be seen to merge both uses of their home tradition. As she compares this home "comparative theology" noted by Tracy-that world with other cultural-linguistic worlds, or which might be considered part of the history of with various expressions of her own tradition in religions approach, and that which might be various historical and cultural moments, she may called explicitly theological. Clooney calls for inquire into how, if at all, other selves (or no­ "a truly constructive theology ... distinguished selves, for the term "self' is a particularly by its SOU1;ces and ways of proceeding, by its Western one) are molded differently. She may

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see herself as standing in the stream of a thing, while recognizing the constructed, fluid particular religious tradition that she considers nature of cultures and traditions, Clooney home-though she may travel in search of new confines his work to traditions as defined by analytic tools and hermeneutic horizons, with an texts. Second, I want to push the boundaries of awareness that the language of home is fairly simple notions of comparison that rely on sometimes lacking. She may understand herself the idea of traditions as discrete entities rather to be speaking primarily to those who identify than cultural negotiations with syncretic with that home tradition, perhaps to those who characteristics, negotiations that are fluid, feel restless within it, or to those few who pay changing, pelmeable, informed by one another. I attention to the work of scholars of religion­ am less inclined, for example, to compare texts whether those' people are academics or people from two different traditions, A and B, rather trying to make sense of their own and others' than look at how each text is a complicated lives. She may rely heavily upon the tools of construction of, say, Acd or Bqj, or Ab and Ba. (s) or area studies, and may How has A been constructed in part through seek to change a small public's understanding of interaction with B, andlor with readers or home andlor foreign traditions via these tools. devotees of B? What are the implications of She may refrain from making appeals to the such considerations for comparative theology? existence of a transcendent being; she may talk Furthermore, while during the past ten. to more about the humans who engage in god-talk fifteen years, scholars have produced an than in talk about a god or gods. In the end, her increasing number of studies that may be labeled position may be more one of advocacy than one "comparative theology," nearly all the work of neutrality or pretended neutrality-advocacy being done in that area-studies not only by for change in the academy, or for a wider Clooney but also David Burrell, Joseph Bracken, awareness regarding difference and similarity at Jacques Dupuis, Mark Heim and Keith Ward, ,home. for example-falls into the category of It is this, third sort of comparative systematic or philosophical theology. Using only theology-a constructive sort as defined by philosophical or systematic theological methods Clooney, with valences of Tracy's first model for a project in comparative theology presents within the history of religions-that appeals to many problems. First, it fails properly to address me most. This sort of comparative work, I those oral or poetic traditions that deal not in the believe, has the potential to be most creative in written word or in logical argument, but ~ its openness to a variety of traditions, to the speech, song, narrative, metaphorical language possibility of changing not only the lens through andlor (though Clooney has done this). which one looks at those traditions, but also to Second, it fails to consider the role of practice in the possibility of changing the lens through religion, particularly by practitioners who are which one looks back at the home tradition. It unaware of or uninterested in doctrine, or who points, finally, to a form of theological and actively participate in traditions that have no intellectual practice in which the subject explicit doctrine. performing the task of scholarship is explicitly If neither philosophical nor systematic open to change resulting from that study. theology necessarily serves as the best method for comparative theological work, which The "how:" methods subdisciplines or methods do? And still, even if we choose ethnography, how do we avoid the While this third, constructive approach pitfalls of on the one hand, and, on seems to me best in describing the "what" of the other, of getting so caught up in differences comparative theology (particularly if we view it or radical particularizing that we make as building on the approach most indebted to the comparison imposs,ible? history of religions), I would at the same time With regards to the latter problem, Wendy distinguish my methods from the type of Doniger suggests a method constructed from the comparative theology that has been so bottom up-that is, one which "assumes certain productively forwarded by Clooney. For one continuities not about overarching human

