12/14/2022 – "Home" in Comparative Theology & Theology Without Walls

Who are these six superstar scholars and why are they so important? Actually, I’m sure they wouldn’t like me characterizing them that way. We’re going to talk about what the concept of “home” means in Comparative Theology and Theology Without Walls. CT vs. TWW. It’s on! Check this out. This is TenOnReligion.

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So, I went to the 2022 AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in Denver and created a vlog of my experience. You can check it out if you want the whole story. Today though, I want to focus on just one of the sessions I attended titled, "The Concept of Home in Comparative Theology and Theology Without Walls." The contemporary iteration of Comparative Theology is much older than Theology Without Walls. If you don’t know what these two things are, you need to educate yourself. I have multiple episodes on Comparative Theology: an overview of Catherine Cornille’s book Meaning and Method in Comparative Theology, John Thatamanil’s two books The Immanent Divine and Circling the Elephant, as well as one episode covering two of Frank Clooney’s books on Comparative Theology. I also have an episode introducing Theology Without Walls. Those weren’t shameless plugs…no, no, no…just trying to promote the brand. Now, these two ideologies have much in common and it seems the main intention of this session was to draw out some contrasts and/or potential points of tension to show the difference between the two. One of the strengths of this session was that each presenter provided a slightly different angle, or perspective, if you will, and they did not all seem to agree with one another. Here’s my synopsis of what went down here based on my sketchy notes of the event. There are many ideas that I did not capture and let’s hope some or all of these presentations will make it in writing someday, somewhere. Okay, let’s go.

The session was presided over by Jeanine Diller, a philosopher of religion from the University of Toledo. She developed a great format because after each presentation she allowed a few minutes for the audience to write down questions or comments which were then collected and given to the presenters to make some brief comments on later in the Q & A portion of the session. I thought this format worked well, so kudos to my buddy Jeanine. We’re not really buddies. I just met her like a week ago, or something like that.

First up was Wesley Wildman from Boston University. The majority of his presentation was a long story about two figures named Harry and Sally, intentionally referring to the famous romantic comedy movie from 1989 When Harry Met Sally… The story is far too long to retell here, but the point was to illustrate how the concept of “home” can be understood and construed differently by different parties. One important thing Wildman related was that Comparative Theology launches from a home position while Theology Without Walls creates home on the fly.

Next up was Frank Clooney from some place called Harvard. He’s been one of the foremost scholars on Comparative Theology for decades with a large number of former students in the subfield. He said we always need to reveal where we come from because those who say they come from nowhere are usually hiding something. Clooney’s position is founded on the Christian principle of “faith seeking understanding” which goes all the way back to Anselm in the 11th century. Faith seeking understanding is rooted somewhere. Comparative theology is seeking, finding, and then coming back. Where is the other located? How does one get there? How does one get home? In order to answer these questions, one first has to know where “home” is. Even though “home” can and likely will change over time, one still has to know where “home” is.

Then John Thatamanil from Union Seminary in New York presented. After self-identifying as a comparative theologian, he stated that “home” in the singular becomes quite complicated when writing about multiple religious belonging. Though dislocation is becoming more commonplace, how does one do theology without a home? He described four different senses of “home”: as a starting point, a community of inquiry, a community of accountability, and a community of practice. When a community of practice becomes connected with propositions and articulated publicly, those propositions are then contestable. But transformation is a kind of knowing which is different from propositions. Religious communities often hold the position that in order to know as we know, you have to practice as we practice. Such embodied or participatory knowing seems to be a challenge to Theology Without Walls. But if one strives towards interreligious wisdom, garnering from more than one tradition, is it possible to be accountable to multiple communities? This Thatamanil guy always seems to leave us with more questions than answers.

Next up was Catherine Cornille from Boston College. She’s a great scholar I’ve met a few times and I really appreciate her work. She asked what are the boundaries of religions themselves? She also made an important distinction between the genealogy of the origin of the term religion vs. the genealogy of the origin of the deconstruction of the term religion. Why deconstruct the term religion and what are the motivations for doing so? I loved that she said that because I personally think deconstruction without reconstruction quickly becomes problematical. She then drew another distinction in that Theology Without Walls is beyond truth while Comparative Theology is under truth. Now I’m not entirely convinced that is the case, but she went on to explain that Comparative Theology has an aspect of accountability in that one can ask for whom or with whom? How can one serve the theological community of which one is a part? In Theology Without Walls, is the individual the only norm? Where is the community of reflection to help each other? Again, good questions.

