New Journal

We are delighted to be able to announce that the first edition of our journal ‘Ecclesial Practices’ will be published in the autumn by Brill and will be available at the AAR.  More to follow…

UK 2013 Conference Announced

James K. A. Smith on Volume 1

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012

Ecclesiology and Ethnography: A Response

At the recent meeting of the American Academy of Religion I had the pleasure of participating in a session on ecclesiology and ethnography, engaging some of the contributors to an excellent new book edited by Pete Ward: Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography (Eerdmans, 2012).  This has since been complemented by a subsequent volumed edited by Christian Scharen: Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography (Eerdmans, 2012) in which (full disclosure) my friend Mark Mulder and I have a co-authored chapter, “Understanding Religion Takes Practice: Anti-Urban Bias, Geographical Habits, and Theological Influences.”

The AAR session included presentations from John Swinton, Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Luke Bretherton, and Elizabeth Phillips, all drawing on their chapters in the book.  Here I reproduce the notes of my response as a way of highlighting this new interdisciplinary conversation and, I hope, as a way of extending and expanding it.

+++++

Ecclesiology and Ethnography: A Response

John Swinton’s wonderful chapter in this book names a question I’ve heard often.  When, in different contexts, I used to explicate the social imaginary implicit in Pentecostal worship and spiritual practice, inevitably someone from the audience would ask: “Just where can I find a Pentecostal church like you describe?”  After several occasions with no reply, I finally came up with a stock answer: “It’s in Amos Yong’s head!”  Then I would do some hand-waving about my description being “aspirational” and try to move on.  (This will give you some idea of just why I had to leave the Assemblies of God.)

            It wasn’t until I read Chris Scharen’s SJT article on “ecclesiology asethnography”that I was able to articulate just what was wrong here and began to turn the corner in my thinking about ecclesiology.  So I am profoundly grateful for this volume that is the occasion for our discussion today because I think, like our presenters, it does a fantastic job of articulating a big-tent approach to this emerging conversation between ecclesiology and ethnography.

            And I should admit that I came to the book with some skepticism.  To be perfectly honest, I was expecting a lot more Paul Tillich and Don Browning, if you know what I mean.  That is, I was expecting a “correlational” approach that would offer “neutral” checks and balances to the “biased” claims of theology, with the social sciences “explaining” what worshipers were doing in “objective” categories.  But as you’ve just heard, the conversation is much more nuanced than that.  Given the impossibility of actually “responding” to our panelists in this time, permit me to just extend this conversation by engaging a few themes that have emerged.

1. Ethnography and liturgical priority

I loved Mary McClintock Fulkerson’s critique of “didacticism” and the “inadequacy of propositional theology” for making sense of the complexity of lived religion in congregations (126-127).  I also think she’s absolutely right that the core intuitions of the ecclesiology-and-ethnography project should upset the usual hierarchies of the theological curriculum.  Far from being an “application” appendix, “practical” theology should be the centering discipline, with  biblical studies and systematics as the “grammars” of our worship.

            In this respect, I think we could pursue a more robust account of Christian worship as a kind of irreducible know-how that precedes—and even, to some extent, eludes—our know-whats.  You can run this account either through Wittgenstein or Charles Taylor or Robert Brandom or Pierre Bourdieu—I won’t do so in my brief time here.  Maybe I could suggest a metaphor, however: in poetry criticism, Cleanth Brooks introduced something of a principle: “the heresy of paraphrase.”  The point is that what a poem means in ineluctably bound up with its form which carries a meaning that is irreducible and thus cannot be paraphrased in any other propositional form.  It seems to me that the know-how of Christian worship—and congregational practices more broadly—resist paraphrase.  This puts practical theology, and even the ecclesiology-and-ethnography project, in a region of temptation: the temptation to paraphrase.  And now we’re on exactly the terrain of Bourdieu’s The Logic of Practice.  (I unpack this problem in more detail in James K.A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works [Baker Academic, 2013], ch. 2.)  Fortunately, I think the priming intuitions of your project already sense this tension.  But we also need to remember that ethnography is still propositional, constituted by the epistemological “break” that Bourdieu emphasizes is a social break.

2. When and how do functional theologies trump “official” theologies?  Or: when and how doperformed theologies trump articulated theologies?

At the end of her very helpful essay—which is part lit review, part case study—Elizabeth Phillips concludes “that the deeply problematic eschatology of Christian Zionism so alters their Christology and ecclesiology as to disconnect them from the Christological and ecclesiological resources that are necessary for well-formed Christian social ethics” (104).   This left me with some nagging questions, not because I think she’s wrong, but precisely because I think she’s right:

•     At what point do the functional theologies of a congregation—which can only be detected with an ethnographic radar, so to speak—trump whatever “official” theologies that might define them as Christian?
• ·      In other words, could ethnographic description ever enable us to theologicallyevaluate congregations vis-à-vis ecclesiological and liturgical norms?
• ·      Or, to put it even more strongly: to what extent are we willing discuss the parameters for a Catholic theological anthropology, and thus consider norms for practice that exceed particular congregations?  Who could do that?  From where?
• ·      Perhaps this is all just a way of asking: Can ecclesiological ethnography names idolatries and heresies?

