Christian Voice Research Articles

Justin, Tatian and the Forging of a Christian Voice

Abstract This article considers the construction of the speaking subject in Justin’s First Apology and Tatian’s To the Greeks, two interlocking texts (often associated with the problematic genre of Christian apologetics). Bracketing questions of biographical reality, it explores the fictionalising techniques Justin and Tatian adopt to magnify their own authority, co-opt well-known narrative models (including martyrologies and imitatio Christi) in the service of their own self-fashioning. I take their autobiographies as stylised self-dramatisations, rather than guides to historical realities. There are strong parallels with the kind of self-modelling that we see in the works of pagan sophists of the era, notably Dio Chrysostom. Reading these two authors in this way blurs the sharp distinctions they seek to draw between Christian and pagan. It also requires a reading of their texts, in line with recent scholarship, as generically complex, sophisticated and absorbent, and open to the opportunistic appropriation of elements characteristic of pagan literature of the era. Foucault has argued that the voice of early Christianity was characterised by its confessional quality, which was new, confident and distinctive; this article argues, by contrast, that Justin and Tatian at any rate were intellectual bricoleurs and experimentalists, and had much more in common with their pagan peers.

Humor, emotion, and interpretive communities in the controversy over Jerry Springer: The Opera

Abstract Satires that tackle religion have always courted controversy. When Jerry Springer: The Opera was originally aired on the BBC in 2005, the show received 63,000 complaints and Christian Voice attempted to prosecute Mark Thompson (the Director General of the BBC) for blasphemy for airing the show. In this article I draw on the work of Stanley Fish and Gerben van Kleef to argue that interpretive communities of emotional readers provide a valuable framework for interpreting humor scandals. This framework contributes to our appreciation of the interpersonal in the emotional experience of humor and demonstrates that interpretations of humor are often goal-oriented and ideologically motivated. Using the examples of Christian Voice and Mediawatch-UK, I demonstrate how these emotional communities are constructed as well as the rhetorical strategies these organizations adopted. To accuse Jerry Springer: The Opera of blasphemy, for example, Christian Voice presented themselves as defenders of traditional British values. Finally, my analysis of these examples demonstrates that the potential for community outrage increases especially when the community faces a crisis of identity.

The Redemptive Implications of Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide

Waste Tide, Chen Qiufan’s debut sci-fi novel, has received growing critical attention. While most of the scholarship focuses on the explicit themes of globalization, post-human, cyborg, and alienation, the perspective of Christianity and the redemptive implications it reveals have not been given due attention. Christian stories and doctrines referred to in the novel are quite closely related to the theme of the redemption of the characters. By presenting the characters’ redemption journey with Christian principles, Chen Qiufan reveals their complex inner world and points out the ways to realize self-redemption. This paper argues that Waste Tide can be most meaningfully interpreted as a story of sin and redemption by utilizing the genre of science fiction. Love, forgiveness, confession, and atonement are emphasized in the novel to serve as the remedies for fallen humanity in a world of technological development and global capitalism. A thorough analysis of the Christian underpinning in this novel reveals Chen Qiufan’s strength in characterization and presenting important moral concerns in a world dominated by technoscience through the Christian voice.

Anatole France, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce A Queer Genealogy of “The Dead”

This essay re-situates James Joyce’s story “The Dead” in the alternative intellectual genealogy of late-nineteenth-century European religious skepticism, its reexamination of the historical origins of Christianity, and its fresh reinterrogation of the epochal transition between the pre-Christian and the Christian worlds. Taking a cue from Richard Ellmann’s suggestion that it was Anatole France’s “The Procurator of Judea” that inspired “The Dead”, the essay argues that just as France had written a revisionist story about the disappearance of Jesus from the history, so did Joyce write a similar story, about a failed Annunciation and the death of God. Further, the essay identifies Oscar Wilde’s Salome as a twin text of France’s and triangulates it with France and Joyce, showing how Wilde’s play had excavated this same territory and provided a recent Irish precedent for restaging a New Testament dialogue, for redramatizing the contest between female pagan voice and prophetic Christian voice, and for reviving a sustained pagan rhetoric of “the dead”.

