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Toward a post-secular anthropology
Philip Fountain
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
The discipline of anthropology is dominated by a secular analytical approach which requires the
bounding of religion and its exclusion from anthropological ways-of-knowing. This is premised
on a historical understanding of the discipline as scientific, rational, objective and modern.
While these norms are now routinely critiqued, theology remains peculiarly marginalised. This
article probes the contours of an anthropology beyond the secular which involves both critical
reflection on the secularity of the discipline and a willingness to experiment with new ways of
doing anthropology with/in theology.
Keywords: Post-secular, anthropological theology, anthropology, Christian theology, Secular-
ity, Graham Ward
INTRODUCTION
This article traces the possible contours of an anthropology that does not yet exist. It
is a matter of conjecture as to what a ‘post-secular’ anthropology might look like.
Therefore my attempt here is tentative, involving only sketches or fragments (cf. Grae-
ber 2004) which offer a mere glimpse at a body of theory, or a modality of doing
anthropology, which may emerge in the future. It is my goal to encourage such an
emergence.
In moving toward a post-secular anthropology I engage with Christian theology.
The meanings of ‘Christian theology’ are, of course, deeply contested. This article
adopts a broad definition, namely the tradition of Christian attempts to understand
how to respond rightly to God, including consideration of what it is to be ‘Christian’
and who is ‘God’. While I pay particular attention to theology as a social science, con-
cerned as I am with interdisciplinary encounters, I do not presume that theology is
primarily or essentially an academic discipline. While other theologies (doctrines,
spiritualities, metaphysics, etc.) can and should be analysed as part of a wider post-
secular project, I limit attention to Christian theology in order to ground my
approach in a particular (if also expansive, heterogeneous) ‘tradition’. Similarly, I
limit my attention to the tradition of cultural anthropology. As with my argument as
a whole this move is premised on a drawing upon, and a blurring between, anthropol-
ogy (via Asad) and theology (via Milbank).
1
The tensions arising from the interplay
between these two—is the anthropological prior to, subsumed within, a secularised
rendition of, located against, critiqued by, a resource for, an enactment of, the
The Australian Journal of Anthropology (2013) 24, 310–328 doi:10.1111/taja.12053
©2013 Australian Anthropological Society310
theological?—animates my argument. By closing the distance between anthropology
and theology I mean to locate the ‘problem of belief’ (Engelke 2002) as a vital and
necessary site for anthropological attention.
The starting point for a post-secular anthropology is critical reflection on the
ways secularity shapes the production of knowledge within the discipline. This ‘nega-
tive’ probing is paired with a new willingness to experiment with ways of thinking
with/in specific theologies. Because this necessarily disrupts long-standing disciplinary
norms, and involves crossing disciplinary boundaries, such experiments are inherently
precarious, risky. However, there are substantial resources, both anthropological and
theological, that can be called upon to assist in this task.
SCRUTINISING THE SECULAR
Late on a weekday afternoon I shuffle into a seminar room. Two anthropologists are
presenting ‘visual diaries’ of ritual crucifixions in the Philippines. Over the following
ninety minutes we are led through an optic feast of photographs and video clips por-
traying theatrical retellings of the passion story. There is blood. And nails, hammers
and solid wooden beams. I feel a bit queasy. During his introduction one of the pre-
senters beams Caravaggio’s captivating ‘The Incredulity of Saint Thomas’ onto the
screen. It is a beautiful and haunting image of the encounter between the resurrected
Christ and three of his disciples, including ‘doubting’ Thomas. Saint Thomas is, the
seminar audience is told, the ‘patron saint’ of anthropology. Thomas does not believe
in others’ tales but demands to be an eyewitness. He is physically present; it is his fore-
finger that probes the wound in Christ’s side. He must do this himself because he is a
perennial doubter. Thomas’ disbelief drives his method of engagement as too, it is
implied, should ours. But what remains unnoted in this anthropological meditation is
that Thomas’ doubt, according to the narrative sources in the synoptic Gospels, was
only a temporary condition. After his tactual encounter with the risen Christ, Thomas
professes faith: ‘My Lord and my God!’ (John 20:28). This possibility is strikingly
occluded from view, obscured by the celebration of immutable scepticism. The Saint
Thomas who is imagined to patronise anthropology is one for whom a stance of faith
is unattainable. Loyal disciples of the discipline will adhere to a creed of enduring
disbelief. In Doubt we trust.
Similar encounters to that just described are commonplace in many anthropology
departments. The narrative of the incredulous anthropologist and their disavowal of
‘faith’ is a dominant modality of anthropological self-understanding. Such encounters
generally go unrecorded because the habitus of anthropology regards them as, literally,
unremarkable. Nevertheless, these encounters re-inscribe a certain disbelief as an arti-
cle of faith within the discipline. Take, for instance, Gellner’s (2001: 339) contribution
to a dossier on secularism in anthropology in which he puts things particularly starkly:
‘A fundamentalist who wandered, by error or design, into a course on the anthropol-
ogy of religion would soon have to choose between being a good anthropologist and
being a good fundamentalist’. Putting aside the question of what constitutes the
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
nebulous category of ‘fundamentalist’, it is uncanny (but presumably unintentional)
that Gellner’s prescription directly matches Harding’s (1991) description of Christian
fundamentalists as the ‘repugnant cultural other’ of anthropology. Gellner’s parable of
the fundamentalist student is especially intriguing on account of the bifurcated choice
he demands between (certain kinds of) religion or anthropology. The implied parallel-
ism suggests that what is at stake is a matter of fidelity; to become an anthropologist
the fundamentalist should change allegiance and convert to anthropology (Davies
2002: 7).
