Chapter 13: Theater, Theology, and Empowerment
13
Theater, Theology, and Empowerment
Kierkegaard and Boal
Could Kierkegaard be a resource for liberation theology? At first glance, most Kierkegaard readers and scholars might answer this question with a no. While some have explored this question,608 none have offered a sustained study. I think this is because Kierkegaard is commonly viewed and criticized for not being attentive enough to the world and the importance of material concerns for a Christian theology of ethics.609 This essay approaches this issue with unusual connection: theater. Theater is usually associated with the secular arts or even a lowbrow entertainment with vaudeville and burlesque. Yet as Carl Hughes’s recent book on Kierkegaard, theater, and love argues, Kierkegaard engages theater in a positive and in a spiritually up-building way.610
This essay brings Kierkegaard’s rhetorical engagement with theater into dialogue with Augusto Boal’s theatrical practice of liberating empowerment in Theater of the Oppressed.611 What prompted me to bring these two thinkers into dialogue is that Boal and Kierkegaard both suggest a reversal of roles from the traditional or commonly understood theatrical responsibilities. Usually the actors or speakers move about on stage speaking their lines and inhabiting their characters, while spectators, or listeners, or congregants, sit passively watching and listening, and perhaps empathizing with some characters and rooting against others. There may be prompters or souffleurs off-stage whispering lines to the performers in case they forget. Both Boal and Kierkegaard experiment with shuffling these roles by prodding the spectators to be the ones whose act-ions are important. Both turn upside down the common assumptions about the authority of the persons with power such as the preacher and the director. Instead, they suggest that the liberating function of the preacher, or the director (Boal names this role “Joker”), is to prompt the spectators to elicit their own words, actions, and thoughts. One reason Boal names this role “Joker” is that his approach is a reversal of what is expected. Boal and the “Joker” create a controlled chaos to mix things up. He names this approach to theater as the “joker system” to indicate a use of theater for rehearsing for revolution.612
This parallel reversal of roles and the corresponding emphasis upon the agency of the people in the seats got my imagination wondering about the fecund possibilities of a conversation between Boal and Kierkegaard. Boal’s analysis reveals the importance of dissolving the division between those who speak and those who listen for the sake of engendering self-awareness and agency in the people, for the sake of empowering those who are oppressed.613 I will argue that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the believer’s active agency in worship coupled with his attention to the subjecthood of those we are called to love, indicate that his work can be a theological and practical resource for a theology of liberation. I conclude by delineating several strengths that this collaboration offers for liberation theology.
Further I note that Boal’s analysis of the dangers of theater is in line with Kierkegaard’s own “chaos-creating” theological critique of Christendom. Taking both of these notions into account suggests that reformers of Christianity and church life in our own time might benefit from adjusting the divisions between laity and clergy in a way that empowers all believers to take responsibility for their own faith decisions.
At first it might seem as if Kierkegaard’s theological explication of the divine command to love each and every neighbor as oneself might lend itself toward a theology that highlights equality between persons. Kierkegaard says in Works of Love that Christian love is love of the neighbor without attention to one’s own preference. This is in contradistinction to erotic feelings and even friendship. “Erotic love and friendship are . . . the passion of preferential love.”614 Kierkegaard argues that preferential love is opposed to eternal or Christian love. They differ from each other in three significant ways: in the object to which the love is directed, in the purpose of the love, and most importantly, in the source of the love. Preferential love is directed to a particular beloved exclusively. Christian love is directed to the neighbor without reference to one’s own preference. It is love expressed equally to each neighbor one sees. Second, preferential love is for the purpose of evoking reciprocal feelings from the beloved, while Christian love is to build up the other in love and a godly relationship. This building up occurs by presuming that love is already present. And last, the source of preferential love is the preference, whereas in Christian love, the source is God’s love; the middle term is God. Since God is the middle term, the Christian is called to love each neighbor equally, regardless of their economic and social status or any other distinctive characteristic.
