Sifting through the Past

To gain our glimpse of the future by way of prediction, I first had to look into the past: I needed to pay attention to the first 100 years, because much depends on HTR's way of proceeding as stated and as fashioned in practice. Thus, I first had to sift through HTR over the decades, checking various words, looking for essays about various religions and for attitudes toward learning about religions. For example, I found a number of articles dealing with Hindu India: “Emerson from an Indian Point of View,” Herambachandra Maitra (1911); “The Hindu Yoga-System,” Charles Rockwell Lanman (1918); “The Significance of Bonhoeffer's Interest in India,” William Jay Peck (1968); “Bathing in Krishna,” Dennis Hudson (1985); “Extending the Canon: Some Implications of a Hindu Argument about Scripture,” Francis X. Clooney (1992); “‘Ex Oriente Lux:’ Thoreau's Ecstasies and the Hindu Texts,” Alan D. Hodder (1993); “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: A Case Study from Hinduism,” by Arvind Sharma (2001); “Hindutva, Religious and Ethnocultural Minorities, and Indian-Christian Theology,” Sathianathan Clarke (2002). I also found articles on India taking its place in the missionary discourse that is the predecessor to what we might today call “Global Christianity;”Footnote ² insightful too, and surely relevant to the grounds and possibilities for interreligious study, were essays on comparative religion and history of religions.Footnote ³

But interesting articles do not of themselves add up to a common theme or outlook. Early in my preparation of this lecture, and as I was reading these articles, I had hoped to be able to tease out the changing views toward world religions underlying them, and by that means also to generate a theory of where HTR has been interreligiously. On that basis too, I hoped to catch hold of the distinctive character of HTR as a journal in which religions have been and can in the future be considered. But I found that the number of relevant articles was too small to serve as a basis for predicting trends. More importantly, I found also that since each and every article appeared without explanatory context—nothing like an editorial introduction that might have explained how this or that piece fit the overall view of HTR—it became clear that it was impossible to generate a theory about the “development of the understanding of world religions in HTR.” The essays stood without context, unexplained and self-standing, yielding hardly a clue predictive of trends in theological attitudes toward world religions.

So I looked then at least for a trend, guessing that perhaps HTR has in recent years been publishing more essays on world religions—in practice broadening the scope of the journal. Not so; rather, there has been a remarkable consistency in HTR from the start to now. There is a recurring ratio of articles related to Western religion, Christianity (and the biblical world and Judaism) as compared to articles touching upon other religions and cultures.Footnote ⁴ In 1918 this ratio was 18:1; in 1948—15:1; in 1978—15:1; and, in 2003–2007, an average of 20:1. Attention to Asia and Africa, for instance, has been minimal for 100 years, and with striking consistency. Even if there has been no explicit exclusion of Asia and Africa, Hinduism and Buddhism, etc., obviously there has been a preference for the Christian West and the Bible. While this is so in part due to the availability of publishable essays, my guess was that it also had to do with HTR's image of what counted as pertinent theological scholarship.

HTR's Editorial Perspective

There would have been no need for guesswork were this minimalist interest in religions defended by a clear editorial stance regarding how the study of world religions fit into a theological journal. It is editorial policy, not the number of articles, that would indicate to us the point where change might have to be made, and so I then began to ask, How and under what standards was HTR shaped with respect to the wider world? What might the underlying guiding conversation have been? What was the “editorial agency” guiding HTR, such as led to its remarkable consistency, quality, and focus on the Western intellectual world? For this, I had to think about HTR in a different way, tracing its editorial policy. But it has also been hard to trace an intentional pattern underlying the history of HTR, and we can find only very slender policy clues, even in available statements of the purpose of HTR.

The earliest statement of HTR's purpose seems to have been an announcement of the plan to publish a journal beginning on 1 January 1908. This announcement declares clearly the purpose and independence of HTR: “The scope of the review will be broad, including not only theology, in the wider meaning of the word, but the history and philosophy of religion, ethics, sociology, economics, and education”—a rich horizon for the journal, that we could imagine also characterizing the future of HTR. But the statement immediately goes on to a more specific concern: “in so far as these have a bearing on religious thought or the practical work of the Church.”Footnote ⁵ There is a nondenominational flexibility, to be sure, but it is still a matter of serving “the Church” in practical, educative ways. I do not think there was a conscious shift away from such commitment at any given date, but nonetheless it is of great import whether or not responsibility to the Church, or something like a church, remained in place or not. The imagined audience for the new journal is broad, including not just academic scholars but also active ministers and laymen “who are interested in religious thought and in the place and function of religion in modern life.”Footnote ⁶ The statement does indeed proclaim a certain independence—“the Review will not be the organ of any sect nor the advocate of any peculiar opinions, but will endeavor to enlist the cooperation and support of all who believe that the interpretation and application of religion present to every generation its own problems”—but this is independence for the Church, that the Church may “maintain its faith and fulfill its task,” since “the very spiritual life of the Church itself demands a continual thinking forward in the apprehension of the truth.”