Exactly this transition is evocatively narrated in Elmer Miller’s memoir Nurturing
Doubt (1995). Miller charts his shifting subjectivity (and, revealingly, decreasing qual-
ity of relationships) from his time working as an American Mennonite missionary in
the Argentinean Chaco to his anthropological research in the same area as a highly-
educated sceptical scholar. He describes his journey as that of a ‘pilgrim’; an image
drawn from his Mennonite childhood and which he associates with Mennonite logics
of separation from the world. But Miller’s pilgrimage is one in which doubt—lionised
as a ‘positive philosophical attitude’ (his emphasis)—rather than faith is the central
motif (1995: viii–ix). Interestingly, while the rejection of his Christian upbringing is
consummated through his initiation into anthropology, Miller is unable to fully
embrace his new community. He remains haunted by doubt, which propels him to a
nomadic movement between different theoretical schools. He feels displaced from his
colleagues and is never entirely at home or at peace. Miller also notes that his break
with ‘fundamentalist dogma’ was a ‘highly emotional struggle that left permanent
scars’ (1995: 19).
A recent series of publications by American Christian anthropologists provides a
very different take on the ‘scars’ inflicted between faith and doubting anthropology.
They also provide important ethnographic windows onto the secularity of the disci-
pline. Arnold (2006: 267–68) argues that evangelical Christians constitute a ‘perse-
cuted minority’ in the discipline on account of anthropology’s ‘strong a-religious
tendency’.
2
Arnold narrates that in a particularly unpleasant episode during the 1993
meeting of the American Anthropological Association the informal Network of Chris-
tian Anthropologists was derided and verbally abused by colleagues who refused to
vacate the room assigned to them and who mocked the group with chants of ‘Here
come the Christians’. Paris’ (2006a: 376) pietist reflections concur with Arnold’s
assessment: there are ‘basic ideological hostilities and personal prejudices’ operating
in anthropology against active Christian participation. This is because the discipline
was founded, in part, as ‘a modern replacement’ for Christianity, and because of the
‘humanistic, naturalistic and evolutionary’ perspectives that remain ‘hegemonic’
(2006b). While Vanden Berg (2006: 390–91) argues that anthropology ‘is not inher-
ently anti-faith’, he nevertheless calls on Christian anthropologists to reject the disci-
pline’s ‘reigning [secular] orthodoxy’ and adopt an ‘alternative [Christian] paradigm’.
More recently, Vanden Berg (2009: 212) has suggested that anthropologists are ‘less
than friendly to Christians’, to the extent that Christian anthropologists work in a
‘toxic atmosphere’.
3
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P. M. Fountain
Such comments refer specifically to the ‘culture’ of American anthropology. There
is reason to think that even in the few years since these articles were published there
have been shifts in the intellectual climate which are opening new opportunities for
conversations on faith, secularity and the academy.
4
There is also reason to think that
other anthropologies, including Australia’s, might be significantly different. Yet it is
also worth noting that disciplinary antagonism toward Christianity is neither new nor
confined to the United States. A half-century ago Evans-Pritchard (1960) argued that
most anthropologists were ‘bleakly hostile’ to religion. The founding figures were all
ardent atheists or agnostics who regarded religion as illusory, untrue or useless and, in
any case, expected it to soon disappear. Summarising the views of his colleagues an
acerbic Evans-Pritchard wrote: ‘Religion is superstition to be explained by anthropol-
ogists, not something an anthropologist, or indeed any rational person, could himself
believe in’. Evans-Pritchard’s palpable sense of dislocation exposes the hubris which
propels the exclusionary dynamics that continue to shape anthropology.
Though approaching the issue from very different angles, emerging critical studies
are adding additional texture to such complaints by examining the effects of anthro-
pological claims to being a secular discipline (Cannell 2006; Lambek 2007, 2012). Such
claims need to be addressed carefully given ongoing debates about the meanings and
practices of secularism.
Anthropologists have been at the forefront of attempts in the social sciences to
construct ‘religion’ as a transcultural and ahistorical object. Through such objectifica-
tion, religion is imagined as a distinct, universal and manageable domain separated
from ‘society’. As a consequence of this bounding, religion becomes the archetypal
domain of anthropological expertise and mastery. The dominant anthropological
approaches to religion (functionalist, substantivist, interpretive, etc.) share this com-
mon concern for circumscribing the subject. A space is carved out for religion such
that it can be observed, mapped and catalogued without posing any threat to the
observer. The sublime is disarmed.
5
Whether transcendentalised or interiorised there
remains only the irrelevance of the ‘crossed-out God’ (Latour 1993: 32–34). The
bounding of religion remains widespread despite extensive criticism from both within
and beyond the discipline (Asad 1993; Lash 1996; McCutcheon 1997; Van der Veer
2001; Dubuisson 2003; Fitzgerald 2003; Masuzawa 2005; Cavanaugh 2009). The
bounding is essential in separating the religious from the secular and therefore is for-
mative in the very invention of the secular (Milbank 2006). Because anthropology has
been complicit in creating and regulating these boundaries (Lambek 2012), its claims
to religious neutrality are pure ‘fiction’ (Cannell 2010: 86). By locating religion as a
definable object, and by constructing a sharp secular-religious dichotomy, anthropol-
ogy can be located on one side of this distinction and not the other.
Although the siting of anthropology as non-religious was imagined from the
outset as necessary to establish the credentials of the discipline as modern rational
science,
6
the shadow of religion continues to haunt the discipline. This is apparent in
what Cannell (2006: 3) describes as an enduring ‘disciplinary nervousness’ about
religious experience in general, and Christianity in particular. Cannell specifically
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
notes the pronounced practice of viewing religion as purely epiphenomenal to ‘real’
underlying political, economic or sociological causes. Religion has been systematically
subsumed within a materialist framework that disavows alternative interpretations.
