Can Theology and Sociology benefit from one another?

Historically, the fields of sociology and theology have been interpreted as non-comparative because theology is centered on the transcendent and the spirit while sociology has no regard for such variables. However, for years may theologians have used aspects of sociology alongside theology to substantiate their claims. In his book Theology in a Social Context Robin Gill, revisits the longstanding debate regarding the interdisciplinary relationship between theology and sociology. Gill begins Part I by laying out the chronological history of sociological approaches to theology. Although he acknowledges that a comparative neglect exists amongst the disciplines of theology and sociology, he demonstrates how the fields can compliment each other by examining the works of sociologist who wrote on theological themes like Gregory Baum, Davis Martin, and Peter Berger. According to Gill, theologians often perceive sociologists as ‘anti-religious’ and sociologists perceive theologians who employ sociology as “ill-advised Christians using sociology as an ancillary discipline to understand certain ‘external problems of the social environment in which the church is related’.”[1] Thus, sociologist and theologians are often dissuaded from engaging in socio-theological study because both disciplines have autonomously constructed specialist terms, which are only understood and appreciated by the respective disciplines. However, Gill disagrees with this generalization about the study of sociological theology. He argues that a socio-theological approach is possible as long as a far more sophisticate form of scholarship is commissioned in order to do justice to both sociology and theology interdisciplinary.        

            He begins his pursuit to create a more sophisticated form of scholarship by offering three basic sociological approaches to theology: (1) A study of the social determinants of theological positions, (2) a study of the social significance of theological positions, (3) and a study of the social context of theology.[2] In the first approach, Gill contends that sociologists of religion are in fact engrossed in exploring the influence of social structures on theological positions whether they know it or not. He uses Berger to explain that human theologians who live within human societies write theological positions. Thus, sociologists who examine theologians and the social structures on theological positions are inadvertently participating in sociological theology. For example, Bryan Wilson, a sociologist of religion, explored the social determinants of sectarian theology. “He argues that ecumenical theology in the 1960’s acted as a ‘new faith’ within an overall situation of secularization……ecumenical theology was in fact a sign of organizational weakness and a product of the process of secularization within the West”.[3] For this reason Gill argues that a careful study of the social determinants of theological positions is in fact a sociological approach to better understanding theology.

            Gill’s second approach argues that theological positions that are produced by social determinants often influence the societies that originally produced them. Gill goes on to say that because of this suggestion about theological positions influencing societies, it is absurd that “theology has all too often been ignored as a possible independent variable in the sociology of religion”.[4] He contends that his comparative neglect goes against the original premise of Weber’s radical thesis in his The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism. Weber’s primary argument was that the theological concepts of vocation, predestination, and sanctification are extremely pivotal positions in the rise of capitalism.  For this reason, Gill contends that since theology cannot act as an independent sociological variable and since theology does have social significance, it is not wise for the social determinants of theological positions to be studied as an independent variable in the sociology of religion or in sociology proper. Gill’s final sociological approach to theology is primarily oriented towards showing theologians that sociology is indeed of central importance to theological study.

            Gill admits that his work could be viewed as a form of religious sociology. However, Gill points out that sociologists often criticize religious sociology because it appears to be religiously committed, dependent upon theology, and oriented in a transcendental perspective that distorts authentic sociology.  Likewise, theologians dislike religious sociology it ignores transcendental perspectives. For instance, in chapter two, Gill talks about how Peter Berger intentionally excluded the transcendent from his sociological account of religious phenomenon. According to Berger, methodological atheism is necessary for scientific enquiry. Berger’s exclusion of the transcendent was based on the fact that his works were essentially methodological not ontological. As a sociologist, Berger believed that he was supposed to exclude any reference to transcendent causality. However, Gill suggests that the real reason that Berger excluded the transcendent from his sociological account of religious phenomenon is because he was too strictly controlled, as some sociologists are, by “sociological” orthodoxy. Like Bowler, Gill argues that Berger’s choice reflects the fact that often sociologists do not take seriously the possibility of the reality of religious phenomenon. Thus, Berger avoids having to deal with explanations. Gill offers Robert Bellah’s concept of symbolic realism as an alternative to Berger’s sociological methodology that rejects ontology. Bellah suggests that sociologists of religion should (1) take the “profound depths” of symbols, like the symbol of transcendent causalities into account, (2) object to sociological imperialism, (3) not abandon the ‘scientific nature’ of sociology, (4) understand that sociology must be a separate but participating reality, (5) understand that yes symbols which are employed within scientific methodology are not provable but that does not mean that they should not be considered or accepted as true. For instance, he argues that the work of Paul Tillich is so attractive that sociologists must “communicate the meaning and value of religion along with its analysis’ to their students – thereby admitting that if it seems to confuse the role of the theologian and the scientist, of teaching religion and teaching about religion, then so be it.”[5]

