Australian J of Anthropology - 2013 - Fountain - Anthropological Theologies Engagements and Encounters

The Australian Journal of Anthropology (2013) 24, 227–234 doi:10.1111/taja.
12048
Anthropological theologies: Engagements

and encounters
Philip Fountain1 and Sin Wen Lau2
1
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; 2Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and
Ethnic Diversity
In a ground-breaking article Joel Robbins analysed what he characterises as the ‘awkward’ rela-
tionship between anthropology and theology and invited greater anthropological engagement
with its disciplinary cousin. This Special Issue responds to this provocation by using Robbins’
argument as a bouncing board for wide-ranging forays into a common set of concerns. In inves-
tigating anthropological theologies the collection critically attends to the kinds of engagements
and encounters that already take place and also lays out future agendas for further interactions.
We call for an anthropology that is open to provisional, dialogic and potentially transformative
interactions across diverse theologies and suggest that such a move will help shed light on the
possibilities of re-modelling the practice of anthropology.
Keywords: Anthropology, theology, Joel Robbins, engagements, encounters
AN AWKWARD RELATIONSHIP
In a ground-breaking article Robbins (2006) invites consideration of ‘what is or
should be the relationship between anthropology and theology?’ The fact that the
question, as Robbins notes, has hardly ever been asked by anthropologists says some-
thing that cuts to the core of the discipline. Indeed, while questions of our location
vis-a-vis ‘neighbouring’ disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies have long
haunted anthropology, theology has hardly ever been considered part of our neigh-
bourhood. Direct and explicit discussion of theology has rarely been considered an
urgent or necessary task. This has been the case even when theological theories clearly
intersect with central anthropological domains of enquiry. In asking for descriptive
and normative enquiries into this relationship, Robbins disturbs the status quo
and invites critical examination of our conspicuous and assiduous avoidance of this
disciplinary cousin.
But more than being simply a matter of neglect, the relationship between theology
and anthropology (at least from the anthropologists’ side) is characterised by deep
unease. Probing this discomfort, Robbins suggests that anthropologists have had a
thoroughly ‘awkward’ relationship with theology. This stems from the fact that theol-
ogy is a ‘committed discipline’, whereas anthropology, he argues, is not. Perhaps more
© 2013 Australian Anthropological Society 227

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P. M. Fountain and S. W. Lau
importantly is that while both disciplines are dedicated to the exploration of difference
and otherness, Robbins proposes that anthropologists have increasingly struggled to
put difference to work and to show their audiences that otherness really matters.
Theologians, however, believe that the differences they describe are the fundamental
ones worth discussing and this ‘makes the critical force of theology far more palpable’
than anthropology tends to muster.
In the same article Robbins helpfully maps out the kinds of interactions that have
characterised anthropological engagements with theology. He observes that anthro-
pology tends to engage theology as either a reflexive critique of the intellectual under-
pinnings of the discipline of anthropology (e.g. Asad 1993; Sahlins 1996; Keane 2007),
or else as a source of ethnographic data from which to interpret the culture under
study (e.g. Harding 2000). While both of these engagements are useful and have
assisted in productive lines of enquiry, neither allows for anything more than a
limited, anaemic encounter with theology. Robbins therefore proposes a third option.
Drawing on Christian theologian Milbank’s seminal Theology and Social Theory
(2006), Robbins seeks to illuminate the potentialities of cultivating a certain ‘open-
ness’ to theology. This necessitates, at the very least, an acknowledgement that theolo-
gians may ‘get some things right’ about the way the world is and about effective and
ethical means of engaging with it. Robbins argues not just that anthropology can and
should engage with theology in much more radical terms than has been so far been
the case, but also that such an engagement may very well turn out to be vital for the
discipline as a whole in renewing its own commitments to communicating about the
transformative potential of encounters with otherness.
This special issue takes Robbins’ provocation for greater engagement with theol-
ogy as its starting point. Robbins’ article is a bouncing board in response to which the
papers in this collection move in diverse trajectories. Rather than pursuing a concerted
argument about what the nature of the intersections between anthropology and theol-
ogy is, or should be, each contribution to the collection is instead a foray or interven-
tion into a common set of concerns. They ask: How do the religious and the secular
relate to each other within the theories and practices of anthropology? How have
anthropological encounters with theology informed or refashioned anthropological
projects? What do these reflections, drawn from diverse theologies, suggest about the
future contours of anthropology? In doing so, we look to open up new lines of debate
and to provoke anthropological colleagues (and perhaps also theologians) into a
deeper and more meaningful conversation. The end result of these forays is a series of
closely interconnected arguments, which illustrate the rich and productive possibilities
that can emerge when anthropologists engage explicitly and forthrightly with theologi-
cal concerns.
Anthropology as Theology/Theology as Anthropology