The uncanny spectre of religion is also discernable in emotive reactions against Chris-
tian incursions into anthropological domains. Over and above antagonism toward
Christians within the discipline, noted above, the historical deep-seated animosity
directed toward Christian missionaries (Stipe 1980; Priest 2001; Whiteman 2003; Har-
ries 2005; Plotnicov 2007) is thoroughly peculiar. Likewise, it is worth examining why
the prospect of ‘going native’ by joining a religion under study is regarded as an
‘embarrassing possibility’ (Ewing 1994) and a disciplinary taboo.
7
The ‘temptation’ of going native hints at the way in which the profanation of
anthropology creates fissures between the anthropologist and her subjects that are in
constant danger of collapsing. These gaps become frontiers that must be monitored
and maintained. One of the primary technologies of this policing is the long-standing
disciplinary ‘rule of thumb’ (Bowie 2006: 4) of methodological agnosticism. The man-
tra of methodological agnosticism has required ‘religious’ scholars to bracket those
commitments from their professional lives: to act, think and write as if the most neu-
tral or objective position for enquiry is that of the agnostic or atheist. A ‘non-aligned-
ness of religion’ is imposed in the discipline, premised on the need for ‘distance’ from
‘indigenous religious commitments’ (Gellner 2001: 340). Theology is expunged from
its conceptual apparatus and transcendence is written out of anthropological texts.
The tales that are told are of purely immanent worlds; or at least this is what many
anthropologists would like to think.
The perennial theological spooking of anthropology is, in large part, due to the
lingering residue of Christian theology which has never been entirely removed. There
is a ‘double relationship’ between Christian and anthropological categories such that
while anthropology marginalises Christian practices it is also produced by the history
of Christian thought (Jenkins 2012). A Christian genealogy permeates anthropological
theory. It is apparent in the emphasis on meaning (Asad 1993; Tomlinson and Engelke
2006), in implicit notions of global and universal (Keane 2007), in ‘dogmas of human
imperfection’ (Sahlins 1996) and arguably also in the discipline’s very humanism.
8
Continuities are also exposed in the historically intimate association and mutual
imbrication between liberal theology and anthropology (Klassen 2011). Indeed, there
is good reason to believe that we have never been secular (cf. Latour 1993; Lyon 2010:
648). The incomplete break with theology condemns anthropology to enduring anxi-
ety over its unilateral declaration of independence. Milbank’s (2006: 3) aggressive
assault on modern social science as merely a ‘theology or anti-theology in disguise’ is
disconcertingly close to the mark. Therefore, rather than thinking of theology as
having been erased from anthropological knowledge, it is more accurate to think of it
as being repressed (Cannell 2006: 4; Coleman 2010: 803).
This complicated history virtually ensures an enduring awkwardness (Robbins
2006).
9
But, as the literature already cited indicates, it is not only theologians who
scrutinise the secularism of anthropology. In an early and seminal contribution, Asad
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P. M. Fountain
(2003: 22) called for sustained critical reflection on what it means for anthropology to
be ‘modern and secular’. Some anthropologists argue that the discipline’s secularism
has become an impediment to research, producing superficial analysis and ensuring
that vital questions are routinely sidestepped (Stewart 2001). Among the most sweep-
ing of such critiques is Kahn’s (2011: 80–82) barrage against methodological agnosti-
cism, which is viewed as problematic not only for anthropologists with theological
commitments, but also for those without them insofar as it fails to allow for meaning-
ful interaction between anthropologist and informant. For Kahn, methodological
agnosticism can only result in ‘nondialogue’. In addition to being ‘condescending and
insulting’, methodological agnosticism represents an ‘ethnocentric exercise that does
violence to all modes of experiencing and being in the world’.
10
While not explicitly
directed at anthropology, Mahmood’s (2005: xi) questioning of ‘secular-liberal’ values
is pertinent. Mahmood argues that the conviction ‘that other forms of human flour-
ishing and life worlds are necessarily inferior …[to] ‘secular-left’ politics’ is tragically
mistaken. What is wilfully ignored is the manner in which our own politics have ‘pro-
duced some spectacular human disasters’. If we follow the trajectory of Mahmood’s
argument, and I argue that we should, then the secular politics of anthropology must
also be exposed to critique and it becomes imperative to explore alternatives.
DOING ANTHROPOLOGY WITH/IN THEOLOGY
The task is to ask whether anthropology might be able to pry open new spaces for
experimentation (Stewart 2001: 328). Engagement with theology holds out the
potential to challenge and reconfigure the anthropological project in productive
new ways (Robbins 2006). We therefore need to begin exploring how we can do
anthropology with/in theology. My use of ‘with/in’ echoes Robbins and Engelke
(2010: 625), who argue that recent work by continental philosophers has ‘made it
possible for philosophers and other kinds of critical thinkers not just to think about
religion but also in important respects to think with it’ (emphasis in original).
However, their commendation of the preposition ‘with’ problematically continues
to hold theology at arms’ length. Anthropologists do not or cannot do theology,
they merely work with it; anthropologists deploy theological concepts and narra-
tives, but their essential project remains unchanged. ‘With’, therefore, re-inscribes a
distanciation reminiscent of anthropological engagements with ‘the field’ (Gupta
and Ferguson 1997). By proposing anthropologists work with/in theology, I mean
to imply a more expansive set of possibilities. In addition to ‘with’, ‘within’ (or
simply ‘in’) involves a more radical embrace of a theological anthropology, that is,
an anthro-theology.