However, even though he formulates Christian love as valuing each neighbor equally,615 he does not go on to argue that Christians should work to eradicate the earthly inequalities of society. Jamie Ferreira explains that Kierkegaard is not arguing for a “naïve of cavalier dismissal of socioeconomic differences.”616 He writes that “Christianity has not taken away the dissimilarity” of earthly life.617 Rather, he suggests that these dissimilarities “must continue as long as temporality continues and must continue to tempt every human being who comes into the world, inasmuch as by being a Christian he does not become exempt from dissimilarity, but by overcoming the temptations of dissimilarity, he becomes a Christian.”618 In other words, he thinks that the differences between people can be useful for the training of Christians. These differences tempt us to view some persons as more deserving of love than others, revealing how much more inner work needs to be done.619 The Christian commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself is a commandment to love regardless of the earthly differences; it is a mandate to lift oneself above the earthly differences. The action of changing one’s own inner response to these earthly differences is part of the process by which one becomes a Christian. This is one of the primary themes of this book.620
One might critique Kierkegaard’s position here as being antithetical to the intention of liberation theology or any political liberation. As Jamie Ferreira points out, Kierkegaard is commonly criticized for not being attentive enough to the world and the importance of material concerns for a Christian theology of ethics.621 Kierkegaard’s theology is so focused on an individual’s soul that regard for the external conditions of oppression seem insignificant to his goals. He explicitly warns against the attention to creating equality in worldly matters, arguing that it is “a well-intentioned worldliness” that errs not only in attempting the impossible but also in being distracted from the truly Christian notion of equality. That is equality before God, as loved by God.622 A liberation theologian might argue that if one were called to love the neighbor, including those who are poor or mistreated in society, one would work against economic injustice. Does not loving one’s neighbor entail changing the economic structures, or at least, alleviating the suffering in some way, like feeding the poor?
Kierkegaard’s answer is affirmative to the last part of the question, but not to the first part. He advocates feeding the poor, but even in this feeding ministry, he remains focused on the individual neighbor and the inner work of Christians to change themselves. This personal and immediate focus is accentuated by his assertion of the manner by which one should feed the poor. Christian love demands not only to feed the poor, but also to give a banquet for those who are poor and lowly. He proclaims “one who feeds the poor—but still has not been victorious over his mind in such a way that he calls this meal a banquet—sees the poor and the lowly only as the poor and the lowly. The one who gives the banquet sees the neighbor in the poor and lowly.”623 Seeing the neighbor is seeing an individual subject who is to be loved and one who can love. Here he makes it clear that the poor ought to be treated with respect and appreciation—as an honored friend. This might be read as suggesting a preferential option for the poor and lowly. Here his thought seems friendlier to liberation theology.
An astute reader might be thinking that giving a banquet does alleviate some of the suffering of economic oppression, but it does not offer anything to ameliorate the oppressive situation in general. The poor continue to be poor, only well-fed and well-celebrated, and even loved. It does not change their basic situation or address the inherent injustice of the system.
Liberation theology seeks a liberation that is double-pronged, including liberation from political and other earthly oppression, as well as liberation from sin for salvation. One could name both of these prongs in terms of sin thusly: Redemption can be viewed as liberation from sin that is committed by others / sinful structures that oppress and harm, and second, liberation from one’s own sin and wrongdoings. One wonders if Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the command to love by giving a banquet addresses liberation from both of these directions: outer sins of oppression, or one’s own inner sin.
This illustration from Kierkegaard explicating Jesus’ command in Luke 14 to give a banquet for the poor is only one of the practical examples of his general principles about Christian Love. Works of Love as a whole argues that Christians are called to love without preference, for there is infinite equality between human beings. Yet this equality is about the equality before God. The equal worth of each individual as she stands before God. The equal love that God has for each person.624
Let me offer what I think Kierkegaard is saying in my interpretation. For Kierkegaard, this Christian work to love each neighbor equally is not done for the purpose of pleasing God, nor in some way to achieve or maintain salvation. It is not even about doing ethics (although as Ferreira points out, many have treated it as a book in Christian ethics).625 Rather, the Christian loves the neighbor without reference to her own preferences through God. The “work” is to love God and believe that God loves all through one’s actions toward the neighbor. We are called to see and treat the neighbor as God does. This seems impossible, but Kierkegaard replies, “with God all things are possible.” For it is God’s love that is loving the neighbor without preference and with the assured knowledge that love is already present. The Christian’s job is to get one’s ego out of the way.