            In chapter four, Gill discusses the ways in which theologians like Harvey Cox and John Robinson portray themselves as amateur sociologists when they “attempt to provide an analysis of the social context within which they wrote.”[6] Gill critiques Cox for blurring the lines between sociological description and theological prescription. He says, “I argue that it is essential that a adequate correlation should distinguish carefully between analysis, explanation and prediction, on the one hand, and prescription, on the other – that is, between the ‘is’ and the ‘ought.’” [7] He argues that both Cox and Robinson, while different in execution of said beliefs, make sweeping references to western society without any reference to the work of sociologists. Thus, they act as amateur sociologists for the social contexts for which they write. Gill also argues that these amateur sociologists thereby dignify “their own thoughts by ascribing them to the rest of society.”[8] He contends that theologians should, as did Cox and Robinson, see socio-theological correspondence as a necessary feature of their sociological perspective. Theologians should consider developing a hermeneutic of contemporary plausibility in order to bring attention to its social contexts. However, theologians must be careful about the usage of societal assumptions in theological debate.

            Gill also explores the idea that some theologians incorrectly used sociological methodology in their discussion with the Honest to God debate of the 1960’s. He accuses Robinson, Mascell, Ramsey, Newbigin, and Barry of making uncritical assumptions about the nature of contemporary society, not supplying a comprehensive secularization model, lacking a critical definition of secularization, and their unwillingness to substantiate their claims with empirical data. Gill contends that he is not suggesting that these theologians should have done the research themselves, but instead they could have easily avoided these mistakes had they simply read the works of sociologists of religion who were already doing similar research at that same time.

            Gill also examines the resurgence of fundamentalism in the 1980’s as a response to modernity and religious pluralism. He argues that fundamentalist in the 1980’s responded to their revitalizing social contexts by enforcing cognitive uniformity. He uses sociological theology to prove that these fundamentalists were only successful in achieving cognitive uniformity “by ignoring the pluralism of the New Testament and by constructing a ‘harmony’ of biblical and doctrinal resources.”[9] He argues that fundamentalists overcome plurality by claiming to have a monopoly on truth. However, Gill’s main concern is not why people are fundamentalists but who the fundamentalists are. In order to better dissect the aspects of fundamentalism, Gill shows his readers the benefits of sociological theology as a tool for the examination of specific moral communities. He argues that sociological theology warns religious fundamentalists about their habits of distorting religious beliefs with their habits of hypostasizing analogical religious symbols. . He says, “If theology is indeed seen as a social system, then it is only God’s relationship to us, not our analogical symbols seeking to express this relationship, that is constant.”[10] For Gill, theologians need sociological theology to assist in increasing the awareness of Christian plurality and the multiplicity of the world’s religious beliefs.

            Although Gill’s assertion that theologians need sociological theology to assist in increasing the awareness of Christian plurality and the multiplicity, there are practical theologians like James W. Fowler who would argue that theologians must be careful in its usage of sociology. In his essay on Practical Theology and the Social Sciences, Fowler traces the equivalences and congruencies between the re-emerging field of Practical Theology and the post-positive schools of the social sciences that are oriented toward specialized methodologies in cultural analysis. He argues that these similarities and parallels often lure practical theologians into distorting the differentiation between theological inquiry and interdisciplinary social scientific analysis. Fowler contends that the two disciplines do not have the same aims, thus, one must be careful in borrowing from the other. For instance, Fowler reasons that theological analysis focuses on shaping and transforming social practices, whereas, social scientists are commonly “unidirectional and non mutually critical.”[11] Although Fowler agrees with both David Tracy and Don Browning that Practical Theology must maintain a “mutually critical correlation” with the social sciences, he makes it very clear that the distinctiveness between the two is that Practical Theology is fundamentally focused on “ the constructive and critical discerning of and responding to the praxis of God.”[12] Fowler’s concern with the mudding of the two analytical disciplines is rooted in the idea that he defines Practical Theology as a theological form of critically constructive reflection and construction that guides communities of faith in the praxis of mission and God’s work in the world.[13] For this reason, he warns practical theologians to only make dialogue partners with social scientific disciplines that have hermeneutical competence in historical norms and perspectives of a particular community’s Christian and biblical traditions. For him, it is only through the proficient consideration of these traditions that a practical theologian can utilize the “patterns and dynamics of societal, cultural, political, and interpersonal systems” and still call their analytical work practical theological inquiry. Fowler contends that “practical theological inquiry and reflection attends to the resources provided by bother theological inquiry and non-theological disciplines which can deepen its penetration of its sources and challenges and help it avoid shallowness and superficiality in the directions it formulates.”[14] However, he does acknowledge that the field of Practical Theology has not been sufficiently attentive to the “cultural and societal significance of viable and lively local congregations of the church.”[15] Thus, the mutually critical and correlational dialogue that practical theologians have between Practical Theology and the social sciences must never be one way.