The obstacles in this undertaking are considerable. The historical repression of
theology within anthropology casts a long shadow. Because anthropologists are
located within relational webs of power that constrain imaginations and practices, the
issue is never simply one of individual volition. Theology is, as a rule, hardly read by
anthropologists ensuring that even figuring out where to start is far from obvious.
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
Interdisciplinary encounters often result in experiences of vertigo and confusion
(Ward 1996) in ways that parallel the familiar experience of ethnographic fieldwork.
11
Attempts to think with/in theology are also likely to be accompanied by considerable
disciplinary debate. But such contestation should be viewed as productive in opening
new lines of enquiry. The value of such debate is the reason why a post-secular anthro-
pology cannot be confined to ‘religious’ discourses or venues. After all, a post-secular
anthropology is a public conversation or it is not post-secular. Because of these
challenges, the task of thinking with/in theology will, at least for the time being, be
piecemeal and experimental.
Nevertheless, the project of experimenting with/in theology is ethically and politi-
cally necessary. Ethically, the exclusion of theology was only possible on the basis of a
modern dichotomised framework that is now widely derided within the discipline.
Only on the basis of an argument for the universal superiority of secular thought can
theology—of any tradition—be excluded from anthropological ways of knowing.
Given the anthropological critique of secularism, detailed above, this assumption is
no longer tenable. Moreover, as anthropologists can and do occupy a diverse range of
positions vis-
a-vis the religions they encounter, it is necessary to create space in
academic publications to reflect honestly and forthrightly about such matters. The
anthropological theologies that already operate—intentionally or otherwise, implicitly
or explicitly—should be brought out of the shadows and into a space for reflection,
contestation and debate.
12
The contemporary historical juncture is characterised by De Vries (2007: 68) as
replete with ‘violent encounters, predicaments, promises, and threats’. It is within
this context that he proposes it is politically necessary to ‘break back through’ to reli-
gion. This permits the employment of ‘all available sources of the inspirational
moods, imaginative motifs, intellectual modalities, and practical motivations that
past generations have bequeathed to us’. De Vries therefore calls for Mahmood’s
‘other forms of human flourishing’ to be given voice among the authors of research
as well our subjects. It is not that Christian theology is an unambiguous resource in
addressing the violence of our age.
Zi
zek (2003: 3) is surely correct in suggesting that
religion can play therapeutic or critical roles by either buttressing the existing order
or asserting itself as a ‘critical agency’ and a ‘space for the voices of discontentment’.
(Though, of course, anthropology can likewise be therapeutic or critical). But, as I
will outline, theology offers rich possibilities for re-working theoretical and method-
ological concerns. Moreover, as anthropology wrestles with the challenge of enacting
projects for social justice in the public sphere—the promise of an ‘engaged anthro-
pology’ (cf. Low and Merry 2010)—a turn to theology may prove to be
indispensible.
Milbank’s seminal Theology and Social Theory is an impressive theological attempt
at grounding an alternative socialist politics in an ontology of peace. In response,
Robbins (2006) strikingly compares Milbank’s ambitious proposal with the state of
anthropology following the collapse of notions of ‘radical otherness’ and ‘resistance’
within the discipline:
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P. M. Fountain
[W]e have more and more resigned ourselves simply to serving as witnesses to the horror
of the world, the pathos of our work uncut by the provision of real ontological alterna-
tives …We should feel mocked [by theology] then, not of course for our failure to theo-
rize on the basis of a belief in God, but for our inability to anymore show the world how
to find hope for real change without him. (Robbins 2006: 292–93)
Hope is a crucial feature of political engagement. The cultivation of hope is a nec-
essary precondition for communal projects of transformation. If Robbins is correct
and anthropologists struggle to communicate about the world hopefully then we must
probe the viability of an engaged anthropology. Such a project aspires to more than
mere observation. An engaged anthropology must draw upon, and actively theorise, a
hermeneutics of hope. Robbins points out that in envisioning hope anthropologists
would do well to turn to the history of hopeful theological reflection. Although
Milbank is certainly pertinent to discussions of a hopeful politics, I focus here instead
on the theological articulation of hope in Graham Ward’s The Politics of Discipleship
(2009).
13
Ward’s theological anthropology examines the basis of a hopeful vision for politi-
cal engagement premised on a particular ontology grounded in Christian theology. To
do this he presents a ‘description’ (2009: 17) of contemporary western politics, includ-
ing the ideas and practices of liberal democracy, economic globalisation and the new
visibility of religion. His is a broad-ranging critical appraisal. Ward decries a growing
depoliticisation of western liberal democracy and its replacement with mere amuse-
ment, a ‘rampant commodification’ of nearly everything, a ‘dogmatic secularism’ and
its associated Promethean myth of human mastery, and a ‘centrifugal atomism’
formed within hyperindividualism. In his critique Ward seeks to enact a politics that
moves beyond liberal tolerance. While Christians should recognise that they make
their public proclamations alongside articulations from people of other faiths or none,
they should nevertheless engage in active contestation because, he argues, the vitality
of the public sphere depends upon the articulation of difference. But Ward is not
merely antagonistic toward contemporary political changes. He perceives emerging
opportunities including an increasing liberation of religion from mere private convic-
tion, a growing interest in postmaterial politics, and a resurging interest in the impor-
tance of myths. This last factor is particularly important as Ward regards his project as
a ‘critical and constructive’ remythologisation of the present in order to creatively
intervene in the ‘cultural imaginary’. Rewriting the Christian tradition into the present
is not simply the task of professional theologians, but rather is enacted within the
micropractices of quotidian Christian living.
