If one is left wondering about the relation between relation itself and wonder,indeed perhaps the feminist, queer and decolonial concrescences of the respon-sible indeterminacy proposed in Strange Wonder, one looks forward to Mary-JaneRubensteins next work and the growing force of her own voice. If one wishesto hear her reect on the relation between theology and philosophy, we are left,she writes, with a meditation on the breath, which opens the self essentially ontoevery other . . . (p. 188). If this last ruach feels too animal for otherworldliness,too mysterious for atheismso much the better. Theologically, Strange Wonderwill provide smart companionship for those working on questions of negativetheology, of the responsible deconstruction of Christianity, or of a relationalbasis for a political theology. It will be showing up as the sort of commentaryindispensable in future interpretations of her four primary sourcesall the more sobecause it is itself so quotable. The reader can only come to the end of this bookastonished.

Catherine Keller303 W 66thApt 20HENew York, NY 10023USACatherine-keller@earthlink.edu

The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist by Angel F. Mndez Montoya(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) xi + 170 pp.

There is a surprising dearth of material dealing with the philosophy and theologyof food and of eating, and Angel Mndez Montoyas book is a timely investigationinto one of the most interesting areas of embodied life. In this work Montoyaaddresses the question of the signicance of food and eating to theology, taking thealimentary function of food in all its complex resonances as a model for the role oftheology in nourishing human life, reorienting it towards the interdependenciesbetween human beings in community, of human beings with ecology, and of cre-ation with God. Montoya takes it as given that food matters, though the questionof what it is to matter is held open in the name of preserving a view of things thatescapes reductionism: Food matters because we cannot live without it, because insome sense, as Feuerbach observed, we are what we eat, but this is signicantbecause food is not just food; it always points beyond itself to speak of somethinggreater.

Montoyas thesis is that various aspects of eating suggest a vision of theologyconceived as alimentation. Food is an occasion for human nurturing and sharingbecause it participates in some sense in Gods superabundance and in the self-sharingof the trinity. The incarnation, and the self-giving of God becoming bread in theeucharist, continue this. The author distinguishes between nutrition, referring todiscrete chemical processes, and alimentation, which considers such processes aswell as their social and symbolic context. It is theologys calling, Montoya proposes, toparticipate in this function of the transformation of human beings by being a nurtur-ing and sharing force, and so becoming a kind of food. This all points to an ontologywhich is considered as the co-arrival of superabundance and sharing, neither abso-lutizing nor demanding total ownership (p. 4).

The rst chapter begins with an extended passage on making mole, a tradi-tional Mexican sauce, by grinding together 33 ingredients including several varieties

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of chili, spices, nuts and chocolate. For Montoya the example of mole paints apicture of the role of theology in human life according to certain points ofcomparison.

Mole is a complex hybrid which combines avours and traditions in a way thatintensies what is best in them and retains a strong sense of cultural identity; moleexpresses the distinctively Mexican, preserving the many cultural strands that go tomake it up, rather than emasculating them by a bland dilution. The making of mole isanalogous to the making of theology insofar as it is a complex labour requiringdiscipline and dedication, an art which is learned by doing.

The eshly nature of the incarnation points to the reality that esh is not Godsother, just as food is not other to the human person, but the product of humancreation, and becoming-human in its eating, though it is not itself esh in a strictsense. This seems to me to be one of the books most powerful comparisons, and it isa shame it is not more carefully drawn, though this is in many ways a consequenceof the very wide scope of the book and the fact that Montoya does not have a greatdeal of source material to work with.

In the second chapter, Montoya takes up the comparison between wisdom andtaste: the Spanish words for these, saber and sabor, betray their common root in theLatin sapere. For Montoya this etymology demonstrates that to taste is to truly know,to understand in a kind of mutual participation. Montoya refers to Laura Esquivelsnovel Like Water for Chocolate, in which a forbidden erotic relationship is conductedthrough the cooking of a woman for the man she truly loves, who is also her brother-in-law. Cooking and eating constitute, then, a sensual form of communication, and areparadigmatic for a participatory model of knowledge, showing how the Thomisticconception of knowledge as participation bridges the ontological chasm betweensubject and object characteristic of correspondence theories. For Montoya, Eatingand drinking thus provide a culinary medium for a cognition that is connected withthe body and constructions of the world (p. 46).