            In this first thesis, Fowler fails to resolve the dichotomy that he forms between the practical theological and the social scientific usage of hermeneutical methodology. Although he reveals the fact that both Practical Theology and the philosophically oriented social sciences are witnessing a “triumph of the hermeneutic”, he does not explain in detail how Practical Theology has benefited from the resurgence of the hermeneutical method in the fields of the social sciences. Furthermore, he mentions that Bellah did not use the actual word “hermeneutical” in his 1968 lecture. Fowler claims that what Bellah calls “symbolic realism” was essentially a hermeneutical methodology. However, Fowler did not explicate how this claim is true. I would have liked to have seen Fowler explain how Practical Theology has benefited from the social scientific resurgence of the hermeneutical method, discuss and trace the role of the hermeneutical method in the field of Practical Theology, and prove that what Bellah called “symbolic realism” was a sort of hermeneutical methodology.

            Fowler’s second thesis argument contends, “In both Practical Theology and in the philosophically oriented social sciences, we are witnessing the reassertion of the foundational character of practical knowing.”[16] In this portion of his argument he explores the resurgence of the term praxis as a form of “reflective knowing in the midst of ongoing participative action.”[17] According to Fowler, Latin American liberation theologies and European political theologies have been greatly influenced and mediated by the Marxian understanding of praxis. Additionally, Richard Bernstein’s Praxis and Action reveals the linkage between the Aristotelian understandings of praxis with Marxist pragmatist usage. Fowler goes on to say that Norma Haan, Robert Bellah, and others wrote a series of essays that examined the ways in which social scientific analysis informs moral renewal, creates transformation in societies, and reestablishes “the calling to social scientific research as prophetic inquiry and normative construction.”[18] In these essays, Haan seeks to create a praxis of analyzing the morality in everyday life; Gilligan assesses the Kohlberg theory of the development of moral reasoning and proposes an analytical but moral form of praxis; Sullivan appeals to the fields of social sciences to reclaim their heritage of reflection that forms personal and corporate virtue; and Bellah uses Durkheim, Weber, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Plato, and others to call for a trans disciplinary re-engagement with public philosophy from the social sciences.[19] Fowler uses the works of Haan, Bellah, and Gilligan to contend, “It is natural that practical theologians and social scientists should find fruitful points of mutual enrichment and help at the point of practical knowing.”[20] In this section of his thesis, I appreciated Fowler’s brief chronological discussion on the role of praxis in the mediated relationships between Marxism and theology. However, Fowler does not explain his interpretation of praxis in Marxism nor which school or branch of Marxist thought he is base his analysis on. Fowler ends this section by claiming that theologians have a lot to contribute to the fields of the social sciences as custodians of language. Although in his third thesis Fowler makes it very clear that practical theology benefits from the methodological and material contributions of social science, he does not explain what he means when he says that theologians have special contributions to make to social scientists; he does not prove that social scientists are interested in what theologians have to say nor does he argue how the social science can benefit from the works of practical theologians.

            Fowler’s third thesis argument was the most thorough of his seven arguments because he substantiated his claim with empirical analysis. He clearly reveals how practical theology benefits from the methodological and material contributions of social science with his analysis of Don Browning’s understanding of descriptive theology. Browning defines Descriptive Theology as a methodology that aims for a full description of situations and is concerned with capturing and discovering the questions that practical theology must bring to classical theology. It concentrates on investigating, appreciating, visualizing, understanding, illuminating and even critiquing the current social, cultural and ecclesial practices of a community. In his fourth thesis he reveals how “the incorporation of methods and perspectives of the social sciences in biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, and congregational studies all facilitate practical theology’s hermeneutical access to the sources of norms and vision from scripture and tradition.”[21] 