Ward’s hopeful politics is premised on his conceptualisation of an ‘eschatological
remainder’ which he develops in dialogue with Catholic theologian Johann Metz and
philosopher Giorgio Agamben. To focus on the eschatological is to be oriented toward
the future. Yet this anticipation is not a displacement of the present. Ward argues for
a ‘certain continuity’ in which the contours of the coming divine kingdom are both
present and incomplete: ‘we are already living within the future messianic return’.
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Against Agamben, for whom to believe in ‘Jesus Messiah’ is not to believe something
about him (and also against Robbins’ dismissal of belief in God, noted above), Ward’s
politics is predicated on a metaphysics of ‘divine providence’, which enables a ‘com-
mitment to what has yet to come to pass’. The notion of remainder draws attention to
enduring ‘messianic resonances’ in and beyond ‘the church’ (which remains a particu-
lar, if apophatic, corporeality that is never entirely coterminous with its institutiona-
lised renditions). For Ward, every act of ‘justice, peace, love, joy and community’
operates analogically and sacramentally for the presence of Christ. Such acts can and
should be celebrated wherever they are found. Ward’s ecclesiology emphasises ‘partici-
pation in the Triune God’. It is upon this basis that Ward proposes that Christian
prayer involves a reaching out ‘toward some inchoate understanding of, even present
participation in, another order—a true, just, and good order being prepared, waiting
to be revealed’ (2009: 283). This sense of difference empowers transformative action
in the present premised on theocratic sovereignty and ‘protosocialist’ radical equality
(2009: 298). Such projects are never free of a certain ‘agnosticism’ (2009: 259)—we do
not have mastery over the future or God—but it is precisely because of this that they
are hopeful, rather than utopian or optimistic.
Clearly, Ward’s metaphysical re-grounding of politics is not going to appeal to all
anthropologists. By placing his argument within a specifically Christian tradition of
thought, and refusing to divorce politics from a theologically-conceived ontology,
Ward’s argument will remain controversial. Yet what Ward articulates is the possibil-
ity of a reflexive, critical, yet also proactive interventionist platform for social justice.
Ward’s theology therefore provides what Miyazaki (2006: 8) calls ‘prospective
momentum’ for a hopeful politics. On the question of hope the comparison between
Ward and Miyazaki is instructive. For while Miyazaki’s The Method of Hope frequently
returns to theological themes—influenced by his encounter with vernacular Fijian the-
ologies and informed by his goal of rethinking the anthropological project so that it is
synchronous with its interlocutors—he regards the ‘question of who or what is the
ultimate source of hope’ as unnecessary for maintaining a prospective orientation
(2006: 88). Indeed, in a statement reminiscent of Feuerbach’s classic dictum Miyazaki
declares that ‘it is not God that is the source of hope but hope that is the source of
God’ (2006: 18). Thus he reinscribes anthropology’s secular orthodoxy. While Ward
would almost certainly concur with Miyazaki that hope is predicated on a ‘realm of
indeterminancy’ (2006: 109), Ward’s emphasis on theocratic providence, and his
development of a theologia positiva, locates hope as intimately associated with faith in
the Triune God, rather than as mere projection.
By writing for a particular community (though not exclusively), Ward actively
enrols a wider public into his political project.
14
His politics is decidedly parochial (in
both senses: it is limited/local and pertains to the parish). The scandal of (orthodox,
confessional) Christian theology for anthropology is this particularity which runs
against the grain of the cultivated cosmopolitanism of the discipline. But this located-
ness need not signify mere constraint and nor does it necessarily dissolve the possibil-
ity of meaningful encounters with others. Rather, the only form of cosmopolitanism
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P. M. Fountain
that anthropologists can legitimately embrace is a situated or critical one (Kahn 2003;
Werbner 2008; Hannerz 2010) in which the confession of standpoints—and theology
is among these—is a necessary component.
15
My narrating of key themes in Ward’s approach to political theology is to suggest
that there are possible avenues of engagement for anthropologists interested both in
exploring a hopeful politics for an engaged anthropology and pursuing innovative
ways of reflecting on the human condition. By grounding his project in an explicitly
Christian metaphysics Ward’s description offers a stark, and therefore illuminating,
contrast to much anthropology. This is especially so as his inquiry intersects with key
anthropological concerns, including agency, relationality, myth, corporeality, other-
ness and gift. Ward also makes evocative use of ethnographic vignettes. Indeed, in the
foreword James K. Smith uses the iconic Geertzian phrase to describe Ward’s project
as a ‘thick description’ and a ‘kind of ethnography’ (2009: 11–12). The value of
engagement is all the more apparent on account of Ward’s explicit rejection of the
capability of anthropology to offer adequate descriptions: ‘Enlightenment anthropol-
ogy cannot entertain a theological perspective on being human’ (2009: 121; my
emphasis).
16
Adjudication of this point may come down to the question of the ‘Enlightenment’.
But, if so, then Ward should have noted that ‘Enlightenment anthropology’ has, at
least since the Writing Culture movement of the 1980s, been extensively critiqued by
anthropologists who have also attempted to reconstruct the discipline in innovative
ways. While it is the case that the enduring (if increasingly questioned) secular ortho-
doxy of anthropology illustrates the limitations of the ‘postmodern’ turn—a postmo-
dernity that does not confront modern secularism is half-hearted at best—it is the
definitive ‘cannot’ in Ward’s argument that is problematic. However, it is possible to
deploy Ward against Ward by appealing to the ways in which the historically prac-
ticed, culturally (if multiply) embedded, discipline of anthropology is itself rich with
‘messianic resonances’, and therefore also with theological remnants, that can help
nourish a post-secular anthropology. This is the approach that missiologist Sanneh
(2009: 36) appears to hint toward in declaring that ‘[a]nthropology teems with divine
intimations’. I address two anthropological resources that stand for wider sets of
possibilities. My purpose is to examine what anthropology might bring to its own
post-secular reformulation.