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universals but about particular narrative details truly know the referent, the thing-in-itself, in an concerning the body, sexual desire, procreation, unmediated fashion, let alone the thing as named parenting, pain, and death, details which, though and experienced by another. unable to avoid mediation by culture entirely, Still, one can try to understand; one can try are at least less culturally mediated than the to approximate another's meaning. One may broader conceptual categories of the never gain fluency in another language, for universalists.,,25 Working around these bodily example, but one may gain significant ground in points, Doniger continues, the scholar working getting one's (message across, or in from the bottom up will "lean more heavily on understanding what another is trying to tell you. data, informed, even inspired though she may be The more one understands about another person by theory; she begins with a thorough historical and th~ir world-the world they are from, the study and then goes back to make it world they are in the process of constructing, the comparative.,,26 While the scholar will be world they imagine, and the world they imagine limited by the confines of her own linguistic and you to be from-the better one's chances of cultural background, she will try to master the building not solipsisms, but meaningful language(s) of the other and pay attention to her connection, in which one's world of meaning­ sources on their own terms, in all their building is influenced by another's and vice­ complexity, before she pays attention to a versa. Still, the question remains: how best to. particular rubric or meta-narrative for try? interpretation. She will not work from the top The "bottom-up" method that I propose down, as from a "transcendental concept" of happens to coincide with a developing trend religion, nor from some universalist theory of within academic theology called "theologies of religion, but from the ground up: from what the the people"-a growing subdiscipline that can texts andlor people in the field say. The well serve that of comparative theology,· and scholar's own culture and life experiences will vice versa. "Theologies of the people," which influence her interests and motivating idea­ shows the influence of cultural studies, Marxist what Doniger calls the "third side" of the studies and anthropology, has been defmed by triangle, with the other two emanating from the Kathryn Tanner to mean "theologies without two traditions or situations being compared-but much textual or even extended verbal expression that idea will lead her back to the texts, or to the which are simply found, more often than not, field, "where she may find unexpected details fully imbedded in the religious practices and that will in turn modify the idea she is looking lived relations of those who, with reference to for.,,27 intellectual training, social standing, economic Obviously, one cannot simply jump into a attainment or institutional position, cannot be text or the field and receive, as. if through counted among the elites of church and osmosis or , knowledge of data "on its society. ,,28 own terms" or of things "as they are." One will Tanner relies on theories of popular culture always be interpreting. Doniger's approach to "flesh out" conceptually this evolving project. continues to raise questions: Which bottom (or Theories of popular culture, she argues, serve to whose?), and what kind of up? Does one ever elevate the commonly ignored religious beliefs really reach the bottom? The answers to the first and practices of ordinary and marginalized two questions depend, as Doniger herself peoples to a level of equal importance to acknowledges, on the scholar as well as on the Christian theological "classics," while likewise data. If we take "the bottom" to mean the showing that many of the characteristics of experience and world view of practitioners popular theology also hold for theologies operating within a cultural-linguistic rule-game produced by educated and religious elites. that is different from ours, we can never get "Theologies of the people" therefore, when used there, no matter how nuanced our linguistic in conjunction with 'cultural theory, can "bring competence, cultural-historical knowledge, or down" traditional theology to the level of empathic skills. Indeed, contemporary linguistic popular theology, while "raising" popular and literary theory suggests that we can never theology to the level traditional theology has

