Restless Bedfellows

Restless Bedfellows:Theatre, Theology, Religion, and Spirituality Claire Maria Chambers (bio) THEATRICAL THEOLOGY: EXPLORATIONS IN PERFORMING THE FAITH. Edited by Wesley Vander Lugt and Trevor Hart. Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press, 2015; pp. 296. RECKONING WITH SPIRIT IN THE PARADIGM OF PERFORMANCE. By Donnalee Dox. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016; pp. 282. UNSETTLED TOLERATION: RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCE ON THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE. By Brian Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016; pp. 240. PLAYING GOD: THE BIBLE ON THE BROADWAY STAGE. By Henry Bial. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015; pp. 260. PLAYING THE MARTYR: THEATER AND THEOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE. By Christopher Semk. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2017; pp. 198. Recently, I delivered a talk at a neighboring university's English department on a topic that I have been researching and writing about for many years: negative theology and spirituality in performance. At this point I have become fairly adept at articulating the reasoning behind this unfamiliar, and some might say odd, religious focus of my research. I took my audience through the literary history of negative theology, and made my arguments for how contemporary performance studies discourse can be understood as continuing this particular strain of theological-philosophical thought. Afterward, one student's question reemphasized for me the still-persistent prejudices that shape a scholar's approach to issues of religion and spirituality. "I enjoyed your talk very much!" she said enthusiastically. "But what does theology have to do with the real world?" [End Page 111] It was a legitimate question. That religion, as a form of culture that has political and ideological ramifications, exerts influence on the "real world" cannot be denied, especially when forms of fundamentalism seem to be shaping the populist politics that are reconfiguring relationships between nations, governments, and people today. Therefore religion is deemed an acceptable and even important topic of academic research. That spirituality or theology likewise deserve academic attention is much less accepted, even within religious studies itself. In 2007 a religious studies professor's review article in the Chronicle of Higher Education caused a stir because he portrayed theology as having no basis in the advancement of academic knowledge. Unflatteringly, he compared the religion researcher to the theologian "as the biologist is related to the frog in her lab. Theologians try to invigorate their own religion, perpetuate it, expound it, defend it, or explain its relationship to other religions. Religion researchers select sample religions, slice them open, and poke around inside, which tends to 'kill' the religion."1 Other areas in the humanities may seem to invoke spiritual or theological ideas (the sublime, for example). But in the contemporary academy, theology and spirituality have never had a place to rest outside the seminary since the division of religious studies (or "comparative religions") from departments of theology early in the nineteenth century. And perhaps that is how it should be. But some of us are left unsatisfied with the implication that to study theology means that one must apologize for it, or that to attempt to understand the real, affective presence of spiritual experience working in the lives of individuals is to be suckered into magical thinking. Assuming that the division between religious studies and theology is a nonporous one is just as questionable as assuming that the natural sciences somehow exist in isolation from things like language and culture. The latter argument, I warrant, will not meet with much objection from readers of this journal (as it says nothing new), while the former may indeed seem highly objectionable. I want to think critically about why this may be so. The five books considered in this essay participate in a steady current of theatre and performance studies research that reconsiders the religious, theological, and spiritual as indexes for unexplored territory.2 They can be organized into three categories: theology, [End Page 112] spirituality, and religious studies. Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith has the least precedent in the pages of Theatre Journal; it is straightforward Christian theology, as its title well indicates. This work is exploratory and faith-based. Reckoning with Spirit in the Paradigm of Performance also challenges scholarly precedent, because it could be argued that it includes

Faith · Martyr · Politics · Sociology · Spirituality · Theology · Toleration · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Theatre and Performance Studies

• Holy Theatre, Ritual and the Avant Garde

  Elinor Fuchs, Christopher Innes•Performing Arts Journal•1982

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