17
The first is anthropological attentiveness to ‘richness, texture, and detail’ (Ortner
1995: 173–74), an approach which furnishes a wealth of material for theological reflec-
tion. Ethnographic narration aspires toward producing thick accounts of quotidian
practices that leave space for ambiguity and paradox. It therefore offers a contempla-
tive moment—a rupture in projects and programmes, rather than permanent suspen-
sion—which enables a wider, open-ended horizon. Ethnography is a sustained
meditation on the human condition as it is lived in particular lives. While Christian
theology does not (with few exceptions) regard such reflection as sufficient, it is never-
theless indispensible for theological reflection. Some of the earliest Christian theolo-
gians considered meditation on theos and anthropos to be inseparable (Steenberg
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
2009). This was a necessary corollary of a commitment to the doctrine of humanity as
imago Dei which finds its apex and consummation in the incarnation. If, as Goodchild
(2009: 266, n. 13) has mused in a provocative aside, the modern philosophers of
immanence—he includes Marx, Nietzshce and Deluze among them—are ‘faithful
apostles and prophets of Christ insofar as they most successfully achieve the incarna-
tion of thought’, then surely this applies all the more to the immanence of anthropol-
ogy. The profound respect for humanity encapsulated in imago Dei is narrated by
Ward (2009: 162) in an account of his visit to an Orthodox monastery in Sergiev
Posad, Russia. Ward explains that during the mass a deacon approached the laity,
enveloped them in a perfumed cloud from his swinging thurible, and then offered ‘a
low, slow bow’ to those before him. In so doing the deacon acknowledged that ‘being
human was profoundly sacred not just in and for itself but because it figured forth the
divine’. At its best, anthropology can be very much akin to this ‘low, slow bow’.
A second potential resource toward a post-secular anthropology are those occa-
sions in the discipline in which ‘the line’ (Anderson 2004) between confessional faith
and university life is blurred, transgressed or dissolved. These contraventions take var-
ious forms. Over the course of anthropology’s history there have been a number of
scholars whose work has been notably informed by theological commitments. While
their anthropological theologies have tended to be backgrounded in assessments of
their intellectual contributions by peers, there nevertheless remain clues as to how
their faith informed their scholarship. In his study of the ‘the problem of belief’,
Engelke (2002) details how the publications and fieldwork practices of E. E. Evans-
Pritchard and Victor Turner, both converts to Roman Catholicism, were informed by
their faith. Engelke argues that for both these central figures in the anthropology of
religion, ‘belief became an element of method’ despite working within a milieu that
was inhospitable to such boundary blurring. Engelke discerns numerous ‘moments’
when Evans-Pritchard’s work took on a ‘theological tinge’ such that the sway of athe-
ism within the discipline was at least temporarily suspended. As for Turner, his
anthropology was deeply influenced by reading theology and he regarded his own
faith as enabling a privileged position for studying the inner life of others. In his later
years, he developed an interest in pilgrimage as ‘a convenient way …to blur the dis-
tinctions between his personal and professional life’. Engelke argues that in these cases
(among others) when the problem of belief is raised and left open, ‘the ethnography
…is richer for it’.
The ‘problem of belief’—the interaction of theology and anthropology—could
also be usefully addressed in, for example, the work of Mary Douglas, a Roman Catho-
lic for whom the Bible was a central object of concern (see Douglas 2007); Margaret
Mead, an Episcopalian and active member of the Subcommittee for the Revision of
the Book of Common Prayer (see Howard 1989; Klassen 2011: 38); Paul Farmer,
whose work in health and social justice has been deeply influenced by liberation theol-
ogy (see Kidder 2004; Saussy 2010); Reverend Timothy Jenkins, whose teaching and
research is in both anthropology and theology (see Jenkins 2005, 2009, 2012); and
Andr
e Droogers, whose playful weaving between ‘reductionism’ and ‘religionism’ was
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P. M. Fountain
inspired, in part, by his own Christian identity and affiliation with the Dutch
Reformed Church (see Droogers 1996). Insight into how anthropologists have negoti-
ated or, in Droogers’ terms, played with their professional and confessional identities
can help illuminate not only the texture of anthropological theologies but also the
dynamics that shape anthropology as such.
18
Perhaps the most ambitious project of disciplinary blurring is Douglas Davies’
Anthropology and Theology (2002). This is a rare attempt by someone trained in both
fields to engage in interdisciplinary conversation. Unfortunately, the ‘dialogue’ fre-
quently slips into an exercise that treats theology as a mere anthropological subject, as
in the suggestion that anthropology discloses the real meanings of spirit possession
and thereby displaces theological views (2002: 32). Elsewhere, Davies adopts a reduc-
tionist assessment of religion, as in his suggestion that religion makes an important
‘contribution’ to human life by providing ‘moral and rational sense’ for adherents
(2002: 55). Nonetheless, a genuine conversation can also be discerned in Davies’ pas-
sion for the poetry of Scripture (2002: 208–09). Referring to a passage in the epistle of
Second Corinthians (5:14–21), Davies meditates on St Paul’s belief that the ‘divine
Word’ has been humanised, which has transformative effects on St Paul’s understand-
ing of humanity and God and leads directly into a ‘strong ethical call to live for oth-
ers’. Davies’ concludes: ‘This picture of transcendence is entirely inspiring. It reflects
the high optimism of faith, and embraces an ethic of relationships and communal
support validated by nothing less than the divine source of all’. Davies celebrates this
intense communality and juxtaposes it with postmodern ‘fragmented individualism’.
