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What Has Anthropology to Do With Theology?
By Mark Kline Taylor

The answer to this question may seem readily apparent. Christian theologians have always been interested in a vision of human existence, beginning with the Bible and then St. Augustine's classical portrait of created and fallen humanity, extending to St. Thomas Aquinas' treatises on the "nature of man," through the plethora of "theological anthropologies" and "doctrines of man," into the current period's necessary quest for liberative and post-sexist doctrine. Anthropology has long been a prominent feature of theological reflection.

I

When we consider cultural anthropology as the social science discipline it has become since the Enlightenment, then it has not always been apparent how it and theology are compatible enterprises. With too few exceptions, antipathy and suspicion have reigned between the two fields.

Theologians, long prone to develop their anthropologies only from scriptural propositions and Greco-Roman philosophical categories, may resist exposure of their generalizations about human existence to the light of perspectives gained from anthropologists' studies of diverse cultures. They may resist, in part, because anthropology's cross-cultural perspective threatens to reduce their beliefs and doctrines to the same level as that of other religions and societies. Christian theological "anthropology" may seem but one more example of humans' widespread interest in themselves and in the gods. The threat of such a "cultural relativism" is enough in some quarters to revive hostilities toward anthropology like those occasionally directed at theories of evolution. Religious and theological dictionary articles on anthropology still periodically comment on frequently held suspicions among Christians that anthropology is an enterprise best avoided or rejected outright.

On the other side, cultural anthropologists may view theology as often the guardian of provincial folk anthropology. Anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell wrote that such folk anthropology, together with the theologies that historically have reinforced it, needed undermining so that cultural anthropology could attain to its more "scientific" study of humankind. Early ethnology, in fact, nurtured a certain delight in presenting the oddities of "primitive" customs in a way that discredited

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Western theologians' ethnocentric views of human life and belief. British ethnologist Edward Burnett Taylor wrote to a colleague, "Theologians all to expose, 'tis the mission of primitive man." In this second half of the twentieth century, anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard could still characterize the attitude of his colleagues toward Western religion and theology as "bleakly hostile." These anthropological suspicions may compound theological ones and so discourage genuine conversation between contemporary Christian theology and cultural anthropology.

II

When real conversation develops between the two fields, what would this mean for theology? Theological "anthropology" has always been a broad, changing-some would say untidy-realm in Christianity's doctrinal tradition. This is not only because theologians variously interpret the biblical and confessional statements concerning the nature of human life, but also because here their doctrinal formulations are open to influences from the whole family of disciplines, including philosophy, but also the natural and human sciences. When and if theological anthropology joins with cross-cultural fields of inquiry like cultural anthropology, then we may expect this doctrinal theme to be confronted with some hard issues and questions. We may note here just a few of the major ones.

First, cultural anthropology reminds theologians how culturally conditioned are all their formulations. Theological construction, we know, is complex enough as the task of interpreting the Scriptures in light of doctrinal tradition and out own contemporary situation. This complexity is compounded when we learn from perspectives like cultural anthropology that interpretations of the Bible and of our tradition are always also affected by the cultural ways in which we theologians are steeped. Our theological statements about the nature and destiny of the human, especially, may be revealed by anthropology as laden with a cultural amalgam of social, political, sexual, and economic interests. Theology has long wrestled with the challenges posed by "historical consciousness." Anthropology challenges theologians to wrestle also with the problems of "cultural consciousness," and in this way reinforces some of the criticisms that have already been forthcoming from the liberation and political theologians or from other theologies that take seriously the culturally mediated and finite character of every theology.

Second, cultural anthropology makes difficult all language in the singular. A "doctrine of man" is now questionable not only because it is sexist, but because it is monolithic and singular. Cultural anthropology offers to theology the challenge to think in the plural. What would it mean for the theologian to view humankind as does anthropologist Geertz when he says that "it may be in the cultural particularities of people-in their odditites--that some of the most instructive revelations

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of what it is to be generically human are to be found… "? One of anthropology's main contributions is to challenge theologians to do their thinking about humankind in the light of God, but with a healthy sense of the rich variety of cultural behavior and belief.