Jewish Humanism in the Late Work of Geoffrey Hill

Abstract Throughout much of his career, Geoffrey Hill has been pilloried for his alleged conservativism as well as his positive treatment of Christianity in his poetry. A careful reading of his works, however, reveals a complex thinker who was attentive to the moral fallout of the Holocaust and the Second World War as he was a lover of England and European culture. Moreover, Hill’s writings reflect the apparent influence of a host of personalist, existentialist and what could also be called “humanist” twentieth century Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. Throughout his poetry—especially his later work—Hill attempts (whether successfully or not) to fuse together this Jewish humanism with his own Christian and English voice.

Is Sino-Christian Theology Truly “Theology”? Problematizing Sino-Christian Theology as a Public Theology

Abstract Most participants in the Sino-Christian theology movement are not affiliated with the church. This state of affairs naturally raises the question whether what scholarship arises is really a kind of theology or merely writings on public and/or political issues with reference to Christian themes. And yet the movement is more influential than the church in the Chinese public realm in terms of its ability to produce a Christian voice. The purpose of this article is first to examine the historical development of Sino-Christian theology over the past several decades. Some particular themes of this movement are then explored. These themes are intertwined with the discussion of polytheistic values, nationalism, and self-identity in times of cultural conflict: all of these matters are of wide public concern. There are evident tensions within the Sino-Christian theology movement: the intention is to show points of difference can be transformed and become a creative drive behind the construction of a new kind of theology in the Chinese public realm.

‘Dear Hindu Friends’: official Diwali greetings as a medium for diplomatic dialogue

ABSTRACT This article discusses greeting messages as a genre of interreligious communication. Greeting messages are defined as official communication issued by religious institutions and addressed to the members of another religious community on the occasion of specific feast days or anniversaries. Drawing on the insights of politolinguistic analysis, this article treats these messages primarily as a form of public diplomacy. The case study analyses the messages issued on the occasion of the Hindu festival Diwali/Deepavali by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and World Council of Churches between 2015 and 2017. Distributed through the social media and posted on the institutional websites, the Diwali messages seek to speak as a Christian voice to all Hindus. Beyond the official addressee, the messages also potentially face the scrutiny of the global public sphere, especially an internal Christian readership. This article analyses what language strategies are used to deal with these varied demands.

Faith in dialogue: the Christian voice in the catholic dialogue school

Rather than choosing between either catholic identity, or openness to otherness, the catholic dialogue school envisages, through the dialogue with the other, to stir the (re)discovery of one’s own identity, and to introduce once again the Christian voice within the conversation. After introducing this project, I reflect more extensively on how to bring this Christian voice into this intended dialogue. In distinguishing between the content of faith (fides quae) and the attitude of faith (fides qua), I develop how both these dimensions are continuously related to one another, and this in an anthropological as well as a theological way.

Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet by D. H. Dilbeck

Reviewed by: Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet by D. H. Dilbeck Robert S. Levine Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet. D. H. Dilbeck. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-4696-3618-4. 208 pp., cloth, $28.00. With the 2018 publication of D. H. Dilbeck's Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet and David W. Blight's Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, the two hundredth anniversary year of Douglass's birth has taken on a prophetic cast. For Dilbeck, Douglass is best understood as a Christian writer and activist who "cherished the words of the prophet Isaiah and the gospel of Jesus Christ" (3). Dilbeck develops his argument by emphasizing the importance of Christianity to Douglass's autobiographies and speeches. As a result, there is much here that is familiar for those who know Douglass's writings. Rather than considering the autobiographies as artfully crafted works that may not always represent how Douglass felt at the moment of the events he describes, Dilbeck notes the many scenes in which Douglass mentions or emphasizes his Christian perspective. Because Douglass claimed such in a later autobiographical account, Dilbeck says the young Douglass wanted to learn how to read so he could read the Bible story of Job on his own. In one of the oddest moments in the book, Dilbeck includes a full-page illustration from the 1881 Life and Times of Frederick Douglass of the docile child Douglass, with hands behind his back, standing before the seated Sophia Auld who is reading from a book that appears not to be the Bible. That illustration, which Douglass loathed and cut from all subsequent printings, along with statements such as "A bright child like Frederick could see only so many vicious beatings and murders before asking the hardest questions," give the early chapters the feel of a young adult–market biography (18). Douglass's famous apostrophe to the sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay is presented as "a psalm of lament" that Douglass literally composed and uttered on the spot, rather than wrote years later (37). It is good to be reminded that Douglass became a licensed AME preacher, and Dilbeck is especially good in explaining what was at stake for Douglass when he became involved with the controversies concerning the Free Church of Scotland and the Evangelical Alliance. But Dilbeck's discussion of Christianity remains just a bit vague throughout, even as he consistently portrays [End Page 192] Douglass as a black leader who spoke in a prophetic Christian voice about the evils of slavery, racism, and other social ills. There are contradictions in Dilbeck's analysis of Douglass's Christianity, perhaps because of its vagueness. Dilbeck asserts that during the 1850s "Douglass anticipated slavery's immanent [sic] death because he believed God was just, merciful, powerful, and actively at work in human affairs" (94). But he later states that "Douglass resisted a too-easy view of God's providential rule in the world because he thought it did not deal honestly with the problem of evil" (143). He follows up on that remark by referring to "Douglass's deepest assumptions about God's providential presence in history" (151). Despite the concession about the problem of evil, Dilbeck argues that Douglass's prophetic Christianity led him to believe that God will make sure that good triumphs over evil. Accordingly, Dilbeck for the most part presents Douglass not as a pragmatic worker in the real world, and not as a performer, but as someone whom many readers might regard as naively committed to hope. In his introduction, Dilbeck claims that "Douglass never wavered in hope," and the word hope often takes the place of analysis (8, Dilbeck's emphasis). We see this especially in the book's third section, "The Hopeful Prophet: 1853–1895." True, Douglass regularly invoked hope, but was he as hopeful as Dilbeck describes, or was hope part of his rhetorical and pragmatic strategy? We're told that during this long period, Douglass "held fast to a distinctly Christian hope," a phrasing that begs the question of whether Dilbeck believes that hope is distinctively Christian (94, Dilbeck's emphasis). Dilbeck states that "during the four long years of...

Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder by Michael Marmur

Reviewed by: Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder by Michael Marmur Stuart D. Robertson Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder By Michael Marmur. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. xiii + 279 pp. Michael Marmur's book is (apparently) an extension of the author's 1984 PhD dissertation at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Heschel's Rhetoric of Citation: The Use of Sources in God in Search of Man. The present book has as its basic purpose "to demonstrate how Heschel's political, intellectual, and spiritual commitments were imbedded in his reading of Jewish tradition." The author is Provost at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder is structured in nine chapters, with extensive endnotes and two indices for sources and subjects. The [End Page 143] categories developed in these chapters include Heschel's use of the Bible, rabbinic sources, Maimonides, Kabbalah, the Hasidim, his "affinity with strangers," his Aspaklaria (Hebrew, "the compendium of Jewish thought," but in this book the author defines it as Heschel's "perspective and prism through which he viewed the world"), and finally, his call to action. Marmur calls attention to the criticism of various biblical scholars that though Heschel drew on the Bible more than on other sources, he was not a biblical scholar in the mold of recent biblical scholarship. "On occasion Heschel offered decontextualized readings of the Bible that came directly from rabbinic literature." His was a "hermeneutics of surprise." "The Bible is the most sublime literary distillation of the surprise, wonder, amazement, and awe that are the primal human responses to the mystery of existence." This hermeneutic was not Heschel's unique contribution, of course, as the author notes in calling attention to his citation of "key works of the Jewish esoterical tradition, including the sixteenth century kabbalistic work, Pardes Rimmonim, of Moses b. Jacob Cordovero of Safed." Though the early rabbinic PARDES scheme of interpretation included the peshat, the plain meaning of the text, it also included mystical reflection on the Bible (sod). Neither the early understanding of peshat nor a mystical interpretation was at all like the modern scholarly approach to the Bible. Since Heschel made no pretense of being a biblical scholar in the modern sense, and admitted to his nurturing from rabbinic sources, to criticize him for this lack is inappropriate. And Marmur is not among these critics that do so. Chapter 7, "An Affinity of Strangers," displays how Heschel was similar to important Jewish thinkers of the past in his openness to non-Jewish spiritual figures. Heschel proposed there had been a link between Menahem Morgenstern (d. 1859), the Polish Kotzer Rebbe, and the Danish Lutheran philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (d. 1855). He remembers that Heschel wrote a book on Abravanel (d. 1508), the Portuguese polymath, who was at home in Christian theology and Islamic philosophy. These are only two examples of affinity with strangers of Jewish luminaries, in whose train Heschel found a place. This is not to suggest that there were not fundamental differences between the Jewish and Christian figures but that "despite profound differences in perspective and substance . . . parochialism [was] untenable." Heschel participated with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Civil Rights march on Selma. He was a friend of Reinhold Niebuhr, the influential Christian voice of conscience, and many others. These affinities were based on a common cause that reflected the Jewish ideal of tecun olam, to heal the world. [End Page 144] Marmur appropriately reminds the reader that Heschel's driving inner forces made necessary something larger than great thoughts. His work became a call to action. As his life drew near its end, Heschel "expressed opinions on a wide array of social issues and current affairs." But he not only spoke out, but also participated in the causes about which he spoke. Why? First, because for him to withdraw from the world was "futile and unworthy." Second, because to remain a bystander was immoral. Third, because he followed the example of the biblical prophets. Though he was steeped in the rabbinic heritage, and was widely read beyond Jewish sources, he drew on the Bible...