It is at these moments of theological ownership that Davies is, for anthropologists at
least, most provocative and engaging.
Davies concludes his book by calling for a deeper conversation between anthropol-
ogists and theologians (2002: 209). Such conversations are now beginning to emerge
in interdisciplinary collaborative projects. The publication of ‘Global Christianity,
Global Critique’, an issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly edited by Robbins and Eng-
elke (2010), is a pioneering effort in this regard. The collection is among the most
interesting and innovative recent experiments in interdisciplinary scholarship involv-
ing anthropologists. The editors brought together contributions from anthropologists
working on Christianity as well as Christian theologians, many of whom are associated
(though some quite loosely) with Radical Orthodoxy.
19
Articles draw on the current
reengagement with theology by continental philosophers and also ground their reflec-
tions by addressing actual lived Christianities. On the part of anthropologists who
both discard the long-standing disciplinary distaste for Christianity (cf. Robbins 2003,
2007; Bialecki et al. 2008) and also encounter (previously repressed) theology in ways
that, at least for some of the authors, involve a provocative blurring between theologi-
cal and anthropological projects, this involves a double about turn.
20
Goldstone and
Hauerwas’ (2010) article, co-authored by an anthropologist and theologian, is particu-
larly compelling for the ways in which it blurs the line between ‘dispassionate analysis
and motivated confession’ (2010: 770). They explicitly invite anthropologists to
approach the texts they read—in their case the Acts of the Apostles—such that they
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
are open to being radically transformed by their reading. This amounts to an evange-
listic attempt on anthropology. Moreover, in their proposition that ‘[d]escription is
everything’ (though always far from straightforward) they ensure that contest between
anthropology and theology remains raw because no artificial demarcation is allowed
to separate the two disciplines into distinct spheres. Importantly, this contentious
encounter is emulated by some of the anthropologists who answer back against recent
incursions of theology into social theory. For example, Coleman (2010) advocates an
‘anthropological apologetics’ that embraces a purely immanent understanding of reli-
gious performance. Taken as a whole, the collection enacts Ward’s (2009: 299) plea
for increased ‘contestation’ in which difference is taken seriously and engaged with
intelligently. Such debates are illuminating for anthropologists and theologians, as well
as those positioned awkwardly in the (contested) gaps between them.
CONCLUSION
A post-secular anthropology will involve new experimentation with/in theology. The
modalities and forms of a project of this nature are not set in stone. While the task is
challenging and, no doubt, controversial, anthropology is also not devoid of resources.
Anthropological critiques of secularism and the bounding of religion demand renewed
openness to ‘other forms of human flourishing’. Methodological agnosticism is no
longer adequate, and it never was. Moreover, the ways in which confessional anthro-
pologists have blurred ‘the line’ between faith and research offer glimpses into the pos-
sibility of similar future forays. Emerging conversations and collaborations between
anthropologists and theologians, in part spurred by wider shifts in academia, indicate
that new approaches are already gestating. The un-repression of theology, the active
embrace of an anthro-theology, is a key site for future theoretical, methodological and
epistemological research within the discipline. Although, perhaps, all that can be
hoped for at this time are fragments of a post-secular anthropology, taken together
these processes anticipate and move toward something more.
This anticipatory impulse is itself deeply theological. Rather than returning to
the question of hope in Ward I draw instead on Ward’s former colleague at Cam-
bridge, theologian Nicholas Lash (1996). Lash is adamant that theology must resist
claims to theoretical finality by acknowledging the provisionality and incomplete-
ness of our understanding. For Lash this is necessarily so because ‘God’ cannot be
fixed within our categories but remains always beyond our grasp. Seeing through a
glass darkly is the best that can be hoped for at the present. But Lash passionately
rejects the nihilism of closure, in which nothing is to be seen and no purposes are
to be discerned. Instead he proposes, in parallel to metaphysics, a metachronics
which holds out the possibility that ‘history is music and not merely noise’ (1996:
31). Lash poignantly invites the cultivation of practices of friendship as anticipatory
parables of coherence and fulfilment.
21
Anthropologists have long adhered to the
article of faith in which our understanding of humanity is seen as perfectly adequate
without reference to ‘God’. The question of what anthropology would become were
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P. M. Fountain
this presupposition discarded—keeping in mind, as does Lash in approvingly quot-
ing Hegel, that ‘God does not offer himself for observation’ (1996: 80)—is far from
clear. However, an anticipatory ethic grounded in hopeful acts of friendship is argu-
ably indispensible for an anthropology that aspires to more than mere observation
or critique. As such, theology speaks to central concerns about anthropology’s
continuing viability and vibrancy. Far from a peripheral distraction, post-secular
engagements with/in theology furnish hope for the prospect of a flourishing,
spirited anthropology.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for comments on earlier drafts of this article by Steve Ferzacca, Doug
Hynd, Bronwyn Isaacs, Chris Joll, Lau Sin Wen, Iris Lee, Elizabeth Phelps, Martin
Saxer, Toby Tan, Zhang Juan and three anonymous reviewers. Of course, they bear no
responsibility for the final argument.
Please send correspondence to Philip Fountain: aripmf@nus.edu.sg; philip.m.fountain
@gmail.com
NOTES
1 This blurring permeates recent work by both authors with each frequently cross-referencing the
other (e.g. Asad 2003; Milbank 2004).
