In summer 2019, I had the opportunity to lead a “Cultural Anthropology in Christian Perspective” seminar with graduate students at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
Our goal was to explore the frames and tools of cultural anthropology and their usefulness in ministerial and congregational contexts. Students not only immersed themselves in anthropological literature, but also got their hands dirty with ethnographic fieldwork. The students explored various topics via participant observation—from conference presentations on “creation science” to the “killing fields of Cambodia,” from the quotidian camaraderie of a local barbershop to the blurred lines of “online baptism.”
Whether it was critically evaluating anthropological theories or discerning the methodological assumptions inherent in both ethnography and theology, our goal was the same: to make the strange more familiar and the familiar more strange.
This, I told the cohort, was the goal of ethnographic research. As pastors and theologians tasked with carefully and critically considering how an ethnographic lens might help us fulfill our vocations, we came to appreciate that as the work of ethnography became more familiar, it was the work of theology that became more strange.
In a recently published article with Concordia Journal (Summer 2021), I extend the discussions in that seminar and reflect on how applying the perspectives, postures, and practices of ethnography might help academic theologians and pastors better understand the world we live in and better discern the varieties of theology and culture within our congregations, communities, and denominations.
I introduce “ethnography as theological practice” to help pastors and theologians more holistically understand the diverse, overlapping, and sometimes contradicting religious experiences and perspectives of our congregations, communities, and church bodies.