Book Review: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Public Theology in a Post-Secular Age

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Theology in a Age. By Elaine Graham. London: SCM Press, 2013. xxvii + 266 pp. $88.00 (paper).One of the great challenges facing Christians today is have our say in the public sphere now we no longer hold the positions of power and privilege we once did. One could argue this is less of an issue for Anglicans in England, given the Church of England is still established and several of its bishops are in the House of Lords-of course it has a voice in the public square! Yet, even there, Christianity does not have the same place of privilege, the same societal cache it once did. Even in religious America, where the faith of presidential candidates is a major issue, Christians need rethink their participation in public discourse.For those faithful, thoughtful, politically moderate Christians wondering one might go about being a Christian voice in the public square, Graham s work provides much food for thought. Graham weighs in substantively on a controversial and challenging topic. At least in America, strongly conservative Christian voices get lots of airtime, and so the question of those who do not hold the political ideals of the Tea Party might weigh into the debate is a real one. If readers want a quick answer the how to question, they can skip right Grahams last chapter. However, doing so means they would miss out on a thorough and thought-provoking survey of the field and we got here.Grahams text is divided into three parts: Post-Secular Society, PostSecular Theology, and Public Theology as Christian Apologetics. The text sets out find the path between the 'rock' of religious resurgence and the 'hard place' of institutional decline and secularism (p. xxvii). Graham succeeds in meeting this goal, and along the way she does an excellent job of mapping out the landscape. Early on, she has tables of statistics, and then throughout her text she has notable anecdotes paint the intriguing picture of the ways in which religion is declining and growing. Graham notes Christendom's decline makes the religious voice just one of many in the public square-but one has a right be there. It is not clear, she observes, that non-theological reasoning is any the less subjective or partial than any other form of public discourse (p. 65). Particularly in chapter 5, with her survey of recent events and court cases, Graham highlights the growing place of religion in public life and the question of what constitutes appropriate public theology. …

A Christian Voice in Response to the Concept of God after Auschwitz

A Christian Voice in Response to the <i>Concept of God after Auschwitz</i>

(Re)Articulating Difference: Constitutive Rhetoric, Christian Identity, and Discourses of Race as Biology