To address this critical question from the perspective of liberation theology, let us move to a dialogue partner—a visionary from Brazil with inventive ideas and practices geared toward enabling the liberation of the oppressed through an innovative approach to theater.
Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed
Augusto Boal is critical of the way that theater has functioned to reinforce political and moral oppression of the populous through manipulation and indoctrination. Building on Aristotle’s analysis of the way that theater manipulates behavior to create virtue in the viewers, Boal believes that the state and ruling classes used drama as a means to reinforce order in society and suppress any tendencies of revolt.626
When the ruling classes took over theater, they built walls to separate the performers from the public. This separation enabled them to use the empathy and catharsis of drama to quell the emotions of anger and frustration in the populous. In theater, empathy functions to blend the fictitious character with the real person. The real individual identifies with the character such that she substitutes her own will toward fulfillment for the desire for fulfillment of the character. She surrenders her autonomy and decision-making ability to the emotional situation and impetus of the character. This means that the real person ends up making life decisions according to fabricated situations. Boal says the viewer “accepts as life and reality what is presented to him in the work of art as art.”627 Further, Boal writes, that in empathy, the “spectator assumes a ‘passive’ attitude and delegates his ability to act.”628 This reinforces the passivity and removes the impetus to act to change one’s own situation.
Boal gives examples from television serials and in particular, the genre of Westerns to show how theater can purge unacceptable social behavior. In the Western at first we are directed to empathize with the villain, with his power and his flaws. But then the hero appears and wins, beating the bad guy with his better skills or his virtuousness. Viewers are manipulated into empathizing and identifying with the villain and his vices, and then when he is defeated, they are manipulated into “defeating” the vices within themselves and becoming more socially acceptable in their characteristics and behaviors.
Although Boal sees the potential of contemporary theater to coercively manipulate the emotions of the audience, he argues that theater and other narrative arts could be used to resist this oppression. Participation in theater can subvert political power, dominant social norms, and expected roles. Theater of the Oppressed generates creative and practical approaches by capitalizing on the activity of performance itself as a means of liberation.
Boal is deeply influenced by fellow countryman Paulo Freire. He utilizes Freire’s concept of “conscientization,” or critical consciousness, in which oppressed persons come to the realization that they do not deserve to be oppressed and throw off their internalized identification with the oppressors’ evaluation.629 According to Freire, it is critical for the oppressed to be awakened from the internal oppression that has been indoctrinated within them through embedded values within the culture. Practicing Freire’s theory that true liberation demands that the persons who are oppressed be a part of the solution, Boal’s exercises empower those who are oppressed by giving them the means to make changes in their own situation. The ruling class cannot “fix” the oppression without the consent and input of those who are oppressed. In a nutshell, Theater of the Oppressed seeks to break down the wall that separates the spectators from the actors and to restore the “protagonist function in theater and society” to the proletariat.630 This incites oppressed persons to participate in the action of a play or performance, thus reclaiming their agency. Returning the power of agency in play-acting functions as a testing ground and incubator for empowering agency in society.
Viewers participate in the performance as creative and responsible agents becoming what he calls “spect-actors.” In breaking down the fourth wall (the barrier between the spectators and actors), Boal’s theater provides groups faced with oppression an opportunity to create theater that offers a chance for reflection on the problems they face. He encourages people to use theatrical techniques for the artistic expression of their lived experience of oppression. He creates several types of exercises and games such as Image Theatre, which is like depicting a scene with living statues, and Forum Theatre, which utilizes playing out oppressive situations with different scenarios.
For example, in a typical session a group of actors will create, perform, and reflect on scenes that demonstrate instances of oppression. The “spect-actors” will then make changes to the scene until they find a way to deal with the problem that seems acceptable to the group. This activity creates beneficial dialogue among the participants that provides ideas of how to respond to similar occurrences they experience in life. By becoming part of the creative process and having control of the stories and the outcomes, participants are able to have a cathartic experience that purges feelings of helplessness and stagnation in the face of the status quo. Persons are then encouraged to act as agents of resistance and contribute to the transformation of their situation.