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thus far enjoyed. Showing all theologies to be "[j]ust as popular cultural production occurs in cultural constructions "levels" the playing field and through a tensive relationship with elite among them. culture, so elite cultural production often exists It does not, however, address the problem of in and through a tensive relation with popular finding the "bottom." The economic bottom, culture.',3o Indeen, elite theology is parasitic, with all that it entails-illiteracy, "living off the host cultures that it finds and does disenfranchisement, etc.-is no closer to the not produce.,,31 And yet, those "host cultures" hermeneutical bottom than the privileged, are in part parasitic of and produced by the elite literate bottom is. The "otherness" of the culture culture-in this case, elite theology. Both elite in both cases remains a barrier.29 However, by and non-elite cultures (though recent'theories of including different economic and cultural cross­ popular culture problematize sharp distinctions sections in a study and analyzing the constructed between the two) produce and are produced in a nature of them all, one can try to complicate tension-filled relation with one another. They ; one can attempt to work against reified exist (as we have likewise seen in our history of assumptions that either "the bottom" or "the top" comparative religion, above) only within this is any closer to something called "The Truth." relation. One can, furthermore, invite new questions for As Tanner has shown, a "theologies of the analysis and include new voices and people" approach works against the notion that perspectives in the mix. Finally, one can try to theological and Christian identity must be kept be clear about (or figure out) one's own separate from accommodation with the standpoint in the process. languages and practices of non-biblical/non­ Philosophy as a tool to this project is less theological realms of experience. She argues relevant than, say, anthropology, cultural studies that there is no way to distinguish something or the human and social sciences in generaL Yet called Christian culture from the non-Christian ethnographic approaches have not been widely by virtue of its content, although biblical or I! ! applied to the comparative theological field­ doctrinal sources may certainly clue one into which is paradoxical, considering the long whether a culture might be called Christian. In tradition of ethnography in the history of this light, conservative, neo-orthodox and post­ religions. One of the reasons for this lack is the liberal theologies that define something called tendency within theology to consider texts, not culture (or Christian discourse) as a fixed people, as authoritative sources for theological impermeable entity make no sense. Tanner reflection. One could trace in this tendency an exposes postmodernism's effects on modem aversion, imbedded within the power structures ideas of culture through its critique of holism: of many traditions, to recognize sources of the notion that cultures are cohesive wholes held "revelation" or authority outside the power together by shared beliefs, symbol Systems, or centers of that tradition-as in the discourses of rituals that have a unidirectional causal force. people on the margins, for example, who may Postmodern thought, with its attention to have controversial things to say about a given fragments, fluidity and the constructed nature of tradition, or who engage in practices that may reality, has critiqued this idea of holism, along not be conside~ed orthodox. with the idea that cultures are closed systems, And yet, to remain viable and relevant-in identical to social groups, or that the activities of fact, to continue to exist at all-theology as a culture are held together by the inner core 32 produced by educated elites has also always beliefs of its members. attempted at least some popular appeaL Such a critique is consistent with the work Theologies of classically trained were of James Clifford, an historian of anthropology directed, from the very beginnings of who understands culture as emergent and Christianity, to a very wide audience. contested. To Clifford, cultures and traditions Theologians today are as aware of the academic are not natural,' coherent wholes, but re­ or even popular market as they are, perhaps, of negotiated ensembles of diversity. These their denominational affiliation. Relying on the ensembles are not given, but made, through a cultural theory of Stuart Hall, Tanner states that process of collective, value-laden negotiation?3

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol21/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1409 8 Bloomer: Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion, and Hindu-Christian Studies: Ethnography as Method