Racist ideologies have dominated the discursive landscape of American Evangelism for centuries. Charland’s (1987) theory of constitutive rhetoric explores the relationship between rhetoric and ideological interpellation. Subsequent scholarship examined the outcomes of constitutive rhetorics in a wide variety of rhetorical situations. However, scholars have not exhausted theoretical extensions of the theory nor potential areas for its usage. In particular, scholars have regrettably overlooked potential insights from religious discourses. To compensate for this oversight, I analyze how a rhetor used constitutive rhetoric to resituate Christian identity into a more inclusive ideological framework, by dislocating connections between race and biology. My analysis advances three arguments on the nature of constitutive rhetoric, encourages sustained engagement by scholars with religious discourses, and draws attention to the complexities of (re)articulating a Christian voice on perceived racial differences. First, I argue that constitutive rhetoric’s suitability to a particular rhetorical situation depends on its ability to address multiple layers of social identity simultaneously as a means of negotiating and navigating tensions and conflicts between existing and emerging subject positions. Second, I highlight the potential for a rhetor to embody a constitutive rhetoric as a means of grounding ideology in lived experiences. Third, I demonstrate the power of constitutive rhetoric, especially religious discourses, to inscribe moral frameworks onto subjects. From this study, scholars will gain a better understanding of the interdiscursive relationship between subject positions, recognize the potential for a rhetor to embody a constitutive discourse, and gain a better grasp of the action-imperative of constitutive rhetoric. Finally, I conclude by charting future directions for the development of Charland’s theory.

Colledge, Gary L. God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author

Colledge, Gary L. God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author

Book Review: God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author

God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author. By Gary L. Colledge. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-58743-320-7. Pp. xix + 202. $19.99. As I look up from my desk, I see a portrait of Charles Dickens, sitting at his desk, dreaming imaginatively about the characters in his novels, a picture I acquired visiting the Dickens home and museum in London, England. Through his characters, Charles Dickens portrays the Christian values we should portray as Christians, rather than through the study of doctrines and argumentative disputes in theology. Caring for children', widows, and orphans comes alive in the novels of Dickens. This imitation of Christ is what Gary L. Colledge attempts to describe as he gives a voice to Christian walk in his study, God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author. His purpose is not a systematic theology of Christianity or theological speculation but to demonstrate that Dickens' Christian faith and Christian worldview undergirded all that he wrote (xii). As a boy, I too was enthralled by the imaginative characters in works, especially Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), but I did not know the extent of Christianity until later, after my study of C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, and others, and especially now, after my reading of Colledge's critique of works. Scrooge learns about his relationships with others from the teaching and example of being fully human. His messenger of the gospel, the good news of his transformation, comes, however, from Jacob Marley: But you were always a good man of business, Jacob. At this, Marley's ghost is filled with both outrage and regret, and almost chastising Scrooge, he cries, Business! Mankind was my business. common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all my business. dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! (121) Marley's voice becomes Christ's character traits and the basis for Charles Real Christianity: giving oneself away in service to others. In addition to extensive reflection of Christian characters in works, Colledge presents a concise historical and theological review of the movements in nineteenth-century theology and the church in transition during the of times; the worst of times. He chastises, through voice, the theological arguments, the poor preaching, and pitfalls of the church, including the lack of community involvement. Instead, the reader finds a fresh voice advocating character formation and virtue in what Dickens calls Real Christianity, Authentic Christological Christianity is committing to follow the example and teaching of Jesus; to imitate as we give our lives in service to others; to be forgiving, generous, and compassionate (xvi) as his characters demonstrate in his novels. As C. S. Lewis suggests in Mere Christianity (1952), we are to be little Christs, or, for Dickens, simply imitating Jesus (xvi). For his support, Colledge uses letters and his novel characters as examples, addressing religious issues, rather than didactic treatises against the church or Christianity. Dickens especially cared for children and did not want to frighten children into desired religious and moral behaviors (5), a ploy of the Dissenters and Nonconformists of his day, including the Middle and Low Anglican Church movement against conservative High Church stand. He abhorred preacher jargon, including theological jargon, and especially the distorted Calvinism (6) of the Dissenters and Nonconformists; instead, he trusted the New Testament, telling his son, Edward, in a letter, The New Testament is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided (7). …

The Righteous Gentile Interjects (James 2:18-19 and Romans 2:14-15)

Abstract Jas 2:18-19 is at the heart of James’ famous (or, to some, infamous) argument about faith and works, but it defies definitive interpretation due to combined difficulties in punctuation and in tracing the literary continuity in James’ argument. This essay approaches the problematic passage in the context of James’ literary intertextuality with Paul. It suggests that the enigmatic objector in James is one of Paul’s righteous gentiles (Rom 2:14-15), who lumps James and his Jewish Christian ‘brothers’ together in charging them with hypocrisy (cf. Rom 2:17-23). James artfully gives this gentile Christian voice to strengthen his own argument, for an audience already alerted to his rich intertextuality with Paul.