The participatory exercises have at least three benefits. First, they can be think/acting tanks in which possible practical solutions to oppressive situations can be generated and tried out. Second, the development of community is a significant benefit. But the third and primary goal is to create agency and conscientization in those who are oppressed.
This approach is practical and experiential. It focuses on four goals: (1) empowering oppressed persons toward greater self-confidence, self-assertion, and agency; (2) raising consciousness of problems in the world through dialogue, sharing feelings, and other interactions; (3) inspiring imagination to envision a future with less oppression; and (4) inspiring the passion and energy to change the world toward this future.
Boal’s inventive use of theater and performance breaks down barriers in political situations as well. His work instills self-confidence and agency in those who are oppressed and promotes practical solutions for real-life problems faced by many oppressed persons. This creative and effective work has become an international movement with a variety of exercises in the same vein as Boal’s original process, and innovations continue to abound. There are trainings for communities that want to practice this use of art for social justice as well as online resources from all over the world.631
Given these purposes toward changing social situations, and his methods of empowering the people, Boal’s work is clearly a potential resource for liberation theology. While Boal does not engage explicitly religious themes or make religious claims, several authors have developed a link with liberation theology. Charles Gillespie suggests that collaboration between a theology of the oppressed and a theater of the oppressed has several possibilities for bringing about social awareness.632 Shannon Craigo-Snell offers an excellent constructive work on the problems of apathy among church members. She uses Boal’s analysis, insight, and pioneering approach in her quest for an effective renewal of the church.633 Also Dustin Wright produced an innovative “liturgy of the oppressed” based on Boal’s ideas and practices. Wright appropriately points out that liturgy is rightly understood as the “work of the people” and as such, liturgy should explicitly empower the people to be agents of their own faith and as Wright blogs, “develop faith in themselves, their fellow human beings, and most of all, faith in their God.”634
But what has this to do with Kierkegaard as a resource for liberation theology? No one has yet to bring Kierkegaard to bear in this collaboration between Boal’s creative praxis and theology for the church.
Boal to Kierkegaard
The following section applies Boal’s critique of the power dynamic that exists between the one who speaks and the ones who listen, to Kierkegaard’s famous analogy between theater and sacred dramas, such as in a worship service and inspirational literature to further develop the possibilities in Kierkegaard’s critique.
Kierkegaard evokes a similar reversal of the roles of players in his Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (UDVS). Here he proposes theater as a metaphor for worship and spiritual edification to illustrate his view of difference between the secular and the sacred. In the secular arts of theater, there are three primary roles: the speaker, or player who conspicuously draws attention as the center of important activity; the listeners, who pay attention to the actor(s); and the prompter or “souffleurs,” who sits off-stage and whispers to the speaker. In applying this metaphor to a religious context, one might think that the preacher would be the actor, the congregation would be the audience, and perhaps the Holy Spirit would be the prompter. However, Kierkegaard rearranges the roles. He says that when one is conscious that God is present and that all of one’s actions and thoughts are accomplished before God, then everything is not only intensified, it is changed, even turned upside down. On a religious occasion where God is the ultimate listener, each member of the congregation is the actor. The preacher’s role is limited to offering encouragement. The speaker is not like a secular actor drawing attention to him/herself, rather, s/he is merely “the prompter [who] whispers to the actor what to say.”635 Kierkegaard writes that it is the listener who “is present and open before God; he is, if I may put it this way, the actor, who in the true sense is acting before God.”636
Kierkegaard gives an example of a subdeacon, the church worker who leads the congregation in the Prayers of the People. She is “without authority—it is not actually the church worker who is praying. But the listener, who sits in the church and is inwardly before God while he listens to the reading, he is praying.”637 The earnestness of the subdeacon who tells the congregation what to say, is not the key. Rather, the earnestness of the congregant who is speaking to God—this is what is vital.