In the years since Robbins’ article was published the onus for such an engagement
with theology has, if anything, increased. The widely heralded ‘return of theology’ to
the humanities and the social sciences is one of the most remarkable new features of
228 © 2013 Australian Anthropological Society

Anthropological theologies
contemporary academia. While theology was widely occluded as a meaningful conver-

sation partner in the decades up to the 1990s, theological concerns are now being dis-
cussed by leading social theorists. From the widespread resurgent interest in Schmitt’s
(2006 [1922]) analysis of ‘political theology’ (Kahn 2011b; Fassin 2012), via the sur-
prising critical reappraisal of Saint Paul as a radical political and philosophical revolu-
tionary (Badiou 2003; Zi zek 2003; Agamben 2005; Milbank et al. 2010), to the
growing recognition of the pertinence that particular strands of contemporary theo-
logical enquiry have for philosophy (De Vries 1999), and to renewed reflections on
the implications of living in a post-secular (or never secular) world (Bender and Taves
2012; Gorski et al. 2012), theology is now back at the centre of progressive and critical
theoretical analysis. Anthropology has not been at the forefront of these new debates,
tending instead to adopt an excessively hesitant or aloof posture vis-a-vis such topics.
It seems as if anthropology’s long-standing resistance to ‘taking seriously the religious
experiences of others’, as Cannell (2006) puts it, inhibits our ability to engage in
serious conversations about and with theology. The few exceptions are proof of the
disciplinary rule.
Stating this, however, is not to understate the importance of the exceptions. A
recent special issue of this journal, entitled ‘Believing in a secular age’ (22:1), pries
open important new space for examining these concerns. This path-breaking collec-
tion of articles works from Taylor’s (2007) monumental analysis of the metaphysics of
the secular in order to facilitate a critical introspective of anthropological practice. In
his contribution, Kahn (2011a) assesses his own ‘naturalistic’ sensibility (he is an ‘erst-
while poster boy for modern secular selfhood’) which causes him to ‘squirm’ when he
encounters those who ‘profess faith’ during the course of his fieldwork and also back
at home in the Australian university. Recognising the limitations of such a stance,
Kahn goes on to offer a far-ranging critique of the ethnographic strategy of ‘bracket-
ing’ faith, in order to call for direct engagement between ‘believers and unbelievers’ in
all facets of anthropology. The current collection should be regarded as a follow up to
this earlier special issue and, indeed, a number of the present articles engage with the
arguments put forward by those contributing authors.
It has been commonplace over the past few decades to regard critical reflection
on the discipline of anthropology as something of a disciplinary preoccupation (Clif-
ford and Marcus 1986; Starn 2012). But those anthropologists who argue that our
self-critique is far more incisive than that offered by outsiders have clearly never read
John Milbank. In his jeremiad against secular social science (the same tome Robbins
addressed and which was introduced above), Milbank (2006) inveighs against secu-
larism when conceived as neutral space for description and proposes instead that the
social sciences be regarded as normative ‘theologies or anti-theologies in disguise’.
Milbank traces a genealogy of social science back to the founders and argues that
their work can effectively be described as a ‘policing of the sublime’ and directly
complicit in the rise of the modern nation-state. Milbank argues that social science
should therefore come to an end or else begin the work of redefining itself as a
‘faith’. Even here, however, anthropology is not safe, for Milbank goes on to argue

