After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology

by Hanna Reichel

After Method assumes the impossibility of doing theology right–and moves beyond it. Organized as a conversation in two voices—with systematic-theological commitments represented by Karl Barth and constructive-theological commitments represented by Marcella Althaus-Reid—this book calls the redemptive potential of any methodological program into question. Indeed, the search for a full and complete theological account of reality has only further fragmented theological discourse. Thus, Hanna Reichel argues that method cannot “save” us—but that does not mean that we cannot do better. After Method harnesses the best insights systematic and constructive theologies have to offer in their mutual critique and gestures toward a “better” theology. Utilizing architectural metaphor, Reichel pulls from systematic and constructive approaches to develop an understanding of theological work as conceptual design, responsibly ordering and structuring given materials for a purpose. This necessitates a more realistic adaptation to reality for theology, expanding its standards to encompass the experiences and perceptions of people and speaking the truth available to it. The honesty, humility, and solidarity generated through the failure of method liberates theology to a more playful and tentative cruising of different approaches and redirects its attention to “misfits” and outsiders. Equally demanding and self-relativizing, the resultant ethos is better able to do justice to the reality of the world and the reality of God than doctrinal orthodoxy or methodological orthopraxy.

Genres: Theology

277 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2023

Reviews

[Lauren Larkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three preliminary thoughts:

First, I never thought that there would be a text that would pick up the mantel left by Christine Helmer at the end of her "Theology and the End of Doctrine." But there is. It's Hanna Reichel's text, "After Method." And much like Helmer's text, the title is both misleading and spot on: doctrine and method are not bad, but calcified doctrines and methods can be—to summarize bluntly. If I had the opportunity to build an "Introduction to Theology" course, I'm quite certain I'd frame that course around these two texts. I've yet to encounter any text that could rival the clarity and depth provided by Helmer and Reichel.

Second, if you have ever read a theologian who seemed to be "straying from the pack" and "doing her own thing," Reichel's text gives you the reason why. I want to place this text *before* all Dorothee Sölle's texts because I see deep kinship in what Reichel proposes and what a Lutheran theologian outlier--like Sölle--did. I read Reichel's book and felt a wave of vindication for someone like Sölle. "See!" I wanted to holler at all the historical nay-sayers, "THIS! This is what she was doing."

Third, I was so burnt out on Althaus-Reid from the way cis-het, white, men had treated the material that I was turned off by the idea of diving in as deep as Reichel wanted me, too. However, here Reichel demonstrates that they themself are trying to be the theologian demanded of in this text. They represented the material to me, recast the lighting, pointed out different aspects I was unfamiliar with, critiqued and praised the work, and in the end gave me something new. Like restoring something to original form what was disfigured due to abuse, Reichel demonstrates their God-given theological and professorial talent and skill. (They do the same for Barth, too! I felt a refreshing invigoration urging me to take up, once again, some of those big Barth tomes!)

Now, "After Method"

Reichel brings together two unlikely dialogue partners and demonstrates their compatibility without destroying their distinctions and differences. Never once did I think that Reformed Theology following Barth ever eclipsed Queer Theology following Althaus-Reid. In the process, Reichel demonstrates her thesis to the reader that "Better Theology" is not a retreat into archaic dogma, standing on the shore of "safe" and "traditionalism" nor is it a complete jettisoning of all that has come before and diving headfirst into the deep waters of the "just not that!" Rather, it's a willingness and maturity to step into the void caused by the collision of the history and tradition of Systematic Theology and creativity and curiosity of Constructive Theology. It's an exhortation to hear backwards and forwards because in hearing backwards and forwards we have something to say in the present and that then guarantees our mutual future together with bits of the past and bits of what is to come. Reichel's book demands theologians to grow up! and get to the good and hard work of their hands to do theology and method for the wellbeing of others (ref Ephesians 4)

Throughout the text, the demand to do "Better" theology takes on pastoral and professional implications. To be/do better in this theological space will have tremendous impact for the world; better theology is not static but dynamic, it is not solid but fluid, it is not stuck but liberated and moving toward others--whoever those others are. In all of it I couldn't shake an image from my moments of being a stay-at-home parent with my littles. I'll share that image because I think it does better to some up what this text asks of us for the sake of the world:

When my eldest (now threatening to turn 18) was little, he would spend his waking hours playing and exploring (as toddlers do) by dragging everything out: toys, shoes, pots and pans, cans from the pantry, bottles form the fridge, essentially whatever he could get his hands on. At some point, I wearied from picking up everything after him all the time. I decided to just let the chaos reign! What I didn't know then—which was only an action of desperate surrender rather a stroke of brilliant parenting—was that by letting him get *everything* and *whatever* out, he would blend into one many different things. Legos, train tracks, and a chutes and ladder's game; pots, lids, and many DC figurines; finger paints, markers, and whatever was inside that sandwich. He learned that *a* toy or *a* pot didn't have *a* use only to be put back in a box and tucked away again and never retrieved until that *use* was necessary. He learned that many different things worked together, even if it meant that I was on my hands and knees at 9pm hunting down that last puzzle piece or figurine from under the couch. The mess was absolutely necessary for him to play *better* and *bigger* and to give his little world something new...