The lead actor is every individual in the pew; the principal act-ion is what the individual in the pew does in relation to God. The listener is called to look inwardly into himself as the actor standing before God. It is the listener’s own “decisive self-activity, upon which everything depends.”638
And what is this decisive self-activity? I believe there are three dimensions to it. First, Kierkegaard says, “the actor’s rendition is the main thing.”639 The speaker, or preacher may give direction on what is to be said, but how the individual says it is the key. The decisive self-activity is enacted in silence inwardly before God, where the individual speaks “in himself, with himself, to himself.”640 In other words, the listener should speak internally to God with solemnity and passion. Yet, the earnestness with which the listener says the words in the prayer is only the beginning.
The second and third dimensions require us to remember that this discourse is given on the occasion of confession. Kierkegaard’s metaphor is meant to aid the sinner in recognizing her sins/sinfulness so she can confess them, be forgiven, and repent. The sinner must take responsibility decisively for himself, his sins, and his confession. This religious struggle is to remedy what Kierkegaard believes is problematic about Christendom. Christians have become lackadaisical in relation to their own salvation. They pay lip service to the church while letting the pastors and bishops decide religious matters. His reversal of the roles speaks to this problem. He is pointing believers back toward themselves to actively engage themselves as sinners. So when the speaker directs the listener to confess sins, the listener should not merely speak the empty words, but search herself for her sins.
This brings us to what I think is the third dimension of the decisive self-activity. Passionately rendering the call to repentance toward oneself and taking responsibility for one’s sins requires becoming conscious of oneself as a single individual before God. The follow-through of decisive self-activity is living a conscious life, conscious that the one should “as a single individual make an accounting of how he has lived as a single individual.”641 This concluding proclamation is the main theme of the discourse. Instead of remaining like a passive spectator in a secular theater, Kierkegaard bids the listener to take the active role of a conscious individual. Here he calls for something akin to what Boal calls a “spect-actor”—one who grasps her own agency. Kierkegaard addresses the one sitting in the pew listening, or on the desk chair, reading this edifying discourse, breaking his own version of a “fourth wall” (the invisible boundary between author and reader). You there, don’t rest on your laurels or the pastor’s laurels, rather you yourself should speak and act, “in earnestness” and “before God” who is the true audience of your living. You should be the actual actors in the great drama of salvation and liturgy. In other words, it is the listener (or congregant) herself that should be the actor on the stage of the worship and salvation, since she is the one who must decide and engage in her own spiritual drama as an individual.
It might seem that this is but a fancy little analogy to dramatize Kierkegaard’s call for serious confession of sins, but Boal’s critical analysis of the dangers of theater applies to any convention in which there is a barrier between those who speak and those who listen. The division lulls the observers into becoming passive receivers of the information and diminishes their self-awareness and agency.
Kierkegaard as Resource for Liberation Theology
Now that we have examined both Boal’s radical enactment of reversing the roles of the spectators and actors, and Kierkegaard’s similar suggestion of reversing the roles of authority in the church, let us return to the question of Kierkegaard and liberation theology. Above I described liberation theology as seeking a two-pronged liberation—liberation from the sin of the oppressors and the harm this causes, and liberation from one’s own sin that inhibits the deepening consciousness of oneself before God.