Montoya could go further here. Food is described as a medium for cognition, butthis seems to presuppose a kind of internal mental representation (a cognitive act)which is prior. Cuisine could perhaps be better understood as a form of bodilythought itself. Cooking is an example that shows that action is not the translationof a mental intention into a bodily movement, but rather an embodied process inwhich thought and action are inseparably intertwined in a body-subject.

In the third chapter Montoya argues, with Bataille, that in the postlapsarianworld there is a disconnection between creatures and creation, and that in thissituation eating is linked with death, both of the eaten and inevitably of the eater. Butasserting, against Bataille, the possibility of a creator that transcends creation,Montoya goes on to argue for a more positive reading under which eating points tothe suberabundance of God both prior to the fall and at creations end. Montoyaspends several pages developing a reading of the narrative of the fall in Genesis 2-3,arguing in the end that eating the forbidden fruit amounts to separating creation fromits creator by taking what is not given; this leads to a loss of the vision of God (which,then, presumably depends on seeing created things properly), and to the inevitabilityof death (since life is cut off from its ultimate source). It is withAlexander Schmemannthat this becomes clearerfor we depend on food, and such dependence leaves usdependent on the whole creation, which is Gods gift.

Montoyas reading of Sergei Bulgakov claries this, by elucidating the notion ofnourishmenteating blurs the boundaries between ourselves and the world, betweenwhat is I and what is not-I, between subject and object. As such I nd myself as adependent part of the world, not a Kantian subject forever distanced from noumenalreality, but rather a dependent part of that reality. Montoya examines BulgakovsSophianic vision, afrming the point of view that human beings play a role in

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co-creating or re-creating the world.Again, Montoya could go further in showing howour dependence on the world for sustenance involves our being a part of that world,so that whether or not human beings have a privileged place in the world, their roleis best understood not in terms of a dualism between man and nature but as an aspectof the self-shaping lability of the world.

In the fourth chapter, Montoya brings his reections on food to bear on politicalconsiderations. Taking Isak Dinesens novel Babettes Feast as a starting point, heaims to show how foods role as the matter of gift-exchange suggests a politicswhich is grounded in the abundance of the gift, Gods superabundance, as opposedto the pure power-politics which arises in capitalist conditions as a result of theconception of desire as guring a fundamental lack. Montoya draws parallels withthe scriptural pictures of Gods provision of manna to the Israelites wandering inthe desert, and Jesus miraculous feeding of crowds, both of which demand thatfood be treated as a gift rather than as property, and point to a deeper dependenceon Gods Word.

For Montoya, Christian celebration of the Eucharist symbolically repeats themiraculous feedings, reminding Christians of their dependence on God, for food andfor their very existence. Eucharistic eating displays a logic of co-inherence which iscentral to Christian understanding, for when I eat, the food I eat becomes me in theprocess of digestion, but I also become the food, I am what I eat. In the same way theChristian is in Christ, just as Christ is in the Christian, as the believer eats Christsbody. This ontology of co-inherence is opposed to a conception of desire as lack incapitalist societies, for whose citizens, however much they have, can never haveenough. The practices of feasting and fasting serve to discipline desire and to re-orientit towards God, the source and true object of what it desires, instead of towards thesupercial object of desire.

