I'm carrying on a series of earlier posts (see here and here) on how we can harvest the drama metaphor (theatrical metaphor) as a means of bridging the three disciplines of biblical theology, systematic theology and ethics. Here in this post, we are exploring how the drama metaphor can be applied to the discipline of ethics.
Samuel Wells has attempted just that in his Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004). We shall summarise and evaluate his first section, where he sets out the presuppositions of his methodology.
Wells' proposes in the first section of his book (consisting of 4 chapters) that the theatrical notion of improvisation is 'an appropriate mode in which to understand the nature and purpose of Christian ethics' (p.11) He begins first by showing that the discipline of ethics has always 'been subject to the church's understanding of God an it's location in society more generally' (p.11), and he does this in the first chapter by painting broad strokes of how ethics has been practiced in the six historical eras of the early church; Christian empire; decay of empire; Middle Ages; modern, and postmodern times, before concluding that 'in common with the early church this book's approach seeks first to understand ethics specifically for Christians, rather than more generally "for everybody"' (p.30). In another words, 'ethics is theological' i.e. it is about 'imitating God, following Christ, being formed by the Spirit to become friends with God.' (p.31). In fact, Wells goes further to suggest that it is particularly 'ecclesial ethics' that is on view here as a distinctive theological ethic. Ecclesial ethics focuses on the traditions and practices of the church and the character and acts of God, and sees the key location of theology as being in the practices of the church (as opposed to the other primary locations of sacred text, events, or set of doctrines) (p.37). He writes:
"Theological ethics requires the written text, but is not limited to the written word. It assumes interpretation, but can never be just a verbal matter, written or spoken. It inevitably involves the organisation of interpretation and its structuring into doctrine, but this exercise must always be a support to something else, not an end in itself. That something else is the embodiment of the text, the events it describes, its interpretation and systematic construal in the practices and performance of the community. [...] It is what happens when words leave the page, when thoughts leave the mind, when actions ripple through other lives and cause further actions and further thoughts. It is what happens when narrative becomes drama." (p.46)
Wells proceeds to give a brief account of Hans Urs Von Balthasar (p.46-51) and N.T. Wright (p.51-53), two theologians who have given consideration to the notion of theology as drama and the bible's storyline as drama respectively. Wells himself ends up with the concept of a Five-Act Play (he follows the five-acts suggestion of N.T. Wright but differs from Wright in that he collapses Creation and Fall into one Act and includes in the eschaton as Act 5). Wells suggests that the five-act proposal enables the drama from becoming either too "epic" or too "lyric", and hence 'balances the need for a genuinely human dimension to the drama, with the need for a genuinely divine shape' (p.53). He concludes the third chapter by providing a helpful account of the common mistakes one can make in failing to understand the significance of the five-act drama (p.53-57). In the last chapter of this section, Well pushes on to the final step of his presuppositions in his methodology - and that is, 'if the Christian story is drama, then ethics, the embodiment of that story, is appropriately regarded as performance' (p.59). Well succinctly reviews the works of the those who have capitalised on the notion of performance (Lash, Brueggemann, Vanhoozer, Craigo-Snell), before providing some criticisms of the notion of performance - the main one being that the notion of performance is tied too tightly to the Script and hence runs the risk of merely being merely repetitive. As Wells puts it,
"It is not that the text of Scripture is not, or should not ,be fixed. It is that there is a dimension of Christian life that requires more than repetition, more even that interpretation - but not as much as origination, or creation de novo. That dimension, the key to abiding faithfulness, is improvisation." (p.65)
That is the task of Wells in the second section of his book, where he will seek to outline six practices that characterise improvisation in the theater and show how these six practices might characterise Christian ethics also.
While not having completed the book yet, a few quick pointers in terms of an evaluation are in place. While Wells has provided a plausible argument in laying out the presuppositions of his methodology, the presuppositions could be further challenged at each point. For example, firstly, Wells aligns himself with the 'early church' era and states that ethics is primarily for Christians before it is 'for everybody'. While this is largely true, one questions if Wells has underplayed the 'universal' effect of theological ethics. i.e. isn't the five-act play more 'universal' in scope than what Wells has made it out to be in that the whole world is involved in the first and second and final fifth act as well? Afterall, the drama is God's meta-narrative and his comprehensive explanation of reality for all, and not just for Christians. How Christians act and behave in the fourth-act is in turn affected and has some continuity with the first to third act, hence theological ethics has something to offer to the rest of the world as well. Not that Wells does not cover these points, but his presentation could have accounted for this aspect more. Secondly, Wells reliance on the Yale tradition (Frei, Kelsey, Lindbeck) is clearly seen in that the primary location for theology and ethics lies in the practices of the church, hence there is a strong emphasis on the church's performance and improvisation in Act 4 of the drama (and hence also Wells' concerns over the notion of performance being tied too tightly to the Script). This need not be the only and necessary model for the drama metaphor to work. In fact, Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine capitalises on the notion of drama while giving primacy in location of theology to Scripture (or the Script). Thirdly, without having read on more, the notion of improvisation needs to be defined further, otherwise it is left open to a lot of questions, e.g. does it give enough attention to the fact that some aspects of Christian living might be better described under the notion of performance (even if it is repetitive performance) than improvisation, for e.g. obeying Jesus' commands not to divorce? The notion of improvisation might also inevitably become a parking station for justifying either blatantly wrong practices or the 'grey' practices. But in all fairness to Wells, this third comment needs to be further justified itself by reading the rest of his book.
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