Judging from the Inside

Recent years have seen three monographs (and some anthologies) dealing with the relationship between theology or faith and sociocultural anthropology (referred to simply as “anthropology” from here onwards). Larsen’s Slain God (2014) analyses how early British anthropologists had a personal relationship with matters of faith while Furani’s Redeeming Anthropology (2019) agonises the hegemony of Enlightenment secularism in anthropology. What is common to these texts is that they do not differentiate between theological argumentation or theology as an academic discipline and personal faith. Joel Robbins’ latest book, Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life (2020), recognises this difference, which is why, as a theological don of a non-confessional government-run university, I can recognise myself reflected in it. One of the reasons for Robbins’s ability to distinguish between the two may stem from his childhood experience concerning a rabbi who did not consider it absolutely necessary for proper execution of his work to be a believer, while many others probably would have (Robbins 2020: xii). The context of an academic theologian is the same: I may not consider that personal faith is a sine qua non of academic theology while some others certainly do.