The performance metaphor has significant potential for the revitalization of biblical interpretation.
Performative interpretation draws from the discipline of performance studies
to offer an integrative conceptualisation of the task of scriptural (and indeed theological) hermeneutics.
It is only in the practice of interpretation that theories of such can be developed.
Scripture is not as a constitution or lawbook, but as a place of encounter with God.
The orthodoxis dimension attends meaning; the orthopraxis dimension attends to practice.
The continental hermeneutical tradition is perhaps best summarised by Derrida:
In the beginning is hermeneutics.
With texts all we have is interpretation. There is no immediacy between interpreter and Scripture.
As James K. A. Smith, one of
Interpretation goes all the way down.
Interpretation is not a result of the fall, but part of God’s good creation.
It is this traditionedness that is denied in immediacy models, particularly in evangelical theology,
which proposes to read Scripture apart from the ‘distortion’ of presuppositions or biases
and which claims that ‘Scripture itself’ can stand over and correct our presuppositions.
There is neither a single nor infinite number of interpretations,
but a multiplicity, a set of well-read inter-related construals,
each requiring an act of faith to move beyond undecideability to interpretation.
This is not to be decried but celebrated as the gift of intersubjectivity given by God to creation.
The Trinity itself is the perfect interpretative community, sharing and receiving in pure love
and hence perfect comprehension.
Gianni Vattimo says it simply, ‘The Trinity is a hermeneutical structure par excellence.’
There are limits to and rules of interpretation, which bank this river of interpretation somewhat severely:
the text itself, cultures and languages, ethics, humility ...
But the limit — or better, the authoritative text/drama — is God revealed fully in Jesus of Nazareth,
‘in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2:9).
The incarnation means that
a true, authoritative revelation of God is made in history, in our materiality and culture.
That is, the limits to our interpretation are the same limits taken upon God in kenosis.
Neither matter nor subjectivity... thwart God’s self-revelation.
What faculty does interpretation require?
If reason only means rationality, then this is insufficient.
The hegemony of cognitive knowing dominates Western tradition.
Given creation, incarnation, and resurrection, ‘a Christian epistemology accords equal status, if not primacy, to the senses and imagination.’
Scripture is a given, shaping orthopraxis and orthodoxis.
Tradition is interpretation, from creation to eschaton and beyond.
Reason is metonymy for the whole person
— embodied, sensate, cognitive, spiritual —
in a stance of self-aware, critical discernment.
The Spirit ceaselessly whispers
with the wounded polyphony of
to the true Word of God, Jesus of
Drama can provide the conceptual richness and robustness necessary to do justice to the whole person in community as interpreter and actor.
Drama also naturally incorporates ritual and liturgy, two quintessentially performative activities.
In theology and drama, the towering figure is the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his monumental five-volume Theo-Drama (1973-1983). Recently, the evangelical theologian Kevin Vanhoozer has also argued for a similar approach.
Drama is ‘nothing less than the missing link between right belief (orthodoxy) and wise practice (orthopraxis).’
Drama is intrinsic to Scripture and theology, and not an imposed analogy.
This apologia is largely due to
the neglect of performative approaches to Scripture and theology,
thanks in no small part to
Augustine’s and Tertullian’s unhelpful disparagement of theatre.
Balthasar in fact spends 600 pages justifying such an approach,
which Aiden Nichols succinctly condenses into nine keywords:
incarnation,
history,
orthopraxis,
dialogue,
political theology,
eschatology,
structuralism,
role,
and freedom.
The ability of drama to combine praxis and meaning is also widely recognised by performance theorists.
The success or failure of performances, both secular or sacred,
can be considered in terms of
the authenticity of the actors and audience
and the degree of fusion between script, actors, and audience.
A successful performance conveys meaning and prompts appropriate action.
If love is the rule, then the ‘how’ of reading Scripture
together is as important as the ‘what’.
Scripture will thrive
as performative, liturgical, enacted, evocative dynamism
is experienced and embodied, interpreted and believed.
The challenge is to train faithful dissidents
who direct their congregations in the ‘public service’ of liturgy, for and before the world,
under the guidance of the Trinitarian God, together studying the Script(ures)
in order to stage faithful, innovative, local performances of God’s drama of reconciliation.
Christian interpretation is an embodied, communal event, taking place in and through Christian life and worship.
Christian communities comprehend the speech of God through and in their embodied lives.
The Bible has a surplus of significance for Christians. It contains the command to perform.
Habakkuk the Faithful Dissident: A Performative Hermeneutic for Anglicans in Australia
Matthew Anstey / St Mark’s Review, No. 203, November 2007 (2)
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