            In his fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh thesis, Fowler once again warns practical theologians of the potential risks involved with merging the social sciences and practical theology. He begins his warnings by using Peter Berger’s usage of the word “phenomenology” as a way to illustrate the danger in allowing the language and concepts of the social sciences to “ooze” over into Practical Theology in unexamined ways. He claims that although Berger’s language closed a gap for those who were between the realms of the religious and the everyday, we must be careful in blurring the lines between Practical Theology and the social sciences because the theories of the latter are “not only empirically descriptive but also, in a strictly formal sense, normative as well.”[22]  According to Fowler, there are five essential elements that differentiate Practical Theology from that social sciences and practical theologians must be aware of them in order to avoid the blurring of lines. First, in Practical Theology questions of meanings, norms, strategies, and action have specificity and concreteness and practical theologians are actors and participants in the shaping of the praxis in question.  Second, Practical Theology requires one to ascribe to a confessional and identity-conferring commitment to a community of faith, tradition of revelation, interpretation, and covenant to the praxis of God. Third, all situational description and analysis must have the overriding intent to discern the contours of the praxis of God and use them to shape the initiatives and actions of those within the situation. Fourth, Practical Theology must be a theological account of dynamics of contemporary revelation. And lastly, it must balance the willingness to engage in genuinely critical correlation with the interpretations of the Christian scriptures and traditions.

            I appreciated how Fowler commends the works of Don Browning and Robert Wuthnow for being clear about their disciplinary boundaries and methodologies without forcing exclusionary choices. He uses them as examples of how a person can do interdisciplinary work by using various methodologies without mudding the two and blurring the lines of demarcation.

            Prior to this moment, my research has heavily leaned on the works of theologians. However, hearing from the sociological side of the coin is equally as important. From a sociological standpoint, Peter Berger makes it very clear that his works, particularly his writings within The Sacred Canon, should never be read in terms of theological argumentation. He states that although certain theologians may find his work applicable to theological frameworks, he sees his methodological platitude as a sociological enterprise that can only be amenable to sociological theory. He disassembles the idea that the sociologist’s only job is to raise questions that are to then be answered by theologians. For Berger, “questions raised by sociological theory must be answered in terms falling within the latter’s universe of discourse.”[23] For this reason he contends that theologians should be extremely careful when attempting to engage in a “dialogue” with sociological theories because there are major discrepancies of relevance within the universes of discourse for theology and sociology. Like Berger, Fowler argues that these similarities and parallels often lure practical theologians into distorting the differentiation between theological inquiry and interdisciplinary social scientific analysis. Both Berger and Fowler contend that sociology and theology do not have the same aims, thus, the theologian must be extremely careful in borrowing from the other. Fowler’s concern with the mudding of the two analytical disciplines is rooted in the fact that he defines Practical Theology as a theological form of critically constructive reflection and construction that guides communities of faith in the praxis of mission and God’s work in the world.[24] Fowler warns practical theologians to only make dialogue partners with social scientific disciplines that have hermeneutical competence in historical norms and perspectives of a particular community’s Christian and biblical traditions. For him, it is only through the proficient consideration of these traditions that a practical theologian can utilize the “patterns and dynamics of societal, cultural, political, and interpersonal systems” and still call their analytical work practical theological inquiry. For this reason, Fowler would never recommend for a theologian to utilize the sociological theory of Peter Berger because he intentionally excludes the transcendent from his sociological account of religious phenomenon because be believed that methodological atheism was necessary for scientific enquiry.

            In the appendices, Berger makes it clear that the essential perspective of sociological theory understands religion as a human projection grounded in the infrastructure of human history. Therefore, any other theories or frameworks that attempt to examine the good or bad implications of certain religions and ethical values must be kept strictly apart from sociological theories because such varying forms of analysis take place in discrepant frames of reference. For instance, sociological theory asks the following questions: “If all religious plausibility is susceptible to ‘social engineering’, how can one be sure that those religious proposition (or, for that matter, ‘religious experiences’) that are plausible to oneself are not just that—products of ‘social engineering’—and nothing else?”[25] According to Berger, one cannot find much help for answering this type of question in theology because theological questioning and this example of sociological questioning take place in completely different frames of reference. Furthermore, it is very important to note that all theological ideas of the transcendent are absent from the sociological questions that Berger is posing. This very important difference in frames prevents ill-advised Christians from being able to use sociology, in Berger’s terms, “as an ancillary discipline to understand certain external problems of the social environment in which the church is located.” [26]