I suggest that Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the command to love the neighbor without reference to one’s own preference coupled with his insistence that Christians are enabled to love the neighbor this way by presuming that love is already present offer resources for liberation theology. Kierkegaard’s goal may not appear to be consistent with liberation theology’s primary focus on alleviating the external political and social forces of oppression, but this does not mean that his theology is without implications for making changes in the world. The changes he sees as consistent with the purpose of Christianity occur from inside out. Changing the way that individuals are treated and appreciated has implications for changing the world. But the essential changes that Kierkegaard’s authorship are after are those within the one loving, not the object of the love. He writes, “The one who loves does something to himself—he presupposes that love is present in the other person—which certainly is the opposite of doing something to the other person.”642 The lover is transformed and yet, one wonders if persons are treated as if love is already present in them, as if they are subjects capable of love, then I cannot imagine that this would not change the external political and social world. As Sylvia Walsh sees it, “serious external consequences will surely result from the attempt to mediate one’s temporal relationships with Christian love.”643
Staying focused on the particular example that I highlighted above, giving a banquet, for example, does offer liberation from both of these directions. First, most directly from Kierkegaard’s own perspective, giving a banquet for the neighbor who is poor addresses liberation from one’s own sin. If I am the one fulfilling the command to love the neighbor, the theological work being done is my internal transformation. The one who loves as a Christian, loves without reference to one’s own preference and one’s own needs, is changed. The fundamental work of love for Kierkegaard is not limited to what the lover can do for the one being loved, but rather, what God’s love does for the lover—transforming her into a Christian. I am fulfilling the command to love the neighbor by seeing them as neighbor, not as poor and needy. This shift in perspective is the way that Christian love is effective inwardly.
Second, the one being loved, the neighbor who is hungry, is liberated by being nurtured, both by the food of the banquet and more importantly, by being known as a neighbor, a human being equally loved by God, equally worthy of love, and equally capable of loving. It is this last point that I argue is the most helpful for liberation theology—the neighbor is loved by presuming that she is already a subject herself. And it is the direct implication of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Paul’s claim that “love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1) as meaning that Christian love presumes that love is already present and that the neighbor is already worthy and capable of love.644
Seeing a person as a “neighbor” suggests three important characteristics. First, a neighbor is a person I see regularly, who is near to me. Thus her well-being impacts my well-being. Second, as a Christian I am called to love my neighbor. Seeing the poor person as my neighbor means that I am called to love her. This leads to the third point, which is based on Kierkegaard’s view of love. Kierkegaard develops Paul’s claim that Christian love builds up (1 Cor 8). Love does not build in the way that new construction builds a house where there was no foundation already present. Rather, the Christian “love builds up by presuming that love is already present.”645 It builds upon the foundation of love, a foundation upon which the neighbor is seen as one who is already loveable and capable of loving. She is to be seen and treated as a subject who is capable, capable of love and capable of God. I contend when a person is treated as a neighbor, she is likely to be empowered toward her own agency. This means that seeing the neighbor in the person who is poor and lowly means seeing him as one who is not only deserving of love, but also capable of love. In other words, he is a subject with his own agency and subjectivity.
And in this way, giving a banquet for the one who is poor is liberation because it resists the oppressive forces that ignore the subjectivity of the poor and lowly. It not only softens the oppression of economic injustice in feeding with celebration the one who is poor (such a banquet may also provide opportunities for the poor to develop practical worldly connections), but more importantly, this work of love is one way to empower and build up subjecthood and agency one person at a time.
Kierkegaard and Boal share commonalities with a few significant differences. Both thinkers have the common strength that their approaches enable others toward becoming participating subjects of their own liberation. Both are careful to avoid imposing their own view of what the oppressed need upon those who are oppressed.
This is an important insight that has become a common corrective to the works of charity for those in need. Instead, social justice organizations seek to empower those in need to be able to do work for themselves. This is not new, of course. It is a contemporary practice inspired, in part, by the quote often attributed to Moses Maimonides: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”646 Both Kierkegaard and Boal offer approaches that undercut the assumption that those who are not oppressed know what the oppressed need and can simply hand it over to them and then all shall be well. Rather they both seek to empower the poor and lowly by giving them voice or treating them as a friend with agency.
Boal and Kierkegaard also have different strengths that function as gifts to give each other toward a theology of liberation. Kierkegaard’s strength is in his ability to theorize conscious subjectivity (by which I mean subjecthood in relation to God) in individuals. We see this in both his interpretation of the command to love and as well as in his call to the congregant to be the active agent in her becoming conscious of herself before God. Where Kierkegaard is weak is in his theory and theology of community. His focus on the importance of the individual does not provide any adequately explicit direction for communal support or development. However, I would argue that we could imagine a community of self-conscious subjects who love each other by building each other up; such a community would develop naturally out of the focus on love and subjectivity, but how that would happen is not addressed. It would certainly be an asset for church communities and is consistent with theologies of liberation. Further, he does not apply this liberation to ameliorating the external structures of oppression.
