Sacramental Presences at the Center

March 4, 2016
Sacramental Presences at the Center

On March 4-5, the Center hosted a small workshop, "Sacramental Presences: Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Daoist Perspectives." For two days we took up today's turn in comparative studies to ritual and liturgical practice as an important site for new learning that reaches beyond the study of texts and the exchange of ideas.

Convened by Matthew Potts and myself as members of the HDS faculty and Center, the participants included three other Harvard professors (Diana Eck, Kimberley Patton, Michelle Sanchez) and one Harvard doctoral student (Caley Smith), as well as ten professors from around the United States and abroad: Poul Andersen (University of Hawaii-Manoa, emeritus); Kimberly Hope Belcher (University of Notre Dame); Catherine Cornille (Boston College); David Mozina (Boston College); Barbara Holdrege (University of California, Santa Barbara); Jacob Kinnard (Iliff School of Theology); Bruce Morrill (Vanderbilt University); Marianne Moyaert (VU University, Amsterdam); Robert Neville (Boston University School of Theology); Kenneth Valpey (Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, and Bhaktivedanta College, Belgium).

Sacramental Presence Workshop group photo

The workshop placed its investigations under the title, "sacramental presence" (a broader category than the "real presence" familiar in the Christian tradition). For our working purposes, we had in advance agreed that sacramental presence would refer to instances of divine or supernatural realities manifest in a material form or forms: consecrated image, material object, natural or consecrated, self-standing, alive in ritual practice. These are taken to present, in deep and yet too public ways transcendent realities otherwise inaccessible to the senses: the true presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine of a Catholic Eucharist; the powerful sanctity written into a Greek Orthodox icon; the immediacy of divine presence in the sacred form (murti) at the heart of a Hindu temple; the remarkable interplay of presence and absence in early Buddhist iconography; and the presence of transcendent realities in Daoist ritual practice and spiritual possession. During our intensive two days of conversation, we discussed the nature and meaning of sacred presence in these four traditions, often enough noticing key texts, but also attending to the practices and aesthetics of worship, including too the nuances arising in the varied communal receptions of these embodied sacred realities. Of course, as in all events at the Center, the required skills and tools of analysis in the academic study of religion and ritual studies were in play; but the distinctive mode of discourse was theological, with an eye toward a comparative learning that always includes the perspective of the insider and practitioner. Though many critical points were raised, this group of scholars (and the approximately ten doctoral students and recent graduates who sat in on part or all of the workshop) were interested in pondering sacramental presences by way of positive construction as well as the ordinary modes of analysis and deconstruction.

Though much was accomplished in the two days, we could hardly be unaware of what was left to be done: drawing other traditions into the conversation — such as Judaism and Islam, religious traditions of Africa and of the Americas, for example; attending more closely to particular rituals and particular images/icons studied in depth; paying closer attention still to traditional and modern resistances to the language and practices of presence, ranging from ancient iconoclasts to prophets denouncing idolatry to adherents to apophatic modes of knowing; the possibility of new and unanticipated modes of presence, either composed in today's popular cultures, or arising even from the very reflection we were involved in, as multiple traditions are explored at one time. Perhaps most importantly, as we proceeded we became very aware that "sacramental presence" bears with it the possibility or likelihood of "absence" either as an alternative to presence or (more likely) as its necessary companion. At the end of the second day, we were also considering a broader category for this kind of inquiry, a "material theology" that would be capacious enough for the wide variety of contents and approaches even our small sample included. That so many important topics could not be explored fully indicates the need for further conversation, including further such workshops at the Center and in other venues.­­­

In the subject matter and in our investment in a small scale and intense conversation, friends of the Center will recognize values inherent in my nearly six years as Director of the Center: comparative and theological, involving scholars about and practitioners of the traditions, on a smaller rather than larger scale. The Center had similarly hosted in 2013 a workshop on the Song of Songs in an interdisciplinary and interreligious perspective, appreciative then too of the value of a dedicated conversation among just a small group of scholars, and in recent years we have supported small conferences by a number of Divinity School faculty. Despite the attraction of prestigious individual lectures and the impact of large conventions, these small gatherings too are sites of intellectual work and insight that the Center needs to host. While I have only one year left in my term as director, which ends in June 2017, I am confident that the next director will continue this kind of initiative.

Linked very aptly with the workshop was the annual Comparative Theology Lecture, made possible in part by generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. This year's lecture was given by Professor Marianne Moyaert (VU University, Amsterdam), "Towards a Liturgical Turn in Comparative Theology? Opportunities, Challenges and Problems." Professor Marianne Moyaert (VU University, Amsterdam)As Professor Moyaert indicated in her interview with CSWR resident Melissa Coles, she is proposing "that depending on the sort of source from which we theologize, different questions come to mind relating to different theological problems. Indeed, turning to material and ritual practices, in addition to textual sources, will reveal aspects of the divine that remain invisible when one would stay within the limits of textual study." While not wishing to downplay the importance of textual work, Professor Moyaert did emphasize the value of complementarity between textual and ritual/liturgical learning, neither mode exclusive of the other. You can watch her lecture here. The lecture cleared the way for the workshop's multi-dimensional consideration of text and image and practice, all carefully examined through historical-critical, comparative, and theological lenses, and always with due respect for insider as well as outsider perspectives.

—by Francis X. Clooney, S.J., director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Parkman Professor of Divinity, Professor of Comparative Theology