            Fowler agrees with Berger. Fowler argues that practical theologians of the potential risks involved with merging the social sciences and Practical Theology. He begins his warnings by using Peter Berger’s usage of the word “phenomenology” as a way to illustrate the danger in allowing the language and concepts of the social sciences to “ooze” over into Practical Theology in unexamined ways. He claims that although Berger’s language closed a gap for those who were between the realms of the religious and the everyday, we must be careful in blurring the lines between Practical Theology and the social sciences because the theories of the latter are “not only empirically descriptive but also, in a strictly formal sense, normative as well.”[27] According to Fowler, there are five essential elements that differentiate Practical Theology from that social sciences and practical theologians must be aware of them in order to avoid the blurring of lines. First, in Practical Theology questions of meanings, norms, strategies, and action have specificity and concreteness and practical theologians are actors and participants in the shaping of the praxis in question.  Second, Practical Theology requires one to ascribe to a confessional and identity-conferring commitment to a community of faith, tradition of revelation, interpretation, and covenant to the praxis of God. Third, all situational description and analysis must have the overriding intent to discern the contours of the praxis of God and use them to shape the initiatives and actions of those within the situation. Fourth, Practical Theology must be a theological account of dynamics of contemporary revelation. And lastly, it must balance the willingness to engage in genuinely critical correlation with the interpretations of the Christian scriptures and traditions.

            Both Berger and Fowler acknowledge the relevance between sociological thinking and theological thinking. For in stance, Fowler contends that “practical theological inquiry and reflection attends to the resources provided by other theological inquiry and non-theological disciplines which can deepen its penetration of its sources and challenges and help it avoid shallowness and superficiality in the directions it formulates."[28] Likewise, Berger argues that in order for fruitful and relevant interdisciplinary conversations to take place between sociology and theology, that theologians must be willing to: (1) see the necessity for a step-by-step re-evaluation of the traditional affirmations in terms of their own cognitive criteria, (2) analyze the contents of Christianity as human projections, (3) Come to terms with the obvious discomforts caused by interpreting Christianity as grounded in specific infrastructures and maintain as subjectively real by specific processes of plausibility-generation, (4) answer the question as to what else these projections may be, are precluding, and (5) take with utmost seriousness the historicity of religion. Berger admits that it is both impossible and foolish for sociologists to suggest that theologians should be immune to injury from the side of sociology, the theologian should make it a habit to “not worry unduly over anything the sociologist may have to say about religion.”[29] However, he admits that it will become more and more difficult for theologians to dismiss new sociological perspectives from their opus proprium because after all, he was not born as a theologian but as a person who is in a particular socio-historical situation and illuminated by the lighting apparatus of sociologists. Fowler uses the works of Haan, Bellah, and Gilligan to contend, “It is natural that practical theologians and social scientists should find fruitful points of mutual enrichment and help at the point of practical knowing.”[30]

            Berger’s argument was solid in that it critiqued theology and made a case for how theology could best benefit from a conversation between sociology and theology. However, I found Fowler’s argument to be extremely weak. Although I appreciated his attempt to use the works of Don Browning and Robert Wuthnow as examples of how a person can do interdisciplinary work by using various methodologies without mudding the two and blurring the lines of demarcation, his work reflected what Robin Gill would call a less sophisticate form of scholarship. His article did not do justice to both sociology and theology interdisciplinary. For instance, Fowler reasons that theological analysis focuses on shaping and transforming social practices; whereas, social scientists are commonly “unidirectional and non mutually critical.”[31] I appreciated Fowler’s brief chronological discussion on the role of praxis in the mediated relationships between Marxism and theology. However, for the sake of the final section of this blog, I really appreciated Berger’s argument that in order for true interdisciplinary dialogue to take place that partner on both sides must be open to such an enterprise.

            [1] Robin Gill, “Theology in a Social Context: Sociological Theology”, Ashgate Contemporary Ecclesiology, p. 182-183

            [2] Gill, 183

            [3] Ibid, 17

            [4] Ibid, 19

            [5] Ibid, 127

            [6] Ibid, 127

            [7] Ibid, 67

            [8] Ibid, 72

            [9] Ibid, 143

            [10] Ibid, 161

            [11] Fowler, James. “Practical Theology and the Social Sciences,” in Practical Theology International Perspectives. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999, 291

            [12] Ibid, 291

            [13] Ibid, 292

            [14] Ibid, 294

            [15] Ibid, 292

            [16] Ibid, 297

            [17] Ibid, 297

            [18] Ibid, 298

            [19] Ibid, 298

            [20] Ibid, 298

            [21] Ibid, 300

            [22] Ibid, 301

            [23] Berger, Peter L. "(1967) Sociology and Theology." Theology Today 24.3: 179

            [24] Berger, 292

            [25] Berger, 182

            [26] Berger, 181

            [27] Berger, 301

            [28] Fowler, 294

            [29] Berger 181.

            [30] Fowler 298.

            [31] Fowler, 291.