Boal’s strong suit is his creative, practical, and experiential approaches toward empowering those who are oppressed toward their own agency. His position is also strong in his critical analysis of the oppressive function of the walls that separate those who speak and act from those who watch and listen, and his attention to breaking down these walls. His immediate focus is not on political change, but he hopes that his work will help enable those who are oppressed to contribute to changing the world for the better. Further, his creative exercises intentionally and directly create community and communal support among those who are oppressed as they figure out together practical solutions to problems of oppression and develop conscientization. In terms of weaknesses, I wonder about persons who are not performers, who are shy, not confident enough to stand up and take on the role of the actor, or have not yet developed what Freire calls conscientization, or a critical consciousness of their own participation in their oppression. These folks might need an additional aid to bolster their confidence and awareness. Further, he does not provide guidelines for how or why persons should relate to each other in helpful or loving ways.
Let me conclude by sketching a few of the resources that a combination of the strengths of these two thinkers provides for a theology of liberation. Kierkegaard’s quieter, more individual approach focusing on the subjecthood of each single individual may be more effective for individuals who are not yet able or confident enough to perform in Boal’s theatre. Further, his interpretation that love builds up by presuming that love is already present declares the power of Christian love to build up each individual as a subject who is already worthy of love, already loved, and already capable of loving. This stresses the significance of every individual as an agential subject, even and especially those who are poor and lowly. It also provides theology guidance for how persons ought to relate to each other in social and political life.
Further, when Kierkegaard enjoins the Christian to give a banquet for persons who are hungry and needy, he is celebrating the oppressed individual as a person who is seen by God and others as deserving dignity and attention. His proposed metaphorical reversal of roles, in which the key player of a religious discourse is the listener, not the speaker, reinforces this by bringing attention to the individual in the pew. Each listener becomes more conscious of herself and develops a more accurate and full awareness of herself, her sins, and her standing before God. The consciousness of being in the presence of God intensifies one’s awareness of being a single individual, a subject responsible for one’s own decisions.
Kierkegaard’s call to live consciously as an individual before God dovetails nicely with Boal’s engendering agency and conscientization in the people. The difference is that for Boal, the goal is about inspiring conscientization and agency to act as subjects politically, while for Kierkegaard, taking responsibility is about the individual’s own personal relationship with God and his/her eternal happiness.
Boal’s critical analysis of the problematic ways theater operates could be very helpful in critically reevaluating the way churches function. Like theater, the church is an institution that reinforces the separation of those who speak on the one side and those who should listen on the other. His analysis explains how the structure reinforces the passive absorption of the norms of those who construct the drama, and discourages the active agency of the viewers/parishioners.
Further, Boal’s experimental theater of the people is an intriguing model for how to practice church. Consider Boal’s technique of what he calls “forum theater,” in which the “participant[s] must intervene decisively in the dramatic action and change it.”647 Within the context of the church this could lead to a praxis movement toward a “Liturgy of the Oppressed.” In such new form of liturgy, the “work of the people,” the preacher might play the Joker (a glorified prompter) and suggest an issue, biblical passage, or theme for the gathering of the group and then step back and simply facilitate the process. Certain elements would need to be included, such as breaking bread together, prayer, reading a passage from Scripture, praise, singing, etc. But the community of congregants gathered would co-create how and when they are included. This is akin to a conversational sermon, but even more deep-seated. Boal’s exercises also encourage communal support and sharing of ideas for resisting the oppression and becoming capable of contributing to making changes in the world.
Liberation theologians could learn from Kierkegaard’s insistence that the individual Christian is the rightful person of interest to God, not the preacher, the speaker, or the leader. He says that it is not so much what the pastor says to the congregation that is important, but the key element is what the congregant says to himself as he becomes aware of himself, as standing before God. Given that the key goal for liberation theology is to break down the walls between those with power and those without, a worship service or theatrical exercise, or social justice meeting that facilitates attention to the subjecthood of each and every individual participant offers a practical approach for making sure that each and every person involved is heard and empowered as a subject.
