Abstract
ABSTRACTVarious theoretical frameworks have been employed to account for the rise of the Jesus movement and the shaping of early Christian identities. Burton L. Mack redescribes Christian origins in terms of mythmaking and social formation; Luke T. Johnson accounts for the NT data by means of the generic category of power. Mack and Johnson represent two conflicting methodological starting-points or attitudes in the study of religion: methodological atheism and methodological agnosticism respectively. A possible third stance is methodological theism. This paper analyses and compares die theoretical assumptions underlying each of the three positions. It recognises the impasse in the study of religion resulting from these opposing methodological starting-points, and introduces an approach that might offer a resolution to the impasse: methodological ludism. Three scholars who approach religion and the study of religion as species of play are discussed in the last section: Sam D. Gill, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Andre F. Droogers.
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