In 1908, the opening dedication to Charles Carroll Everett according to the wishes of his daughter Mildred Everett announces “the establishment and maintenance of an undenominational theological review.”Footnote ⁷ This seems to be a prediction true to the consequent history of HTR: an insistence on “theology,” but in a loose sense, being undenominational, non-denominational—and also universal, catholic—and yet still for the sake of the Church. In 1911 and thereafter, HTR's scope was described in consistent terms: “discussions in the various fields of theological study and also in the history of religions, ethics, education, economics, and sociology, in their theological and religious aspects.” HTR is both focused and wide open, since it “is designed to serve the needs not only of clergymen and scholars, but of all who are interested in religious thought and in the place and function of religion in modern life.”Footnote ⁸ But by 1930,Footnote ⁹ this unexceptionable claim transmuted into a still more neutral statement that would leave almost entirely fluid the criteria for what would make it into the journal: “[HTR] aims to publish investigations, discussions, and reviews which contribute to the enlargement of knowledge or the advance of thought. From time to time it will present surveys of recent literature in the various fields of learning that fall within its cognizance.”Footnote ¹⁰

Such pronouncements, stated early and then repeated unvaryingly for a century, do not tell us the whole of the story. Rather, unstated editorial preferences must, we assume, be taken as decisive. At the heart of the matter is the set of choices made regularly and in practice over a century, as mediated and enacted through the personality of the earliest editorial team, and then Arthur Darby Nock, Krister Stendahl, Helmut Koester, François Bovon, and their conversation partners.Footnote ¹¹HTR grew and flourished in accord with an understated undeclared editorial policy worked out, presumably, through in-house conversations.Footnote ¹²

At this point, faced with rather minimal evidence of the study of world religions in HTR and still less evidence of any particular policy as to what was acceptable or not, it was not clear what else I might do to interpret the past of HTR, even just for the sake of my mandate to ponder its interreligious future. Without more clues as to the logic of the last hundred years of HTR with respect to religions, I have had to turn rather speculatively to the future, looking to how HTR might grow, and with what contemporary combination of independence, connectedness to community, and a possibly new sense of theological reflection.

But I do proceed with a thesis. I suggest that if HTR has remained focused on Biblical studies and Christian theology, and if this focus has arisen not from an explicitly stated editorial policy but out of the conversations of the HDS faculty, particularly the editors and their conversation partners, then shaping a more comprehensive yet still theological future for HTR will occur not by materially increasing the number of articles on various topics, or by drafting an explicitly inclusive mission statement, but rather by reimagining the community whence HTR properly arises: the Harvard Divinity School of 2008, inside Harvard University, an increasingly diverse and global university that provides a most interesting site for theological reflection. By reflecting on where the conversation about HTR occurs, we can gain insight into where its editorial practice might profitably lead.

Why It Matters that Harvard Theological Review Is Not a “Review”

But first, before teasing out the possibilities of “Harvard” and “Theological,” I wish to highlight the anomaly of calling HTR a “review.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a review is “a periodical publication consisting mainly of articles in which current events or questions, or literary works, are discussed or criticized.” It seems clear that HTR is not a review in this sense, given its rather early turn toward refined theological scholarship. But the fact that it had been conceived of as a review gives us an idea of its expected source of nourishment: the life of the Church embodied in a community of readers from the ministry and wider audience of readers interested in religion's role in American life. HTR was, it seems, to have stood in a dynamic and symbiotic relationship with this academic and ecclesial readership, and this goal seems to have been indicated by the title of “review.”