3. Let’s invite the sociologists

Notice who is not here: sociologists of religion. Phillips is right that anthropologists have been much more open to this conversation.  (See, just for one example, the Fall 2010 volume of the South Atlantic Quarterly for a conversation between anthropologists and theologians.)  But then anthropologists, at least after Geertz, have been on the “soft” (or hermeneutic) side of the social sciences and long had a deep-sense of the value-laden nature of observation.  Sociologists—while not as bad as psychologists—still tend to aspire to “scientificity” in ways that get bound up with myths of objectivity.

Yet, more and more, sociologists are taken to be the authoritative voices that distill for us the essence of the church.  And most of that is based on research conducted by quantheads who lack the sort of theological nuance that our panelists have articulated.  Instead, they reduce the church to an organization like others, offering “religious” goods and services, but therefore almost entirely understandable within paradigms for understanding other organizations, including rational choice theory and economic modes of analysis (see: Rodney Stark and his ilk).  With those assumptions, ecclesiology is pretty much irrelevant.  (And it gets really scary when theologians start looking for ‘scientific’ cachet by hitching their wagon to such social science approaches.  Cue your favorite John Milbank quote here.)

            What I find refreshing and promising about this conversation is its refusal of such reductionism, without floating off into aspirational idealism.  As Bretherton summarizes it,

The broader point to draw for the relationship between ethnography, ecclesiology, and political theory is that the church cannot be read as simply a microcosm of broader political processes and structural forces: it has its own integrity.  Yet neither can an analysis of the church be separated from how it is in a relationship of codetermination (and at times co-construction) with its political environment (161).

That seems just right to me: an anti-reductionism vis-à-vis sociology; an anti-gnosticism vis-à-vis theology.  But you might be surprised how little this would be understanding at SSSR.  I would encourage you to consider inviting Christian sociologists of religion into the “ecclesiology & ethnography” conversation, perhaps even trying to host a session at SSSR, in order to cross-fertilize these conversations.  We might thereby expand the disciplinary conversations, building a collective of scholars who undertake ethnography, as John Swinton suggests, for Jesus, and for his body.

http://forsclavigera.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ecclesiology-and-ethnography-response.html

New Volume Announced

Studies in Ecclesiology and Ethnography

Series editors: Pete Ward, Christian Scharen, Paul Fiddes, John Swinton, James Nieman

Announcing the next volume in the series:

Volume 3: Todd David Whitmore, Gospel Mimesis: An Anthropological Theology

Gospel Mimesis draws upon Whitmore’s seventeen months of fieldwork in conflict and post- conflict northern Uganda and South Sudan. Whitmore’s fieldwork, which took place beginning in 2005, included living in Internally Displaced Persons camps in northern Uganda. The argument of Gospel Mimesis runs on two levels, one methodological and the other substantive. The methodological argument is that Christian theology must be mimetic – that is, be an instantiation of the imitation of Christ and, in the process, instigate the reader to take up such imitation – if such theology is to make good on the claim of being Christian. Whitmore make the case that the thick descriptions that ethnography offers facilitate the doing of precisely this kind of theology. Substantively, he draws upon this fieldwork to show how the cosmology of the Acholi people and their neighbors in northern Uganda and South Sudan – a cosmology that has striking similarities with that of Jesus of Nazareth – provides them with a culturally-grounded advantage over the modern West in interpreting and thus imitating Jesus Christ and his mission.

US Conference 2013 Announced

 

The Church in the Digital: Studying Church in New Media Culture

Symposium on Ecclesiology and Ethnography

13-14 May 2013

Luther Seminary

Saint Paul, MN

Over the past two decades we have seen the rise of much experimentation of using the Internet to facilitate different expressions of church life and ministry online, from cyberchurches to e-vangelism. Digital technologies are also increasingly being incorporated into worship environments, which have important theological implications for church liturgy, Christian community and identity.  The Church in the Digital symposium seeks papers exploring the intersection between church practice and digital cultures that also offer theological reflection on these developments and trends. This symposium is part of the Ecclesiology and Ethnography network, which seeks to draw together scholars working with theologically orientated approaches to qualitative research on the Christian Church.Potential topics include…

-       Best Practices for studying liturgy in Online Churches

-       Forms of Technology integration in Worship Environments and their theological implications

-       Motivations and impact of Social media strategies for ministry

-       How technology shapes or reflects missional outlooks in Multi-Site Churches

-       Ethical and theological responses to Digital Culture

-       The role of digital media literacy in religious education

-       Other topics will be considered

We encourage single and multi-authored papers that incorporate ethnographic methodologies and approaches to provide concrete reflection on the theological issues and challenges posed by the integration of digital technologies in church practice. Papers on other topics related to theological studies of ecclesial practices will be considered. Papers are to be circulate prior to the event to enhance conference conversations and interaction over work presented.