The Future of Theological Ethics: Response to Robin Lovin and Nigel Biggar

This paper argues that the theological ethics of the future will be both more authentically Christian and more public, and briefly illustrates that claim in relation to the polity and to the academy. It argues, first, that Christian political reasoning should not be preoccupied with liberal anxieties about epistemic criteria for public reasoning, but rather turn its attention to the institutional telos of the polity, the political common good; and be prepared to speak in an openly Christian voice where appropriate. It argues, second, that scholarly reasoning offered by theological ethicists to the academy will be more effective the better it understands the complementary roles fulfilled by theology and other academic disciplines, such as the social sciences. Theological ethicists should not view theology as queen of the sciences but instead critically appropriate the findings of the social sciences and also work to offer it healthier, theologically-informed concepts.

Where Do We Want to be in 10 Years? towards an Integration Strategy for Clinical Psychologists

This paper evaluates the clinical psychology integration system from a strategic perspective. The integration system is defined as a loose organizational body comprised of academic institutions, journals, publishers, educators, clinicians, and students. Next, the SWOT analysis tool is used to understand the integration system's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The chief strength is the integration system's financial model and flexibility that allows it to consolidate resources and gradually grow into other domains. The primary weakness is limited diversity especially with regards to age and minority representation. Central opportunities include globalization and technology Threats consist of alternative models of integrating spirituality and psychology that may minimize an authentic Christian voice. Another notable threat includes high tuition costs or what might be more broadly understood as the education bubble. Finally, goals and objectives are outlined that focus on leveraging the integration system's strengths to overcome weaknesses and capitalize on opportunities. Goals primarily focus on making the integration system more diverse and global.

The West Looks East: The Influence of Toyohiko Kagawa on American Mainline Protestantism

Toyohiko Kagawa served as the leading Christian voice in Japan from the 1920s through the 1940s. While nationally respected throughout Japan, he also became a hero among American Protestants. Kagawa's popularity in the West rose during a time of transition for mainline Protestantism. The American mainline's optimism and dominance as the religious “establishment” began to falter. It faced both religious and economic depression, internal theological divisions, and a reassessment of their mandate for missions. In the 1930s, mainline Protestants in America were searching for a voice, and Kagawa provided one. Long before the recent scholarship on the rise of global Christianity, the mainline had turned to World Christianity as a model. It was not simply Kagawa's message as a world statesman, however, that drew American Protestants. They also employed him as a symbol for their own aims and ambitions. At a time of reevaluating the foreign mission enterprise, Kagawa and an indigenous Eastern church reminded the mainline of past success while promising hope for the future. As an interpreter of social issues, Kagawa likewise spoke a contemporary idiom. For a short time, the Japanese Christian Toyohiko Kagawa became a Western hero, but a hero shaped through a particular Western lens.

The Christians Kill Jesus Again: Spectacle, Drama, and Politics at Oberammergau

The Oberammergau Passion Play is an impressive spectacle. The play’s typological tableaus and theological music incorporate the play’s action into the larger imaginative world of the Christian epic. The tumultuous crowd scenes include the audience in the spectacle. The music and the tableaus script the audience’s role and configure the audience as worshipers who watch the sacrifice of Jesus on their behalf. Like spectacle generally, the play is religious, and religion fascinates and frightens. Spectacle is also inherently part of consumer capitalism, and the play is the life of Oberammergau. Nonetheless, the play’s theology, voice, and impetus are Christian. In the play, an intra-Jewish debate and Jewish worship ultimately become Christian worship/myth. The play flirts with but does not realize the possibilities of tragic dialogue and dilemma. Interpretation can move beyond the monologue of spectacular myth to find tensions in the play. These include the tension between Jewish roles and Christian voice, between intra-Jewish debate and Christian worship, between politics and theology, and between the villagers of Oberammergau who create the play and the tradition of the (passion) play. In these tensions, lie the hope of dialogue and the hope of resisting the fascinations of spectacular myth, but that hope does not exist for those who remain mere spectators.