Montoya highlights four main conclusions of the argument of his bookrst, thattheology, like cooking, is a performative reality, which concerns what we do as muchas what we write or say. Second, that theology involves a broad plurality of ingre-dients (traditions, cultures, languages, etc.), but also a careful and knowledgeablecrafting of these elements. Third, that reections on food in general bear on theeucharist, which nourishes us both as material reality and as sign. Fourth, that think-ing about the eucharist can in turn inform the way we eat and live, and calls us torespond to the hunger of others, seeking to enter into the circulation of the gift whosesource is in God by being nourished and nourishing others, physically and spiritually.Montoya ends in an acknowledgment that the church does not always live up to thiscalling, and in particular of our failure to treat our ecological resources with respect.Nevertheless, there is cause for hope since the nourishment which God gives istransformative and ongoing.

The Theology of Food makes theological use of food as a paradigm and example forre-thinking both the aims of theology and its presuppositions, successfully holdingtogether form and content in an attempt to move beyond false dualisms. It shows howfood can be demonstrative of the failures of modern conceptions of the autonomousand spectatorial self and its relation to the world and to God. In some ways it does notcarry this logic to its conclusion, in ways I have suggested.

Montoyas argument depends on a kind of associative thinking which demandsfurther exposition in both philosophical and theological terms, and depends on acommitment to a Thomistic approach which not all readers will share. Whilst many ofthe associations he makes are suggestive of fruitful possibilities, the work of bringingto full expression the ontological insights which are nascent here, and their conse-quences for politics, ecology, and theology, remains to be done.

Nevertheless, Montoyas book is a delight to read, and is a signicant contributionto the effort to apply theological thinking to the everyday realities of embodied life.

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One hopes that the book will be, as the author suggests, a prolegomenon to furtherdiscourse.

Orion EdgarDepartment of Theology and Religious StudiesThe University of NottinghamUniversity ParkNottinghamNG7 2RDUKorionedgar@mac.com

Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology by Mark A. McIntosh(Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) xii + 252 pp.

All introductory theology textbooks should have three distinguishing features. First,they should coveras thoroughly as possiblethe essential building-blocks of thediscipline. By conveying such information clearly and efciently in written form,textbooks free up class time for deeper, more interesting explorations and/or inter-active discussions. Second, they should be accessible to their audiences withoutexpecting instructors to add mountains of explanatory addenda. If they presume toomuch, they defeat their primary purpose; students come to class mystied, in need ofdenitions, historical background, and explications of convoluted passages. Mostbooks marketed as textbooks clearly fail on this criterion; too many authors, pre-sumably in an effort to demonstrate their vast scholarship (or perhaps because theyhavent spent enough time in the classroom), simply expect too much background.While students are often eager and interested, they are not classically educated inlanguages, philosophy, or history; scatterings of untranslated words, or sidelongreferences to Wittgensteins aphorisms or Caligulas morality, lead to blank staresand eventual frustration. Third, a textbook should be interesting and enjoyable. Thisdoes not mean that it must entertain in the popular sense, or that it cannot stretchits readers. Most students today are relatively overwhelmed; they work at a job fortwenty hours a week, feel compelled to maintain social lives (both real and virtual),and participate in many of the thousands of activities that are thrust upon them. Ifthey are to be persuaded to read material in preparation for class, this will not beaccomplished simply by force of the instructors will. A well-written textbook shouldbe at least as interesting as the other demands on students time and energy; in doingso, it may even inspire a love of the discipline.

These observations are my own, based on years in the classroom. But they are notonly my own;Augustine believed quite rmly that theology should be written with itsaudience in mind. Adopting a slogan from Roman rhetoric, he insisted that the goal oftheology should be to teach, to delight, and to move; if Christianity is truly thecaptivating, inspiring, and joyous way of life that we often proclaim it to be, then thosewho read about it should experience it this wayand not as dull, boring, and utterlyunappetizing. In other words: if our students are put off by theological study, we haveonly ourselves to blame.

Given these criteria, it has been some time since I have read an introductorytheology textbook that I could genuinely recommend, or that I would consider usingin the classroom. I am therefore happy to report that Mark McIntoshs latest entry intothis eld is a marvelous exception to the rule. Recently named the new Van MildertProfessor of Theology at the University of Durham, McIntosh has written a book that

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