In fact, though, HTR need not take up that function again, since Harvard Divinity Bulletin seems admirably suited for this purpose. Consider its stated policy: “Harvard Divinity Bulletin is a magazine that includes articles, reviews, and opinion pieces on religion and contemporary life, religion and the arts, religious history, and the study of religion.”Footnote ¹³ A 2005 statement amplifies this “review-like” status: “Especially at a moment when conflict in public arenas so often involves religion, we believe it is important to open out the way we interpret, and reflect, HDS's mission—which is preparing future scholars, ministers, and leaders across the professions according to a common intellectual rigor and with an emphasis on religious pluralism. We believe that this publication can be, in that regard, a broadly accessible—and broadly participated in—forum on questions of worldwide, ecumenical concern, with the School as its dynamic bedrock and monitor of excellence.” The actual practice of the Bulletin is faithful to this stated purpose, introducing accessible and timely topics in its various essays. It is written in such a way as to be accessible to a wide audience, not merely a scholarly one. The Bulletin is surely a “review” in a good and rich sense; but HTR is nothing like that.Footnote ¹⁴

Why this matters is as follows: if HTR is not a review in the more immediate sense of interacting with a wider audience on current matters, we must ask where, if anywhere, its center of gravity lies, and for whom, primarily, it is published, in today's vastly expanded global and interreligious theological environment. In order to craft a feasible prospect in this regard, we need to consider how Harvard might function as fertile ground for HTR as a theological journal.

“Harvard” as Defining HTR's Location

In today's Harvard, the Church/churches can hardly be said to be a vital audience for the university, and it is debatable how deeply such communities matter to HDS itself, even if the School does maintain important relationships with particular churches. When HTR defined itself as “undenominational,” this was a pointed, bold claim directed to the churches, which understood the point of this claim to a kind of practical and intellectual independence. But there has always been the possibility of slippage, from undenominational to a simply detached status, merely unconnected to Church—as religious community—at all. We therefore need to consider how HTR might be a site for reflection on religion at Harvard, and Harvard itself the primary source for HTR's place in the (re)thinking of religion today—Harvard conceived as a place rich in religious possibilities that necessarily connect the university to religious communities worldwide; the study of religions today does not allow us to think of a university merely as a site distanced from recognizable religions and conversation with them.

Certainly there are many possibilities. HTR itself is of course the primary publication of HDS, drawing in a privileged fashion upon the rich diversity of this academic community. HDS is in turn distinguished by specific enduring programs such as the Center for the Study of World Religions, the Women's Studies in Religion Program, and the Program in Religious Studies and Education. Any of these entities might be expected to produce substantive material for reflection such as might find a place in HTR. Likewise, HDS has a special relationship with the Committee on the Study of Religions; resources affiliated with the Committee, such as the Pluralism Project, also provide particular insights into issues of import and wide concern today. Given that religion is increasingly important in today's world, there are also many other venues at Harvard where religion is discussed, conversations to which HTR might well be attuned.

While Harvard is not a religiously affiliated institution, the university community is religiously diverse, and religion and religions are recognized as timely in different disciplines, in multiple ways. I suggest that reflection on religion at Harvard is and should be both objectively (with respect to the topic of reflection) and subjectively (with respect to those doing the reflecting) a multi- and then inter-religious environment. Given that HTR is not and should not try to be a “review,” I am not suggesting that HTR should start printing reports on events occurring at HDS and around the university. Rather, I am suggesting that it should be more vigorously the site for the publication of reflection on what has been written, discussed, lectured, taught, and performed at HDS and around the university.

“Harvard” also marks a conversation much larger than that which occurs on campus; the members of this community and the institutions that comprise it find in Harvard a way of connecting to the world, including the many religious communities where important conversations about religion—thought, felt, and lived—are occurring. Harvard in itself, and Harvard as the source of innumerable personal and institutional connections around the world, provides important personal connections for the sake of a community wherein religion can be explored by scholars of different religious backgrounds in conversation with scholars who simply write about religion and religions. Harvard is a place that makes such relationships easier to establish, and thus it is a context out of which HTR can redefine itself as a journal of this university. Even if the journal will never be a strictly in-house journal, where Harvard insiders do all the writing, it can build its base in and on Harvard, and craft its distinctive identity through conversations on campus, particularly among the editorial team.

How Might the Harvard Theological Review Still Be “Theological”?

There is a possibility, then, of HTR being a journal that is still usefully, profitably rooted in HDS, in Harvard, replete with reflection stemming from the internal and external networks of the university. But would the focus be “theology” in any recognizable sense? Here I appeal to two essays by colleagues at Harvard Divinity School.

