Harvesting the Drama Metaphor for Ethics Part II

See here for Part I of post.

In the 2nd section of his book, Wells moves on to examine five practices carried out as part of improvisation within the theatre – assessing status; accepting or blocking; questioning givens; incorporating gifts or ‘overaccepting’; and reincorporating – and seeks to see how these five practices could be applied to ethics. Well’s main proposal is that such improvisory practices enables the Church to know better how it should carry out its practices as it lives in Act 4. Wells proposes the main practice that should characterise the church should be that of ‘accepting all offers – to let go of the impulse to block and to enjoy the freedom of perpetually accepting’ (p.115).In the case of less than ideal offers, even evil offers, the church should not rely on ‘blocking’, but instead should ‘overaccept’. A (somewhat lengthy) paragraph from the book captures what I think is at the heart of Well’s argument:

“I have argued in my treatment of improvisation so far that Christian ethics is about learning to take the right things for granted. It is commonplace to perceive life within the context of a story, and one takes a circumstance or development for granted if it is true to the character of the story. Christianity perceives reality in terms of a particular story, whose broad dimensions I set out [...] as a five-act drama, spanning creation-Israel-Jesus-church-eschaton. The key to Christian living is to have a thorough perception and embodiment of what forms of life are appropriate to Act Four. Many, perhaps most, of the church’s mistakes derive from a mistaken apprehension of which act it is in. It is not the church’s vocation to create (Act One) or to conclude (Act Five) the story. The Messiah has come (Act Three), and it is the church’s role to follow in Christ’s footsteps (Act Four), not to act as if the fullness of God were yet to be revealed (Act Two). Thus the simple task of the church is to keep the story going, in the face of numerous temptations to block and kill the story when it becomes uncomfortable or threatening. Because the Christian story is larger and greater in depth and scope than the smaller stories that present themselves, Christians can overaccept the offers that come to them from the world in the light of the larger story. Rather than use violence, which bypasses the imagination, kills the story, and sits uneasily in Act Four, the church addresses threats to its integrity by perceiving what such offers could mean in the context of the five-act play.” (p.143-144)

Wells then moves on in the 3rd section of the book to apply his improvisory model to the four issues of human evil, diseases and sicknesses, cloning, and genetically modified food (!) In each of these issues, he consistently applies the five practices mentioned above within improvisation to the issue.

Overall, Wells’ methodology of carrying out ethics in Improvisation could be described as a ‘post-liberal virtue ethic couched in the theatrical language of improvisation’. ‘Post-liberal’ because Well’s emphasis on the location of theology and ethics being grounded in the practices of the church appear often enough to show his indebtness to those in the post-liberal tradition (e.g. Lindbeck). ‘Virtue’ because Wells’ central focus in the practices of the church is always on the formation of habits within the church, especially those formed through its acts of worship. The following paragraph captures both these emphases of Wells’:

“I argue that Christian ethics must always be grounded in the practices of the church. I suggest that the central role of Christian ethics is the formation of habits and disciplines – that it is those habits and disciplines that largely shape what the church regards as crises and dilemmas – and that it is those same habits and disciplines that largely govern the church’s response to such crises and dilemmas. [...] And I describe two central practices, overaccepting and reincorporation, that epitomize how communities should seek to reflect the pattern of God’s activity and embody the Christian story in their common life.” (p.213)

While Wells’ model could be one way of seeing how the theatrical metaphor could be applied to ethics; and while Wells has provided at times some interesting insights and reflections into ethical issues through his ‘improvisory practices’, one wonders if this is the most ideal way of utilising the theatrical metaphor. My main concern is the lack of consideration of the rest of the four Acts (Acts 1, 2, 3, and 5) within the Drama, and a result, due weight is not given to these other Acts. One seems to get the impression that for Wells, Acts 1 and 2 are merely there to remind the church not to behave as if it was still in the first two acts (as if it was creator or as if the Messiah has not come). But Wells has failed to give due attention to how Acts 1 and 2 could in fact have some degree of continuity into Act 4 for ethical consideration. Act 3 also seems to be there so that the church in Act 4 can directly follow on from its Saviour. This fails to consider how Jesus himself fulfils Act 1 and 2, and how in doing so, might have implications in terms of the Church’s following in Act 4. In another words (and in Wells’ terminology), ’overaccepting’ might mean more than just directly following Jesus in Act 3, but rather an overall consideration of how the whole Drama (Acts 1-3 and 5) might impact the exact stance of the church in ‘overaccepting’. This leads in to my last ‘questioning of the givens’ (in Wells’ terminology again) – Is virtue ethics the main way to carry out ethics within the theatrical metaphor? While it is definitely part of the consideration, wouldn’t the fact that there is Act 5 set the main way of doing ethics as more teleological in nature, or at least give more attention to it?