190

* Book Review

helpful. How do trust and trustworthiness get reestablished? How does a worshipping congregation hear Gods guidance about its particular engagements
with technologies? We have some eloquent statements of the concepts but littie by way of illustration or example.

David W. Gill
Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary

Review o f
Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics
EDITED BY CHRISTIAN SCHAREN
AND ANNA MARIE VIGEN
New York: Continuum , 2011. 304 pp. $29.95

Over the past decade, an increasing number of Christian theologians and ethicists have turned to ethnographic methodologies in order to attend more closely
to the complexities of lived faith and the bodily character of theological knowledge. For those wishing to get a glimpse of what this looks like in practice, what
its implications might be for theology and ethics, and how one might set off
and do it oneself, this book is an excellent introduction.
Editors Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen organize the book into
three parts. T he first part orients readers to the use of ethnography in cultural
anthropology and reviews the recent ethnographic turn in Christian theology and ethics. This is followed by a brief survey of theological critiques of social science and a defense of ethnography against these critiques. Scharen and
Vigen argue that the use of ethnography, far from compromising the integrity
of theology, has the potential to renew and enrich the discipline through the
incorporation of long-overlooked forms of local wisdom. As a method attuned
to practical, often noncognitive forms of knowledge, ethnography can help
scholars move away from an exclusive focus on texts to a deeper consideration
of the theological and ethical claims embedded and embodied in the lives and
practices of everyday communities (xxii).

John Kiess

191

Naturally, the best argument for such an approach is exemplification. The

second part of the book presents an impressive collection of ethnographic
work from contexts as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, Oregon, Chiapas, Nairobi,
and Gulu. Contributors employ ethnography to compare pastoral leadership
in two African American churches, track grassroots dissent on the issue of contraception among women living with HIV/AIDS, and reimagine the debate
on physician-assisted suicide from the perspective of the poor and disabled.
Particularly effective are Vicinis exploration of the liturgical response of local churches to the legacy of violence in Chiapas and W hitm ores critical examination of his own place as a white researcher in N orthern Uganda, which
makes hauntingly transparent the ethical complexities of the research process
itself.
The final part of the book offers a more practical how-to guide for those
looking to do ethnography, covering such issues as institutional review board
approval, interview methodology, and accountability to research subjects. This
part, like the rest of the book, will be a gift for graduate students facing down
a dissertation proposal or scholars contemplating the use of ethnography in
their work. Admirably reflexive, vigilantly attentive to issues of power and privilege, and articulate about the ways that research can be a form of discipleship,
one can only hope this book will succeed in its aim of encouraging other scholars to go and do likewise.
Those who have already incorporated ethnographic techniques in their
scholarship or who are looking for a fuller articulation of the relation between
ethnography, ethics, and theology may find themselves less satisfied with the
book. Its treatment of existing options (virtue ethics, Catholic social ethics) and
thinkers (David Ford, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank) is thin, and a
number of key figures in the broader story of the ethnographic turn in theology (Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hans Frei) are conspicuously missing. Their absence is felt particularly strongly in the unanswered questions the
volume provokes, including how to account for Gods difference when appeals
to experience become primary (Barth), and how to avoid positivism when appeals to the reality of the church become the point of departure for ecclesiology (Bonhoeffer).
Such provocations, however, are reminders that we are still at the very early
stages of the ethnographic turn in Christian theology and ethics. If this volume is any indication, the future of this exciting intersection of thought and
practice looks very promising indeed.

John Kiess
Loyola University Maryland

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