Comparative Theology, Comparative Religion 41

Delwin Brown, in an article about theology and personal and well as professional. ,,34 Such a the "new ethnography," points out the radically radical refashioning could be seen as one of the theological nature of. Clifford's concept of goals of comparative theology. "refashioning" in the way that "the self... called Answering the "how" of comparative into question is not simply a carefully protected theology with disciplinary appeals to cultural professional fayade with its assorted techniques studies and to anthropology opens new and histories, but a person. . . . At least in questions: Which methods of anthropology or Clifford's analysis, what is subject to being torn, ethnography? Which cultures? negotiated, co-created,reconstructed, and The scholar of Hindu-Christian studies faces a refashioned is the fabric of the whole self, plethora of possibilities. immediate experience-Anschaung, "to intuit," "to Notes see," "to glimpse"-as its epistemic foundation. His 1 Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Disciplines position reacted against empiricism in its denial that and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, sense experience was the only reliable form of (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, intuition, its claim of religious apprehension as a sui 1993), especially chapter 1, "The Construction of generis phenomenon. Schleiermacher's formulation Religion as an Anthropological Category," pp. 27-54. of God suggests a new understanding of revelation as The essay was first published ten years earlier, in "privileged experience" through the finite; this 1983, in Man, but was circulated more widely and opened the field of possible revelation beyond the received much more attention when published with confines of the Christian tradition. At the same time, Genealogies and its comprised chapters. it is important to note that the idea of the infinite 2 Asad, Genealogies, 1993. expressing itself in the finite in circumscribed ways is 3 David Tracy, "Theology: Comparative Theology," not just a product of Schleiermacher's, but also a in .Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 vols. (New York: product of European Romanticism and, as such, a Macmillan, 1987) 14: 448. response to Enlightenment empiricism. 4 Tracy, 448. From a historical point of view, it is 10 David Tracy, "Theology: Comparative Theology," interesting to note that the entire "Theology" entry in in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, 16 this Encyclopedia of Religion volume, edited by vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1987),446. Mircea Eliade; consists of two articles accompanied 11 Tracy, Personal communication, April 2003. by an editor's note. The first, by Tracy and entitled 12 Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System," "Comparative Theology," is headlined as "a The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic discussion of the humanistic dialogue in the academic Books, 1973), p. 90. setting that seeks to ,relate divergent views of faith 13 Asad, 29. and the nature of religion." The second article, 14 Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking About "Christian Theology," is meant to be "a treatment of Religion After September 11 (Chicago: The the nature and in the Christian University of Chicago Press, 2003), 2. tradition." 15 Lincoln, 2. 5 Keith Ward, "Comparative Theology: The Heritage 16 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: of Schleiermacher," from Theological Liberalism: Religion and Theology in. a Postliberal Age Creative and Critical, London: SPCK 2000,60-74. (philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984),39. 6 James Fredericks, "A Universal Religious 17 Lindbeck, 23. Experience? Comparative Theology as an Alternative 18 Lindbeck, 34. to a ," Horizons 22, no. 1 19 Lindbeck, 40. (1995): 67-87. 20 Fredericks, 82. 7 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, On Religion: Speeches to 21 Fredericks, 83. Its Cultured Despisers, trans. Richard Crouter 22 Francis X. Clooney, "Current Theology­ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Comparative Theology: A Review of Recent Books," 8 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, On the Glaubenslehre, Theological Studies, 56 (1995) 521-522. trans. James Duke and Francis Fiorenza (Atlanta: 23 Clooney, "Current Theology," 522. _Scholars Press, 1981). 2~ Clooney, email correspondence, Jan. 15,2008. . 9 Schleiermacher's writing itself was both suggested 2, Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics and by and a reaction against the period's dominant Theology in Myth (New York: Columbia University scientific, empirical methods. Schleiermacher's Press, 1998),59. position was suggested by empiricism because it took 26 Doniger, 60. .

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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 21 [2008], Art. 10

42 Kristin Bloomer

27 Doniger, 60. 28 Kathryn Tanner, "Theology and Popular Culture," Changing Conversations: Religious Reflection and Cultural Analysis, ed. Dwight Hopkins, Sheila Greeve Davaney, (N ew York: Routledge, 1996), 103. 29 Wendy Doniger, email correspondence, April 2003. 30 Tanner, Ill. 31 Tanner, Ill; and Bob Dylan: ''Name me someone that's not a parasite, and I'll go out and say a for him." ("Visions of Johanna," Blonde on Blonde, 1966.) 32 Mary McClintock Fulkerson, "We Don't See Color Here: A Case Study in Ecclesial-Cultural Invention," in Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis. and Criticism, ed. Delwin Brown, Shiela Greeve Davaney, Kathryn Tanner, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 140- 157. 33 James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 10, 274. 34 Delwin Brown, "Refashioning Self and Other: Theology, Academy and the New Ethnography," in Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis and Criticism, ed. Delwin Brown, Shiela Greeve Davaney, Kathryn Tanner, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),12.

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol21/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1409 10