I am trying to catch up with my blogging and to flag up all the new books we have published recently. This is not an easy task...
Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics, a collection of essays from the new and growing field of Christian Ethnography, is edited by Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen. It is available to readers right now, on both sides of the Ocean. This book is divided into three parts titled: Prolegomena, Exemplars and Method; and its Foreword is written by Mary McClintock Fulkerson.
You are probably guessing now… yes, this volume has received five great endorsements from Emilie M. Townes, Ted A. Smith, Pete Ward, João Biehl and Traci West, which I am placing below:
'This engaging collection is a helpful foundation for exploring the use of ethnography in Christian ethics and theology. The authors provide thoughtful and probing challenges to how social scientists and theologians do our work-encouraging us to question and alter some of the basic assumptions of our work so that we do it with genuine rigor rather than with unexamined normative commitments or using the social sciences as lax sources for theological reflection. The challenge is genuine and I encourage us to read and learn from this fine collection.’ - Emilie M. Townes, Yale Divinity School, USA.
'Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen have put together a remarkable book that fills many needs at once. The book surveys a wide range of ways scholars have engaged ethnography for the sake of theology and ethics. It consolidates a conversation. It then extends that conversation with a significant proposal for ethnography as theology and ethics. A series of examples begin to suggest the range and power of this vision. This book should become – immediately upon its publication – the generative center of one of the most important developments in contemporary theology and ethics. - Ted A. Smith, Vanderbilt University, USA.
‘The turn to practice in Christian Theology and Ethics has made engagement with the social and cultural reality of the Church an urgent concern. Many talk about ethnography but few actually do it yet it is in doing of it that the theological force of 'practice' gains any kind of traction. it is the focus on actually doing ethnographic research that makes his book is a timely and significant contribution to the conversation around ethics and communal practices. In the introductory section the editors introduce key elements in ethnographic research. These are then illustrated through a series of studies. The result is a major resource for any one who wants to start to do ethnography as part of Christian Theology and Ethics.’ - Pete Ward, Kings College London, UK.
‘A powerful affirmation of the human lives that animate theological reflection and practice. This timely and compelling book is a must read for all concerned with the creative interface of anthropology and theology.’ - João Biehl, Princeton University, USA.
'This volume pulls back the curtain on the ethnographic method of Christian theologians and ethicists who earn their living and scholarly reputations studying the lives of other people and offering truth claims about those realities. The collection is path breaking in the field of religion for its unflinching scrutiny of under-examined assumptions of white racial privilege embeded in method, careful delineation of the meaning of interdisciplinarity, as well as specific guidance on best practices for ethical research.' - Traci West, Drew University, USA.
Comments