Why church? That’s the question driving this latest work by Shannon Craigo-Snell, professor of theology at Louisville Seminary. In answering this question, Craigo-Snell brings church into conversation with theater. Her goal in doing so is not just to use theatrical performance as an illuminating analogy for church, but also to draw on performance as an analytical tool for exploring what church is and why we should care. Many Christian theologians and ethicists have utilized theatrical analogies for Christian doctrine and life, and especially noteworthy for Craigo-Snell are John Calvin, Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Francesca Murphy, Nicholas Lash, Frances Young, Tim Gorringe, Max Harris, Samuel Wells, and Kevin Vanhoozer. A weakness that weaves its way through some works by these authors is a limited understanding of theatrical performance, which truncates the potential for theater and performance to provide analytical insight for theology. The Empty Church succeeds where similar interdisciplinary efforts fall short by paying closer attention to characteristics of performance (such as event, interaction, and doubleness) and by listening closely to influential figures in theater such as Constantin Stanislavski, Bertolt Brecht, Augusto Boal, and Peter Brook.

For Craigo-Snell, church is “a disciplined performance of relationship with God in Jesus Christ, mediated by Scripture, in hope of the Holy Spirit” (p. 5). Church is neither a place nor a people; it is an event. Church is not a static thing, but an interactive, relational performance encompassing all of life, although public worship holds central importance. The first chapter lays the groundwork for this performative approach toward church, bolstered by performative anthropology, performative epistemology, and performative hermeneutics. To the extent that life itself is a performance—an unfolding of interactive events characterized by doubleness—it makes intuitive sense to talk about church using the language of performance. Many reject this performative approach because it seems to imply pretense, but Craigo-Snell clarifies that the inherent tension between a performer and her role(s) does not necessarily entail hypocrisy or lack of authenticity. This tension is naturally at play on multiple levels as we perform church, such as repeating routine behaviors or recognizing the distance between our real and ideal selves and performances. As such, the Spirit enables the church to become what it eventually will be as we perform our relationships with God and each other.

In chapters 2–5, Craigo-Snell explores four ways of performing church that come into focus by interacting with theater. First, Craigo-Snell brings Russian director Constantin Stanislavski and Ignatius of Loyola into conversation to show how we perform church through bodily affections, and how liturgy cultivates our affections by involving our bodies. She makes a strong argument, but it could have been even stronger by drawing on the work of James K. A. Smith, who contends that liturgies are embodied, storied performances shaping our imaginations and desires. Second, Craigo-Snell brings Brazilian director Augusto Boal and liberation theologian Letty Russell into conversation to highlight the importance of role switching within our performance of church. Gaining critical distance from our personal and ecclesial roles and imaginatively identifying with different roles can liberate fitting performances that might otherwise ossify into oppressive patterns. Third, Craigo-Snell interacts with German director Bertolt Brecht and womanist theologian Delores Williams to explore the power of alienation from the way things are. Sometimes, we need to make foreign something familiar in order to realize its incongruity with the gospel and to reorient our performance toward faithful witness. Finally, Craigo-Snell puts English director Peter Brook and theologian Karl Barth into conversation to demonstrate how at the heart of church is the “discipline of emptiness.” Although she diverges from Barth’s methodology, Craigo-Snell deeply appreciates his criticism of religion in all its anthropocentric hubris, and maintains that our performance of church should “be a self-critical reminder of our own limitations, a check on our pretensions, and a curb to the arrogance of religion” (p. 124). Just like Brook’s “empty space,” the empty church is a work of clearance that allows the invisible to become visible, motivating performers to embody hope and to accept our “wildly unequal” partnership with God (p. 137).

Overall, The Empty Church demonstrates the fruitfulness of engaging the performative phenomena of church rather than the abstract concept of church. In unfolding her thesis that church is an interactive performance mediated by Scripture, however, I was surprised by the paucity of biblical engagement. Perhaps in addition to putting into conversation a theatre director and theologian in each chapter, Craigo-Snell could have added a biblical author. This would have added authority and depth to what is a self-described “theology from below,” which raises red flags for some readers. Despite this shortcoming, The Empty Church is a refreshing and welcome contribution to the “theatrical turn” in theology and ethics, which supersedes a narrative approach by taking embodiment seriously and attending to the drama of everyday life. Why church? Because it is through this body and in this life that God is making all things new.

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