Anthropology and Theology

242 Pages·2007·2.18 MB·English

Anthropology and Theology
Douglas J. Davies
Oxford•New York
First published in 2002 by
Berg
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© Douglas J. Davies 2002
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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1859735320(Cloth)
ISBN 1859735371(Paper)
Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s Lynn.
Contents
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Embodiment and Incarnation 19
3 Merit-making and Salvation 53
4 Sacrifice, Body and Spirit 81
5 Ritual and Experience 111
6 From Meaning to Salvation 145
7 Symbolism and Sacrament 173
8 Gift and Charismata 195
Bibliography 211
Index 229
–v–
Preface
The roots of this book lie in a class text first produced in 1986 to answer
the needs of mature students working on the East Midlands Ministry
Training Course, many of whom became clergy. I was then at the
Department of Theology at the University of Nottingham, largely teaching
the social anthropology of religion. During my twenty or so years there I
also served as an honorary assistant priest in a variety of urban and rural
Anglican parishes. When I first began university teaching in 1974 there
was very little material available seeking to relate anthropology and
theology, and it became part of my intellectual goal to address that
overlapping territory. As the bibliography indicates, this resulted in a series
of empirical studies on a variety of topics including Anglican church life,
belief and priesthood, as well as on death and funerary rites in Britain
and elsewhere. I also wrote a major study of Mormonism, employing
many of the concepts expounded in this book, whose non-systematic and
non-comprehensive intention is to stimulate thought and foster a way of
thinking rather than inform on detail. This is more a ‘notes and queries’
than an ‘introduction to anthropology and theology’ type of book. Much
has been omitted that some might think vital, such as myth, doctrine and
truth, or gender and belief; but, in the space available, I have tried to deal
with some basic questions left largely untouched by others.
My own initial training in anthropology at Durham University was
followed by research at the Institute of Social Anthropology at Oxford,
where I completed my first period of research on Mormonism under the
supervision of Dr Bryan Wilson. I then trained for the Anglican Ministry
at Durham, where, fortunately, a background in anthropology was
appreciated and encouraged, most especially by John Rogerson, who
taught me Old Testament, and was himself doing much to relate theology
and anthropology in biblical studies. I thank him for his continued support
and friendship over many years. As good fortune had it, this was followed
by a long period at Nottingham University, where my research interests
extended to Sikhism with Eleanor Nesbitt as a postgraduate researcher,
to death rites in Britain with Alastair Shaw as my research assistant, and
to aspects of church organization and popular belief and practice through
–vii–
Preface
the Rural Church Project. The other two directors of this research, largely
on Anglicanism, were Charles Watkins and Michael Winter as geographer
and sociologist respectively. Seldom could any major venture have been
conducted with greater vigour, comradeship and delight, and I thank them
for that, as I do our excellent research assistants Caroline Pack, Susanne
Seymour and Christopher Short. The Leverhulme Foundation funded that
work. Life and work at Nottingham were much enhanced by Professor
John Heywood Thomas, with whom I taught Philosophy and Phenomen-
ology of Religion, and whose continuing friendship, with that of Mair
Heywood Thomas, I can but simply mention.
Within Durham’s Department of Theology, I thank my present col-
leagues for their cordiality and commitment to scholarship, as well as
several Durham Heads of Houses for their collegial hospitality. Most
especially I thank my undergraduate and postgraduate students for their
vivacity, enjoyment of life and critical attitude to what one says, especially
Mr Ed Dutton, who provided detailed student criticism of this typescript.
I must also thank Professor David Martin, both for his crucial comments
on an earlier and very much longer version of this text, and for his
friendship over the years. Finally I thank Kathryn Earle at Berg, whose
initial query and subsequent support prompted this particular volume.