that all secular social theory, whether modern or post-modern, is inherently nihilistic
and bound within an ontology of perpetual violence which can only lead to peren-
nial conflict. Whatever one’s reply to Milbank, his aggressive theological assault on
anthropological frameworks makes abundantly clear that there is considerable value
in being aware enough of such theological engagements to articulate a considered
response.
In the anonymous reviews on earlier drafts of this special issue various comments
were made that raised questions about the definitions of theology in the papers: What
did we mean by ‘theology’? Revealingly, however, none of the reviewers asked what we
meant when we used the word ‘anthropology’. This focus on theology replicates the
tendency to seek definitions for strange and unfamiliar words where the known and
‘blindingly obvious’ (Miller and Woodward 2007) remain unanalysed, undefined. It is
notable that in his article Robbins did not seek to provide a definition of theology. By
engaging with a specific theologian—John Milbank—as his key interlocutor, he largely
side-stepped such concerns. Theology is what the theologian does. Nevertheless,
implicitly, this equation of theology and Milbank intimates toward certain associative
dynamics. Theology is distinctly Christian. It is an academic discipline. It can be
encountered in books and in universities. Summarising Robbins’ approach to theol-
ogy, we might describe it as a scholarly discourse on philosophies of divinity. This
clearly works effectively for the purpose of Robbins’ engagement with Milbank. But
what kind of definition is useful for examining the broader range of concerns and
interlocutors we address in this special issue?
Our approach is not to furnish a single, conclusive definition of theology. Each
of the authors does pay close attention to the meanings of theology as they use the
term in their paper, but we have not sought to arrive at a common definition that is
shared among all of us. Moreover, we don’t think such a definition would be helpful
or especially illuminating. Our reasons for this parallel the approach Asad (1993)
commends for the anthropology of ‘religion’: ahistorical and transcultural definitions
of theology inhibit research insofar as they seek to identify essences when we should
be trying to explore particular historical relations and processes. Understandings of
what theology is and how it should be done differ between groups of theologians.
Rather than imposing a blanket framework on top of these differences we instead
seek to pay attention to various intonations that operate in different contexts. While
the papers all agree that explicit discussion of theology has been neglected among
anthropologists, our project seeks to reassess this exclusion. This includes a
re-examination of the categories we ascribe to ‘theology’. The differences in our use
of theology are symbolic of our approach as a whole. We have sought to ‘bounce
off’ Robbins’ initial article, which has resulted in tentative, playful and exploratory
forays. By engaging with the issues Robbins raised we seek to expand the conversa-
tion along various different trajectories. The theologies discussed in the following
papers therefore include both vernacular and academic expressions. Theology is seen
variously as a social science, a lay discourse, an intellectual framework and a kind of
reflexive practice.

ENCOUNTERS AND ENGAGEMENTS

In responding to theology (of various kinds), the articles in this special issue deploy
two related concepts: ‘encounter’ and ‘engagement’. Encounter evokes the experiences
of ethnographic fieldwork. Sustained and careful reflection on quotidian, everyday
practices has been one of the defining features of contemporary anthropology.
Encounters always exceed boundaries and resist closure. To be open to encounter is to
embrace the unexpected, the surprising and, often, the disconcerting. The tensions
and disruptions inherent in the intersubjective space of ethnographic encounter is a
particularly productive site for anthropological analysis of theology. Moreover, the
‘ethnographic stance’ in general, as Ortner (1995) argues, is fixated with ‘richness, tex-
ture, and detail’. While their use of fieldwork varies, and while one of the primary sites
of ethnographic encounter includes anthropology itself, the authors in this special
issue write in and through the ethnographic privileging of ‘thickness’.
The collection also takes up the task of a deep engagement between anthropology
and theology. These engagements with theology involve both interaction with formal
academic studies and vernacular theologies, which are in any case frequently
interwoven. Engagement does not necessitate a specific type or mode of interaction.
Critique, transformation, affirmation and negation are all viable possibilities. This is
necessarily so given that the challenge of taking theology seriously, as Pritchard
(2010) has recently argued in regard to ‘religion’, is always-already a matter of a
particular theology. The engagement of an anthropologist vis-a-vis the many differ-
ent theologies will consequently vary considerably between them. Positing (which is
also inventing) a generic, abstract theology cannot furnish genuine engagement
because such a move perpetuates the liberal secular strategy of managing difference
and conflict such that meaningful dissent is preemptively curtailed. For the theologi-
cal other to be ‘taken seriously’ it is necessary to allow space for arguments as well
as rapprochement. A position on any given theology, or a theological position, is
prerequisite for meaningful engagement. This said, holding ‘a position’ on any given
subject, and perhaps especially on subjects like theology, is inevitably a messy and
complicated business.
Much of the discussion about anthropology and theology to date, and this is also
Robbins’ entry point into the topic, has been the newly vibrant and ascendant anthro-
pology of Christianity. While various Christian theologies are addressed in the articles
in this special issue, we also broaden the conversation to include discussion of Islam,
Paganism, agnosticism, Hare Krishna and indigenous Australia. Moreover, although
the anthropological habitus has generally been conceived as ‘secular’, the papers in this
issue pay close and critical attention to what this secularity means and also to the
possibilities of refashioning it according to the (a)theological subjectivities of the
anthropologist herself. By examining specific anthropological engagements with
theology, we ground our discussion in actual relationships.
The contributors to this special issue approach this endeavour in a number of
ways. Anthropology, as Malcolm Haddon (2013) and John Morton (2013)