As to what kind of theology this might be, let us recall first Ronald F. Thiemann's 1986 Inaugural Convocation Address, “Toward a Critical Theological Education.”Footnote ¹⁵ In reflecting on the current state of HDS at the time of the 350^th anniversary of Harvard, Thiemann makes the case that only if HDS recovers and deepens a theological basis for its diverse curriculum can it become relevant again:

For theology to be a relevant discipline in the contemporary university, it has to be a critical endeavor by which we can “raise new queries about the relation between the descriptive and the normative, between the critical and the moral dimensions of human understanding. In so doing we can contribute to the on-going discussion about the moral applications of critical thinking, but we can also pose fresh questions about the fiduciary and moral presuppositions inherent in all critical inquiry.”Footnote ¹⁷

On this basis too, Thiemann concludes, theological reflection will serve an “indispensable integrative function within our curriculum”:

While this critical reflection can occur imaginatively in many venues, I suggest that HTR can and should be a primary place wherein Harvard's critical theological reflection is published. In this way, given the nature of the university, HTR will also become a truly interreligious theological journal.

We can update Thiemann's forward-looking vision of theology by looking to Janet Gyatso's 2003 convocation address (published in the Bulletin) and her plea for a more capacious sense of theology to be employed at HDS, such as would facilitate and recognize a place for the work of practicing Buddhist scholars engaged in constructive Buddhist theology:

The alternative Buddhist theology would be a challenge and risky shift in mode of scholarship:

Unexpectedly, Harvard might be a place for that community and the theology that might arise from it:

This new conversation can of course be imagined similarly to include many other religious communities in their particular traditional and contemporary forms, as our thinking about religions is enriched in increasingly diverse and multi-directional conversations. That we might publish the fruits of such conversations in HTR is a truly exciting possibility.

Thiemann and Gyatso give us grounds for thinking otherwise about the future of theology at HDS and, by extension, about HTR's future as a theological journal. If this kind of research and teaching is to become central at HDS, it can and should be published first of all in HTR. We could go on in this fashion, seeking other clues in the writing of HDS faculty, toward this kind of rooted and multi-religious theology, worked out with imagination regarding other religious traditions such as Hinduism and the religions of Africa and East Asia.Footnote ¹⁹

This kind of intelligent theological approach should enable the term “theological” to have new force in a steadfastly ecumenical and interreligious framework, where terms such as “truth,” “revelation,” “scripture,” “grace,” “God,” “salvation,” and “liberation” have enduring force, even in the modern university.

As in the traditions themselves, all of this has to be worked out through texts, traditions, practices, and reason—and in a theology that is undenominational, global, inclusive, and in conversation across religious boundaries. How this might be a practicable theological conversation that could find its place in a scholarly journal such as HTR is a difficult question, since a vast set of global possibilities does not necessarily or easily condense itself into a regularly published journal. Given diversity of traditions and languages, different theological terminologies, even different styles of usage of the English language, it will certainly not be easy to produce and maintain a high quality theological journal that is seriously global and interreligious.

But there is no reason for us to lose a sense of proportion at this point, and we should realistically assume that HTR's editorial community will continue to work at making this a viable journal in continuity with its first one hundred years. For instance, if HTR has for generations made a signal contribution to “Biblical Studies,” there is no reason why a more broadly conceived commitment to the interpretation of “Scriptures” might not be a signal characteristic of the future HTR. Such a commitment, because focused, might enhance HTR's global profile, clarifying the kinds of contributions most appropriate to this particular journal. It would follow, of course, that a theological journal in which this wider study of scripture is prominent would also shed light on how the Bible is most relevantly studied today, in conversation with the wider community of text scholars of many traditions.

As Harvard's global journal for critical (inter)religious (theological) reflection, HTR would then still be for “the Church”—this term now indicating a wider variety of communities of religious believers, practitioners, and others who are sympathetically interested in faith and practice. Just as “non-denominational” and “undenominational” did not indicate a secular disinterest in or absolute separation from religious communities, HTR's academic stance in the next century might be similarly free from any too particular bond to any one tradition, while yet being constructive and actively interested in the critical religious reflection occurring in many traditions.

Seen in this light, the future of theology at Harvard is not necessary dim. As Francis Greenwood Peabody wrote in a more hopeful tone at the end of his essay:

This of course need not be true also in 2008; we cannot merely assume that doing our work well and imaginatively will result in a wider, renewed interest in theology. But it does seem plausible that one of the more solidly founded hopes for theology's future lies in the prospect that it may be (more) deeply rooted in the context of Harvard, for broader yet scholarly conversations that are Harvard's, and still theological, and appearing as the dominant theme of HTR in the first years of its second century.