Douglas J. Davies
University of Durham
–viii–
Introduction
–1–
Introduction
This book fosters a conversation between the two intellectual worlds of
theology and anthropology by exploring related, often paired, concepts
that have usually been pursued separately within those disciplines, as in
the cases of incarnation and embodiment, salvation and merit-making,
and symbolism and sacrament. Three theoretical themes of anthropology,
viz., gift-theory, ethical vitality and rebounding violence, are introduced
and developed in a theological direction, and three further ideas, concern-
ing rebounding-vitality, transcending-plausibility and the moral–somatic
relationship, mark my own contribution to the debate. This book is neither
a brief history of the anthropology of religion (cf. Bowie 2000) nor a
dedicated theological search for models to illuminate sacred texts (like,
for example Theissen 1982; Overholt 1996; and Chalcraft 1997). Nor
yet does it seek to be what Morton Klass in his introduction to Salamone
and Adams’s Explorations in Anthropology and Theology calls the
‘anthropology of theology’, an idea that seems too forced at this stage of
scholarship (1997:1). More simplistically, it is a development of topics
from my own engagement in theology and social anthropology, with roots
in an earlier class text (Davies 1986).
Life-studies
Theology is a formal reflection, description and account of religious
experience, while anthropology presents theoretical interpretations of
the life experience of particular societies in general. As ‘life-studies’,
experience lies at the heart of each; but their fundamental distinction
concerns the existence of God. Theology tends to assume that God exists,
underlies religious experience, and is the basis for considered reflection,
while anthropology tends to assume God does not exist and simply studies
the reported experiences of people. I use the phrase ‘tends to’ because
some theologians speak as though no deity exists, while a few anthro-
pologists claim religious faith. Still, generally speaking, Christian theology
could not function without belief in God, while anthropology operates
perfectly naturally without it.
–1–
Introduction
As far as mutual interest is concerned, theology has utilized anthropology
more frequently than anthropology has taken any interest in theology.
Indeed anthropology has shown a high degree of inhospitality to theology,
so that Klass could speak of the ‘great divide’ between them (Salamone
and Adams 1997:39). Studies seeking to relate anthropology and theology
are rare indeed (but cf. Salamone and Adams 1997). Mission-minded
Christian groups have drawn upon anthropological approaches to cultural
interpretation, not least to aid in bible translation; and increasing numbers
of biblical scholars have utilized social scientific ideas in biblical
interpretation and in seeking to comprehend the emergence of Christianity
as a sect of Judaism (e.g. Atkins 1991; Overholt 1996; Chalcraft 1997).
Lévi-Strauss’s original anthropological interpretation of biblical myth did
much to initiate this theological response (Rogerson 1974, 1978; Malbon
1984; Jobling 1984). Systematic theologians, by contrast, are reluctant
to admit anthropological notions into their studies, and have tended to
have philosophy as their dialogue-partner.
One long-standing critique of Christianity, rooted in the nineteenth-
century philosophy of Feuerbach, sociology of Durkheim and psychology
of Freud, argued that, while theology reckons to be about God, it is,
actually, only about humanity. Many others have accepted that appearance
and reality are quite distinct, suggesting that since it is too difficult for
humans to think directly about themselves they use supernatural images
for indirect self-reflection. This image–reality distinction is a recurrent
motif in the history of thought. Plato could speak of ideal forms as distinct
from their pale reflection in actual phenomena, much as Max Weber
would, millennia later, speak of ideal types. Freud would distinguish
between unconscious and conscious mental activities, while numerous
Eastern traditions distinguish between appearance and reality. Modern
science, too, speaks in its own way of microcosmic and macrocosmic
realms lying beyond the perceptions of everyday life.
Most theologians define theology as a reflection on the divine as self-
disclosed, as a revelation of himself – and, in the mass of theological
writing until very recently, it was very much a revelation of ‘himself’.
The active and self-revealing God is a powerful creator making the world
before, providentially, ruling a kingdom whose bounds are endless. This
increasingly gendered perspective has become influential as a basis of
interpreting theology as masculinely motivated; but I will not pursue it
further, on the assumption that to impose any gender on God is a conse-
quence of anthropomorphism in particular cultures and their linguistic
forms. To define God as masculine is, initially, unfortunate; but then to
insist on a feminine grammar of discourse only compounds the primal
error.