I think Reichel is encouraging us to play with all of our toys! And, having read Barth's "Ethics," I assume that idea isn’t far from their mind. This book dares its reader to find joy again in the task of doing theology—joy *and* fun! It's an exhortation for us to get all our toys out and to see what new things can be made—the good ones we push forward and the bad ones, well, we should take them down. There's creativity and flexibility that can define the theologian that has been held hostage by fear and anger; Reichel does well to recover this creativity and flexibility and give it back to their reader. Thus, the text very much does what it sets out do.

The only question I have is of the structure of the book, I wonder if using the reformed, three uses of the law-works to further the thesis of the text or does it end up subverting all of it to the reformed, systematic order. Does the structure do what the text does so well? I may have decided on a daring two uses while allowing the end to be that "new" terrain undefined by a this or that use of a law or defined by both given the demand and the situation. Even with that question, the point is taken well. Under the goodness of method conceived so creatively holding on loosely to what was and what will be, I can return to method in a new way with a new relationship without fear and condemnation, using it as a well decorated teacher.

[Cody Bivins-Starr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reichel displays exceptional skill and breadth here. Balancing a range of commitments, they are able to refocus our theological method toward theological design, "after method." All of this is itself a theological task, committed to materiality as well as to the more negating dialectic of early Barth. Some questions still linger.

[Grason Poling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall excellent. Putting Althaus-Reid and Barth in direct, mutually beneficial conversation is insightful and helpful for framing an understanding of theological method. Reichel’s turn to design theory is revelatory.

"... not the one who debunks, but the one who assembles... the one for whom, if something is constructed, then it means it is fragile and thus in need of care"
Latour, "A Cautious Prometheus"

[Jon Coutts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been sheepishly ambivalent about method, but this book gives permission for it. It's kinda wordy (if not jargonistic), but I'm not sure if that's a design flaw or an exposure of target audience user error. The overall argument works.

[Cienna Rianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could never summarize my thoughts on this into a Goodreads review but suffice it to say that I’m pretty sure I have only underlined more in The Divine Institution and 4.1 lmao

[Yanan Rahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of my favorite reads of the year.

[Ryan Turnbull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and important book. Will be writing a more substantial review for Studies in Christian Ethics.

[Laura Fabrycky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only way I could enter into this book was out of a deepening sense of bewilderment and discouragement while studying theological method as a PhD candidate. There is a lot of fresh air of thought and loving wrestling with their profession, which helps me see that perhaps my bewilderment and discouragement were not only warranted, but also invitations forward.

(My only critique - not meriting a star-ding - would be in language accessibility. Academic jargon clogs some -- not all and it's certainly not anywhere close to a total eclipse -- of the truly majestic metaphors and insights that could ring well beyond academic theological institutions. Since it's reckoning with an academic problem though, one must use the materials on location.)

[Daniel Rempel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book worth thinking with. When Reichel is right, they’re really right, and as someone who also works at one of the intersections between systematic and constructive theology (although I just call this intersection “ethics”), there was much to be gleaned from Reichel’s work bringing Barth and Althaus-Reid together.

Where I’m left with lingering questions, however, is on prioritizing the “use” of theology as the primary metric by which it ought to be judged, coinciding with the attempt at doing theology “better.” The former flirts too closely to a quasi-utilitarianism, and the latter risks turning theology into progress (despite Reichel’s warnings on this point).

More concerning, however, is that both “use” and “better theology” seem to function as a new kind of apophaticism, delineating what theology is not over and against what theology is/can be. The result is that in many places Reichel risks leaving their reader without any particular sense of what to do, merely what not to do. Such instructions are certainly important, but without the positive reconstruction, the reader is short-circuited, left without any particular sense of how to properly go on.

With all that being said, I’m going to continue stewing on these claims for some time, and I’m terribly grateful to Reichel for writing this book.

[Wesley Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Method is a rare theological gem—one that wields both humility and courage with astonishing grace. Hannah Reichel writes with the gentle wisdom of a dove and the incisive clarity of a serpent. This book is a masterpiece, not just for what it argues, but for how it manages to hold theology’s stakes at their highest without demanding that the theologian become grandiose or self-important.

Reichel invites us into a posture where the theologian is not called to save, but to care—not to fix, but to love. She dismantles methodological pretension not with scorn but with tenderness, offering in its place a rigorous, liberated, and compassionate theological imagination. One of the book’s most astonishing gifts is Reichel’s ability to hold with genuine respect divergent theological resources and unlikely conversation partners—Karl Barth and Marcella Althaus-Reid among them—without flattening their tensions or forcing false harmonies.

After Method is both an unmasking and a gentle reimagining—a courageous call to faithfulness beyond the safety of systems, all while honoring the beauty and gravity of the theological task.

[Kristofer Stinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A provocative and playful reimagining (or “re-design”) of theology. The book can be a little dense in places but is well worth it, especially as it builds up to its final chapters on thinking of theology as a type of design.

[Wendy Cordero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading in all intro to theology courses.

[Becky Coholan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for a theory and methods class for my MA in theology and religion. A great book, the author addresses the future and possibilities about theology, through a queer perspective.

[Cassidy Yarborough]

One of the book picks w Andrew

[sophistry]

Injected into my veins. Salvation is impossible, thank God.

Read for Queer Theology and Ethics.