Then Mark Heim from Andover Newton Seminary at Yale came up to the podium. He referred to Wesley Wildman’s story and mentioned that the most well-known quote from the movie When Harry Met Sally… was the restaurant deli scene where the lady sitting next to the couple exclaimed, “I’ll have what she’s having.” That got a good laugh from the audience in the room. The main thing I took from that was that one has to have something appealing in religion that can be identified. Is this a concern for Theology Without Walls? Heim stated that home is where we come from, where we live, and where we’re going. Get this, roughly 85-90% of people surveyed answered “home” when asked where they want to die. There’s a lot of religion going on in that statement right there.

Last was Pim Valkenberg from The Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He mentioned thinking about hope and also said everything we do on earth is part of a journey. I definitely liked that framing of the conversation. He described home on three levels. The epistemological level in terms of accountability be it a local, academic, or student community. The ontological level in terms of relation to God, both creation (or where we come from) and eschatology (or where we’re going). And the existential level, where he got a little personal. He has children in both the Netherlands and America and if asked where do I want to die…he responded, I don’t know.

This led to the Q & A session where each presenter had a few minutes to respond to the questions and comments that the audience members submitted after each presentation.

Again, first up was Wesley Wildman. He asked what is the institutional character of home? For Theology Without Walls, the only viable institutional home is the academy, which immediately calls into question the religious character of the movement. At the same time, Comparative Theology will continue to struggle as churches decline. Are we seeing the end of the Axial Age? Maybe sounding grim reaper alarms is a little premature, but it depends on which part of the world we’re talking about here.

Frank Clooney mentioned that losing home makes one acutely aware of what is lost. When confronted with another religious possibility, it’s not about a true/false dichotomy, but rather how do I take the next step? That was a great redirect.

John Thatamanil stated that degrees of becoming at home in a new tradition can get complex. Perhaps Theology Without Walls has greater humility? Sacred writings can’t count as an accountable source for the outsider because it’s only a source of internal insight. Spiritual journeys may not be identical, but perhaps there is some resonance in transformations.

Catherine Cornille then brought up a rather striking point. Theology Without Walls presupposes religions upon which it depends for its own transcendence, existence, and persistence. The advantage of Comparative Theology is that religions’ normative self-understanding is that to which people surrender. Does this mean TWW wouldn’t even exist without CT?

Mark Heim said we contribute or build what will be future people’s starting points, or home. If existential concerns continue to exist for humans than religion has space to remain relevant in the future in whatever form it takes. As he was saying that, I wasn’t sure if that was a subtle, or perhaps not-so-subtle reference to Paul Tillich, and if that’s the case, it could be a point for Theology Without Walls if articulated perhaps a little bit more elaborately.

Pim Valkenberg mentioned forms of accountability referencing only the Abrahamic traditions. One, academic. Two, Islamic tradition whereby interpretation is based on a good reading of the sources. Three, likewise for the Christian tradition. And four, Jews should not be the victims. That was an important statement.

Near the end of the session, John Thatamanil inquired if both Comparative Theology and Theology Without Walls were both right in different ways? This was a good question because it seemed like there were a lot more Comparative Theology apologists on this panel than Theology Without Walls apologists. This is just my take, but I don’t think Theology Without Walls really got a fair shake in this conversation. I wanted to hear more from the TWW side of the table. Perhaps throwing a little Panikkar into the mix would’ve helped. Full disclosure: I did my dissertation on Panikkar so I’m a little partial. TWW folks, next year I’m ready to go. Give me a call. You know where to find me. Anywho…it was a great discussion and it looks like there’s plenty of room to move this forward in the future. I’m definitely looking forward to it.

By the way, after that session ended, I had a good talk with a new scholar from Villanova University named Stephanie Wong who was sitting behind me. She works in Christian-Confucian comparative theology and I found the description of her work quite promising. We need more Confucian scholars in this ring. Hey CT and TWW program unit chairs, are you listening?

So, what do you think about the concept of “home” in Comparative Theology and Theology Without Walls? Which of the presenters or ideas did you like the most and why? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.