Another animal lesson from John Thatamanil, questioning a common view of the difference between religious studies and theology:
Comparison is understood to belong to the descriptive labor of religious studies whereas the normative work of constructive theology is expected to operate from resources drawn from within the boundaries of a single tradition alone. Such boundedness is even taken to be the hallmark of theology: philosophy of religion can be universal, but theology must be confessional and particular. The philosopher of religion is the free-range chicken who can wander about and eat what she wants; the theologian, by contrast, must live and eat within the coop of tradition. (22)
Thatamanil is contesting this distinction from the theology side, arguing not only that comparative theology is a legitimate enterprise but that it should be part of constructive theology. (A "theology of religious diversity" is required too.) For the first centuries and the most recent, at least, Christian theologians had no choice but to articulate their faith in language shared with - even originating with - other traditions. Constructive theology was comparative theology, and should be again. Religious diversity, too treated as an irrelevance or a threat by Christian theologians, is in fact the most fruitful context for theologizing: it is not a problem but a promise.
I'm more used to seeing the distinction made from the religious studies side, but it's refreshing to see how it looks from theology. Thatamanil is fully conversant with the critiques religious studies has been making of its terms, challenging the notion of religions as "monolithic, impermeable, tightly systematic, and unitary wholes" (43) and critical of those who want their traditions to be that way. But acknowledging that traditions have been internally mixed and mutually mingling throughout history doesn't make comparison moot: it takes us back to the constructive, normative work which builds and sustains all traditions, a work which thrives in diversity.
Actually religious studies has been refusing this reality for a while, too. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan appears in my classes to expose the impossibility of religious neutrality (in scholarship or law), to recognize that, whether we admit it or not, whenever we opine about religion we are doing theology of one kind or another. But it's harder for a free-range chicken to admit that coops are good for chickens. Sullivan glosses "speaking theologically" as "speaking directly of the existential realities that we all face," but compared to the overlapping worlds of study and practice and dialogue which Thatamanil describes, that seems pretty slim pickings.
John J. Thatamanil, Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity (New York: Fordham University Press, 2020)