Established and emerging scholars as well as pastor/scholars working in church settings are welcome to propose papers. Proposals due: February 1.  Abstract and title (no more than 500 words), along with contact information should be sent to Prof. Christian Scharen (cscharen001@luthersem.edu). Note: Our limited budget allows us to offer to cover conference food and lodging for those presenting papers; travel and other expenses must be sourced from home institutions or other sources.

 

Not so far away…

Durham Conference Timetable

PROGRAMME

Ordinary Ecclesiology

St John’s College, University of Durham 

11th – 13nd September 2012

Funded by the North of England Institute for Christian Education

Tuesday 11th September

10.30am             Arrivals- Tea and Coffee

11.00am            Session 1

Anne Christie: Responding to Ordinary Christology: Issues and Challenges

Mark Cartledge: Worship in the Spirit Panel

1.00am Lunch

2.00pm            Session 2

Eileen Campbell-Reed: From Imagining Ministry to Pastoral Imagination:

An Ethnographic Study of New Pastors

Mathew Guest: Christianity among students outside of the associational realm

4.00pm            Tea

4.30pm            Session 3

Joanne Cox: Challenging Leadership: Mission-shaped presbyters in Methodist Fresh Expressions

James Harding: An Examination of the Effectiveness of Two Models of Church Planting

Andrew Rogers: Congregational Hermeneutics: Towards Virtuous Apprenticeship

6.30pm            Evening Meal

Wednesday 12st September

7.30 Breakfast

9.00am            Session 4

Tom Beaudoin and Paterick Hornbeck: Roman Catholic Deconversion as Ordinary Ecclesiology?

Roger Walton: The small group as a vehicle for discipleship formation: a study in the NE of England?

11.00            am            Coffee

11.30            am     Session 5

Tone Stangeland Kaufman: A Spirituality of Everyday Life: An Untapped Spiritual Source for Clergy

Matthew Barton: What happens when a Church marginalises heretics.

1.00pm            Lunch

2.00pm            Session 6

Clare Radford: Fragile church, fragile theology: ordinary ecclesiology from areas of urban deprivation in Scotland

Alison Fenton Michael was baptised in a winceyette nightdress’.

4.00pm            Tea

4.30pm Session 7

Bard Norheim and Knut Tveitereid : Young people’s theological negotiation in shaping and using places of worship

Gudrun Lydholm: The Salvation Army’s mission focused ecclesiology in a Lutheran State church setting (Norway)

6.30pm            Evening Meal

Thursday 13nd September

7.30am Breakfast

9.00am            Session 8

Jeff Astley: Some ordinary theological reflections

Michael Armstrong: Extra-ordinary eschatology

11.00            am            Coffee

11.30 .am  Session 9

Pete Philips: Christian Voices survey on internet usage

Grant Barclay: Learning from one another in church

1.00pm            Lunch

Participants

Roger Walton, University of Durham

Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University, USA

Prof. Patrick Hornbeck, Fordham University USA

Joss Bryan, Wesley Study Centre, St John’s College, Durham

Pete Ward, King’s College London

Jeff Astley, University of Durham

Alison Fenton, University of Durham

Michael Armstrong, University of Durham

Andrew Rogers, Roehampton University

Matthew Barton, University of Leeds

Mark Cartledge, University of Birmingham

Timothy Weatherspoon, University of Roehampton

Grant Barclay, Church of Scotland

Simon Hill, King’s College London

Gudrun Lydholm, Oslo University

Ann Christie, York St John

The Rev. Tone Stangeland Kaufman, Norwegian School of Theology

Paul Fiddes, University of Oxford

Bard Norheim, NLA University College Bergen, Norway

Knut Tveitereid, NLA University College Bergen, Norway

Eileen Campbell-Reed, Luther Seminary, St Paul

Clare Radford, Church of Scotland

Pete Philips, Codec, St John’s College Durham

Matthew Guest, University of Durham

Dr James Harding University of Liverpool

Mark Rodel, St John’s Nottingham

John Swinton, University of Aberdeen

Graham Stacey, King’s College, London

Christine Dutton, Mary Witts University of Roehamption

Julian Gotobed, University of Roehamption

Helen Cameron, Oxcept, Ripon College Cuddesdon

Tim Snyder, Boston University

Jacobine Gelderloos-Commandeur, Protestant Theological University, Netherlands

Joanne Cox, University of Durham