In conclusion, this essay has shown that a dialogue between Kierkegaard’s practical theology of worship and spiritual reflection on the one hand and Boal’s theater of the oppressed yields fruitful resources for engaging Christian worship and liberation theology. Kierkegaard’s encouragement of listeners—whether they are congregants or theater participants—to reclaim the authority and responsibility that is theirs, to claim their roles as starring actors in the liturgy, the prayers, and the process of liberation is a resource for liberation theology.
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Ferreira, M. Jamie. Love’s Grateful Striving: A Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Freire, Pablo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1970.
Gillespie, Charles A. “Can Theatre Be a Project of Liberation Theology?”: Explorations in the Case of a Collaboration in Tanzania.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 64 (2013) 12–31.
Hisrich, Matthew. “Toward a New Theology of Liberation.” Unpublished manuscript. 2007. http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/203.%20HisrichLiberationessay 050307.pdf.
Hughes, Carl. Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.
Johnson, Todd E., and Dal Savidge. Performing the Sacred: Theology and Theater in Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
———. Works of Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
MacDonald, Susie, and Daniel Rachel. “Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre for Teachers.” Notes from a workshop at Athens Conference 2000. http://organizingforpower.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/games-theater-of-oppressed.pdf.
Maimonides, Moses. “Gifts for the Poor: Moses Maimonides’ Treatise on Tzedakah.” Translated by Joseph B. Meszler. Edited by Marc Lee Raphael. Department of Religion, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 2003. http://rabbimeszler.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Gifts_for_the_Poor.27084324.pdf.
Marshall, Ronald. Kierkegaard for the Church. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013.
Pattison, George. Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses. London: Routledge, 2002.
Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed. “Games Classes: What We Played.” http://tophiladelphia.blogspot.com/2011/10/games-for-actors-non-actors.html.
Walsh, Sylvia. Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.
Wright, Dustin. “A Liturgy of the Oppressed.” It’s Only a Northern Blog. June 13, 2014. http://www.itsonlyanorthernblog.com/2014/06/a-liturgy-of-oppressed.html.
608. Cf. Hisrich, “Toward a New Theology of Liberation.” Also, James Cone’s Black Liberation Theology is influenced by existentialism in general and to some degree, Kierkegaard as well. Cf. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 1–29; also see Walsh, Living Christianly, 100–102. Walsh does not write about liberation theology per se, but views Kierkegaard as having a social ethic that is friendly to liberation theology’s ultimate goal of liberation for all persons.
609. Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving, 165.
610. Hughes, Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire.
611. Boal, Theater of the Oppressed.
612. Ibid., 122.
613. Ibid., x, 120, 141–42.
614. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 52.
615. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard juxtaposes what he calls “preferential love, love based on one’s own preference and desire, with Christian love, which entails loving each neighbor equally.
616. Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving, 47.
617. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 70.
618. Ibid.
619. Ibid. These differences also appear to have inherent value, as well, in that he associates their value with the incarnation, and in particular the disciples’ presence in the temporal world.
620. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 219.
621. Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving, 165.
622. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 72.
623. Ibid., 83.
624. Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving, 47.
625. Ibid.
626. Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, 36, 46.
627. Ibid., 113.
628. Ibid., 102.
629. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 48.
630. Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, 119.
631. Boal, “Theatre of the Oppressed”; MacDonald and Rachel, “Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre for Teachers”; Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed, “Games Classes.”
632. Gillespie, “Can Theater Be a Project,” 12–31.
633. Craigo-Snell, Empty Church, 68–97.
634. Wright, “Liturgy of the Oppressed,” para. 6.
635. Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses, 124.
636. Ibid., 125.
637. Ibid.
638. Ibid., 122.
639. Ibid., 124.
640. Ibid.
641. Ibid., 151.
642. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 219.
643. Walsh, Living Christianly, 101.
644. Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 209, 219.
645. Ibid., 218.
646. Maimonides, “Gifts for the Poor,” 72–76.
647. Boal, Theater of the Oppressed, 139.