2 In his article Arnold is intent on establishing the precise number of Christian anthropologists,
which he eventually concludes is ‘miniscule’. This numerical fixation can be read as an expres-
sion of marginalisation, though it also clearly evokes sharp boundaries derived from prominent
strands of American evangelicalism.
3 See also related reflections by Howell (2007) and Priest (2001).
4
Of particular importance has been the remarkable reception and broad interdisciplinary discus-
sion over Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007) and the widely heralded turn to theology among Conti-
nental philosophers.
5 See also Morgain (2013) for a parallel discussion about anthropology and ‘superstition’.
6 For example, the founder of the anthropology of religion, Max M€
uller, asserted ‘his rights to
hold religious convictions and keep them separate from the practice of his science, and to have
his science judged on its own merit’ (Masuzawa 2005: 237).
7 In her ethnography of Christian NGOs in Zimbabwe, for example, Bornstein (2003: 34) notes a
colleague’s joke—and all jokes have a serious kernel—that ‘it was my job (a loyalty of sorts, to
the discipline of anthropology) not to convert to Christianity’.
8 According to Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart (2009: 237–38) the ancient Christian
‘revolution’ was the source of a ‘total humanism’ that the modern West has appropriated. For
Hart, this humanism is now precariously positioned following the unraveling of institutional
Christianity.
9 For a brief outline of Robbins’ argument, see also Fountain and Lau (2013).
10 On this issue see also Droogers’ (1996) call for ‘methodological ludism’ in which anthropologists
simultaneously and subjunctively engage in methodological atheism, agnosticism and theism.
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Toward a post-secular anthropology
See also Yong’s (2012) recent positive assessment of Droogers’ ludism, written from the perspec-
tive of a Pentecostal theologian. Their emphasis on playfulness is compelling, but by delegitimis-
ing agnosticism as a methodological stance Kahn’s argument is more radical and, in my mind,
more compelling.
11 It is in the field that anthropologists most frequently encounter theology in vernacular forms as
articulated by informants. What an interdisciplinary encounter between anthropology and theol-
ogy does is to challenge the domesticating process involved in ‘returning home’ and thereby deny
the comfort of distance.
12 On unintentionally being implicated in theology see Haddon (2013). On the possibility of confi-
dently embracing a theological position, see also Morton (2013) and Fountain and Lau (2013).
13 Unless otherwise noted, the citations in this section are from Ward’s ‘Theological Introduction’
(161–80).
14 Much theology has an organic connection with an engaged public (Coleman 2010: 806) of the
kind that anthropology has long coveted (cf. Eriksen 2006). However, the relative inaccessibility
of Ward’s prose in this case dampens the extent of his engagement beyond the academy.
15 This is not to say that Christian theology lacks universal intent (cf. Keane 2007; Robbins 2010),
but rather its catholicity is diasporic, local, dispersed (Cavanaugh 2002: 112–16).
16 Ward’s views on this are similar to Milbank (2006: 143–44) who argues that, on account of its
false claim to be able to ‘get behind’ religious phenomena and thereby explain what they are
really about, either the ‘sociology [and anthropology] of religion ought to come to an end’ or
else it should redefine itself as a ‘faith’ and cease the pretense of neutrality.
17 This project shares similarities with the recent ‘ethnographic turn’ among theologians (e.g.
Brown et al. 2001; Scharen 2005, 2012a; Lassiter 2010; McBride 2010; Scharen and Vigen
2011; Ward 2012b). Anthropologists will find much in this parallel movement to inspire and
provoke. However, to date, the emerging research under the heading of ‘Ecclesiology and Eth-
nography’ has been less concerned with anthropology per se then in deploying the ‘tools’
(Scharen 2012b: 5) of ethnographic methodologies. Even here ethnography is framed broadly
as ‘qualitative methods of enquiry’ (Ward 2012a: 6), and rather than—as most anthropologists
would wish—a privileged domain of anthropological study their methods are often drawn
more from sociological sources. Yet this theological encroachment on anthropological territory
opens up opportunities for thoroughgoing exchange, particularly with those concerned with
the anthropology of Christianity but potentially much further afield. The ‘ethnographic turn’
in theology and the ‘theological turn’ in anthropology may well become, at least at certain
points, increasingly coterminous.
18 Beyond professional anthropology it is also important to re-examine the neglected work of
those who Michaud (2007) characterises as ‘incidental’ anthropologists—in his case, French
Catholic missionaries in colonial Indochina. While long derided, Michaud argues that mission-
ary anthropologists offer an important source for the ‘renewal’ of anthropology (p. 63) and he
calls for a balanced critical appraisal of missionary contributions to anthropology (see also
Thornton 1983; Plotnicov 2007). I am less interested in the ‘contributions’ missionaries have
made to anthropology than in exploring potential theological alternatives which might re-work
anthropology’s secularity. The emerging ‘Ecclesiology and Ethnography’ movement, discussed
in the previous footnote, is among the most promising contemporary dialogue partners in this
regard.
19 For introductions to Radical Orthodoxy, see Milbank et al. (2002) and Smith (2004).
20 Though I do not address these here, Hoffstaedter (2013) usefully points to the ‘structural limita-
tions’ involved in scholarly engagements with theology, a point which provokes the question as
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P. M. Fountain
to what exactly has changed in academia to enable both the newly vibrant anthropology of Chris-
tianity and the growing attention now being given to theology.
21 Lash’s (1996: 42) summary of the Gospel is that ‘we have been made capable of friendship’,
where ‘the passive form announces this capacity as grace, as given in the fact of God’s desiring,
and the range of reference of ‘we’ is unrestricted; it refers to everyone’.
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