–2–
Introduction
Method
This unsystematic book, conceived as a conversation between theology
and social anthropology, reflects Paul Ricoeur’s apt description of
situations where ‘understanding and explanation tend to overlap and
pass over into each other’ (1976:72). There is no priority of speaker, and
theology is not assumed to be queen of the sciences, using elements of
anthropology in a servile fashion, any more than anthropology is taken
to be the foundational source of truthfulness concerning humanity. Each
is regarded as one way of considering life and experience, in the hope
that the outcome will conduce to more than the sum of the parts.
This theological–anthropological conversation is far from easy, given
our taken-for-granted assumptions, shared by family, friends and society,
which confer a degree of certainty upon the way things are. Our very
identity is rooted in this classification of the world and, if we hold to a
religion, its commandments and ethical principles underpin our very sense
of self. Theology develops from such religious and cultural roots, adopting
a position of authority reinforced by historical culture, church-state,
church-university, or social class contexts. Anthropology can disturb this
state of affairs, especially through its comparative method and the
theoretical analyses it brings to bear upon differing beliefs and practices.
Comparative Method
Because the comparative method assumes that the religious processes
and practices of many cultures are comparable it tends to remove the
sense of uniqueness of each, and fosters the notion of cultural relativity.
For some this makes the venture what I will call ‘difficult to think’,
a phrase needing some explanation. In everyday life we do not find it
‘difficult to think’. We know how to approach issues, balance arguments
and judge between ideas because our criteria of judgement have become
second nature to us. If, however, we scrutinize those very criteria and
ask after their validity we encounter the experience of something being
‘difficult to think’ – a kind of philosophical distress emerges when we
try to examine the very classification of reality by means of which we
normally think.
This reflexive thought is intrinsically difficult because it involves trying
to think about thinking, and involves an encounter with inaccessibility.
In practice we need some degree of distance from ourselves in order to
think about ourselves, and it is just such a process that underlies ideas of
projection as explored by sociologists of knowledge such as Alfred Schutz
–3–
Introduction
(Schutz and Luckmann 1973) and Peter Berger (1969), as well as earlier
philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach (1957 [1841]). In a similar vein
the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss discussed totemic objects as
objects that were ‘good to think’, enabling groups to ponder their own
human condition, albeit indirectly, through reflection upon mythical
entities (1962). Through the emergence of historical, cultural and scientific
forms of critical scholarship such forms of self-knowledge have become
available, even if not always desired.
Belief and Methodology
One basic aspect of theological method concerns belief and the method
of confessional theology, which starts from the assumption that God exists
and, through a divine disclosure, has revealed truth to some privileged
individual or group, making one formulation of belief and practice more
authentic than others. How are such confessional approaches related to
what is often, loosely, called ‘academic theology’ within university
contexts? Each confessional theology possesses its own method: Catholic
Theology is often grounded in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, with
subsequent generations producing their own commentaries and develop-
ments, all under a degree of control from Rome. Similarly, Protestant
Theology is grounded in the bible and in distinctive interpretations of it,
with certain key theologians commanding authoritative status. In many
countries, but not England, universities possess Catholic Faculties and
Protestant Faculties fostering these distinctions. In 1879, for example,
Pope Leo XIII made the study of Thomas Aquinas a necessary part of
education for Catholic priests and, in Protestant Churches, the writings
of Luther and Calvin have been similarly authoritative, as have later
interpreters. One brief account of denominational theology in relation
to academic theology is furnished by the Uppsala theologian Mattias
Martinson, whose criticism of confessional theology in the Swedish
Lutheran context affirms the possibility of theology as the practice of
‘a broad form of human self-critique’, but only when theology is the
paradoxical means of hope and of knowing its ‘own immense incomp-
etence’ in so doing (2000:361). His subtle argument on philosophy and
theology’s relationship is reflected, much less sophisticatedly, in this
present book’s attempted conversation between some anthropological and
theological ideas.
While anthropological traditions lack formal confessionalism and
possess no ‘church’ of anthropology, there exist various schools of
interpretation and practice that can result in relative isolation as, for
–4–