Finally, the way anthropologists themselves study and talk about other peoples can be subject-matter for theologians, just as much as can the various cultures they present to us. Anthropologists not only tell us about other people's cultures, religions, theologies, and anthropologies. They also often display a fascinating culture of their own. The "tribe" of anthropologists may at times display their own cross-culturally formulated vision of human nature and destiny. They, too, might possess a religious dimension, often only tacitly present, or suggest a "theology" that meets some needs of their tribe.

Numerous questions for reflection can be found here. For example, once anthropologists rightly direct us to see the culturally bound character of, say, morality and ethics, how do they themselves proceed to generate and warrant the ethical postures they frequently advocate? What place do their own religious commitments, if present, have in relation to their cross-cultural work? To draw an example from one anthropologist's discourse, what precisely is going on when French structural anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, interprets the existence of the anthropologist as "an act of redemption" or "the symbol of atonement"? How is that language functioning for the anthropologist? Theologians may study cultural anthropologists' own culture and system of symbols, as well as the many other cultures that anthropologists so helpfully depict.

III

This issue of THEOLOGY TODAY presupposes, despite a history of some mutual suspicion, that the engagement between theology and cultural anthropology can be a productive one for both parties. Some scholars in biblical studies have begun to draw insights from cultural anthropology as they seek to understand the sociocultural worlds of biblical texts. Contemporary theologians, such as Schubert Ogden, David Tracy, and George Lindbeck, are examples of a few who draw from the field of cultural anthropology, particularly from the understanding of religion offered by Clifford Geertz, one of today's more influential cultural anthropologists Scholars in religious studies departments in colleges and universities increasingly invoke the name of Geertz, but also that of Victor Turner, Mary Douglas, Claude Lévi-Strauss, or sometimes Marshall Sahlins.

The articles and features that follow come at the relationship between theology and comparative inquiry in different ways. Jonathan Lieberson's interpretation of Geertz provides a fresh introduction to this thinker and to his field. Charles Kraft offers a cultural anthropologist's view of Christian theologians, and then suggests particular points in theology at which anthropology has something to say. Mary Douglas

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and Edmund Perry discuss anthropological approaches to the comparative study of religion, and assess how one theologian, Anders Nygren, measures up from their perspective. Jacob Neusner's response to Douglas and Perry is also a critique of the general value of anthropology for the study of religion. J. Randall Nichols draws insights from Victor Turner's anthropology to provide new perspectives on Christian worship. Robert C. Williams, drawing from comparative studies of ritual in Black religion, argues that theology needs to take up its responsibility to relate God to ritual practice, and that anthropology may do well to consider its interpretations of ritual in relation to "the reality of God."

Our issue also features contributions from others who bring theological and religious studies into relation with cross-cultural inquiry. By means of this January edition, we hope to make one more contribution to an interchange, between theology and cultural anthropology which all too frequently has been neglected.

Mark Kline Taylor

A Word from the Editor

This January 1985 issue initiates a new program for THEOLOGY TODAY. Under special guest editorial supervision, the next several issues will focus on themes relating theology to the social sciences, worship and liturgy, the church and education, and biblical studies.

This present issue explores several aspects of the relation of theology to anthropology. The editor, Mark Kline Taylor, is Assistant Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary. A graduate of Seattle Pacific College, be received the D.Min. degree from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and the Ph.D. degree from The University of Chicago Divinity School. Active in the American Academy of Religion and The College Theology Society, Dr. Taylor's volume on Religious Dimensions in Cultural Anthropology is being published by Mercer University Press.

Readers of THEOLOGY TODAY may like to know that this January issue will be distributed to about 12,000 subscribers.

Hugh T. Kerr