demonstrate, when conceived as an unconscious form of religious performance, marks

a transformative instance where the secular-rationalist boundaries between theology
and anthropology coalesce and become indistinguishable. Throwing anthropological
epistemologies into relief against pagan, Islamic and Christian theologies, Rachel Mor-
gain (2013), Gerhard Hoffstaedter (2013) and Philip Fountain (2013) illuminate pro-
ductive fissures and interrogate the borders separating the secular and the religious.
They do so by examining the positioning of the anthropologist, through attentiveness
to ethnographic detail and by identifying instances of transgression between faith and
life. Taken together these engagements imagine, as Robbins suggests, possibilities
through which an openness between anthropology and theologies can be cultivated.
In conceiving the ways theology seeps into anthropology and vice versa, the
papers collected in this special issue illuminate the porosity of established anthro-
pological boundaries, destabilise these delimitations, and thereby mark the explo-
ration of difference with the potential for change in the world. Our discussion
suggests that paying attention to the ways the themes of social justice—as eluci-
dated by Morgain, Hoffstaedter and Fountain—and hope—the contours of which
are drawn by Morton, Fountain, Haddon and Morgain—are interwoven into
anthropological projects and differing theological sensibilities offers a glimpse into
what a post-secular anthropology might look like. This shift to a constructive or
engaged anthropology necessitates moving from anthropological focus on how
history, culture, power and interests undergird religious sensibilities to paying
attention to the ways ethical or value considerations embedded within specific
theologies are lived in everyday life.
Our discussion of encounters and engagements suggests provisional, dialogic and
potentially transformative interactions across diverse theologies, and marks an
attempt to transcend disciplinary boundaries by shedding light on the possibilities of
re-modelling the practice of anthropology. In doing so, the editors and contributors
hope to demonstrate the importance of taking theology and its concerns seriously,
and look to add to the literature on the anthropology of religion, anthropological
philosophy and anthropological methodology.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The papers collected in this volume, with the exception of those by Morgain and
Robbins, were first presented as part of a panel at the 2011 International Union of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), Australian Anthropological Soci-
ety (AAS) and the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand
(ASAANZ) Joint Conference in Perth, Western Australia. We are indebted to our
excellent discussant, Matt Tomlinson; the other presenters, particularly Regina Ryan,
Jenny Norris-Green and Natalie Swann; as well as the audience for engaging in what
was a thoroughly stimulating and provocative discussion. We are also immensely
grateful for comments from the three anonymous reviewers that helped sharpen our
arguments.

Please send correspondence to Philip Fountain: aripmf@nus.edu.sg; philip.m.fountain@

gmail.com
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Zi

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The Australian Journal of Anthropology (2013) 24, 227–234 doi:10.1111/taja.

Anthropological theologies: Engagements

Keywords: Anthropology, theology, Joel Robbins, engagements, encounters

© 2013 Australian Anthropological Society 227

Anthropology as Theology/Theology as Anthropology

228 © 2013 Australian Anthropological Society

contemporary academia. While theology was widely occluded as a meaningful conver-

© 2013 Australian Anthropological Society 229

230 © 2013 Australian Anthropological Society

ENCOUNTERS AND ENGAGEMENTS

© 2013 Australian Anthropological Society 231

demonstrate, when conceived as an unconscious form of religious performance, marks

232 © 2013 Australian Anthropological Society

Please send correspondence to Philip Fountain: aripmf@nus.edu.sg; philip.m.fountain@

© 2013 Australian Anthropological Society 233

234 © 2013 Australian Anthropological Society

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