RELIGION: BOOKNOTES.

The topic of Paul Griffiths's latest book has been much on my mind of late. I've been thinking of ways to get students to read theological texts in a more "contemplative" manner so that they allow the texts to read back or speak to them. This is no easy task because students are so habituated to the passive intake of highly charged visual bits coming from the television or computer screen. Such passivity does not work very well when one is trying to learn the meaning of a passage of Scripture or the subtle line of thought in a question from the Summa.

Griffiths has a far more polemical take on the problem of reading. He argues (in his last chapter, he thunders!) that the academic literature produced in the field of religion is "consumerist," having no sense of how reading functions within a religious tradition. Reading itself, he says, should be a central religious practice. The burden of his tightly argued book, which uses examples from both Buddhism and Christianity, is to show that reading is central to religious faith and to explain in detail how this literature is constructed, materially and intellectually, within religious traditions. The distinction between "religious" and "consumerist" reading may be too sharp since the reasons for and ways in which people read have varied, and do, greatly, as Alberto Manguel has shown in A History of Reading (1996).

In his conclusion, Griffiths insists that there should be room in the academy for traditional practitioners of authentic religious reading. In other words, there ought to be space made for pundits and rabbis. Griffiths is sophisticated enough to realize that (a) this is unlikely to happen, and that (b) the paradoxical nature of his arguments rests in the uncomfortable fact that he (like myself and others) produces yards of "consumerist" literature in the field of religion.

Griffiths has done an immense amount of reading on the place of books and readers in the history of religion. His chapters on test cases are immensely learned but, in the case of Buddhism, demanding for the nonexpert. Oddly, the chapters on the fundamental genres of religious reading, which he sees as commentaries and anthologies, exclude the most fundamental genre of all: the sacred book, from which commentaries and anthologies spring. But how does one sharply distinguish his two categories? The medieval glossed Bible is a case in point. The glossed Bible had, at its core, the sacred book(s) about which countless pages of commentary are anthologized. Moreover, Griffiths does not pay sufficient attention to the question of how the very perception of a page radically changes over time, a change wonderfully explicated in Ivan Illich's compelling but insufficiently noticed In the Vineyard of the Text (1993).

There is much wonderful information in this book and it is very ably written. In fact, one can come away from it less pessimistic about the academy than the author, while still hoping that the old tradition of religious reading will continue to thrive in institutions apart from the academy. The best service this book provides is to highlight the vast need for critical reflection on the act of reading.

We are on the cusp of a revolution in communication as far-reaching as that inaugurated by the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century. Walter Ong, among others, has been making that argument for some time. The merit of Griffiths's book is that he brings much of this argument to bear on the work of the academy as it pursues what is commonly called "religious studies."

The word "mysticism" is of modern coinage, but the term "mystical theology" has an ancient pedigree. Traditionally, the adjective "mystical" meant "hidden." For instance, the ancient fathers and biblical commentators looked for that which was hidden under the plain sense of Scripture (accessible only to those who read "religiously" and not as consumers-to borrow Griffiths's distinction). More technically, "mystical theology" was the unutterable reality that always stood beyond whatever one might say about God. The sixth-century Syrian monk Dionysius wrote Mystical Theology as a counterpoint to his earlier work listing and describing the meaning of The Names of God. Mystical theology, then, stood as shorthand for the attempt to articulate what finally could not be said of the divine mystery as opposed to those positive things-albeit by analogy-that could be said of God. As Hans Urs von Balthasar noted, the positive and the mystical must be read dialectically.

Mark McIntosh, in this excellent study, understands that classical sense of the term "mystical theology" so well he makes the perceptive remark that the phrase meant the experience of the utter mystery of God rather than a mystic's own experience. To grasp that distinction is to understand that much of the contemporary philosophical inquiry into the nature of the mystic's experience-is it pure consciousness? mediated through religious categories? ineffable? noetic?-is a category mistake. Mystical theology has to do with the reality of God, not primarily with a mystic's "experience."

If mystical theology has to do with the experience of the mystery of God, then spirituality (I use the shorthand term) cannot be bracketed off from theology. Indeed, the fundamental argument of McIntosh's book is that there was no distinction between theology and spirituality for a long period in the church's history. The divorce of spirituality and theology has been in the process of healing at the hands of theologians like Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, McIntosh writes. A new integration of theology is highly desirable, according to McIntosh, who offers strategies for enhancing theological discourse through a recovery of the tradition of mystical theology. Basic to this line of argument is McIntosh's conviction that spirituality is about "the activity of being drawn into an encounter with the other." That emphasis on relationality allows McIntosh to assay positive constructions of everything from a new way of thinking about trinitarian theology to new angles from which one might think about ethics.

There is an enormous amount of popular writing on spirituality on the market today. I wrote "on the market" because a fair slice of such writing fits so neatly into our consumerist culture. McIntosh's book does not fit into that niche; in fact, he is, rightly, suspicious of most of it. This work is not for the theologically timid. He presumes some acquaintance with the tradition, argues with theological acuity, and is solidly orthodox in his Christian affirmations. This is an important work which heralds what I hope will be more serious attempts to marry real theological learning to committed Christian praxis.

Studies on biblical Christology appear with great frequency. Some are highly technical while others are more inclined to the devotional. Some authors, and I would number Frank Matera as one of them, have the knack of absorbing the work of sophisticated scholarship and transmitting that learning in a readable and spiritually nourishing manner.

The merit of Matera's work rests precisely in his approach, which is to read the text as a narrative and in the canonical shape it has in the Bible while paying attention to the way(s) in which the biblical writer describes, professes, and reflects upon the figure of Christ. He accomplishes this by asking some fundamental questions: What is the relationship of Jesus to God the Father? How did the biblical writers understand the paschal mystery of Christ's passion, death, and Resurrection? What significance, weight, and intention did the writers give to the many titles of Jesus? He treats the whole of the New Testament in light of these central issues. As the book concludes, he argues that despite the quite different trajectories of the individual works in the canon, there is a unity in the diversity of the Christologies discussed.

In the introduction Matera states that one of his aims is to help theology students take more seriously and centrally the data of Scripture. In that sense, he undertakes a great task in contemporary theology, namely, to overcome the chasm that can develop between professional exegesis and theological reflection. Since the book is clearly written, thorough, and well organized, it would make a nice companion volume for a mature biblical study group or for classroom use.

Pax's book, according to the dust jacket, sold a million copies in its first edition, which saw light nearly thirty years ago. My guess would be that many of those copies were sold to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Pax, a Franciscan, knows that place well. His easy-to-read narrative about the sites is illustrated with some one hundred and forty crisp photographs of churches, shrines, and holy places. The photographic emphasis is on the many Latin rite churches, which stand over the putative places associated with the biblical story of Jesus.

The "coffee table" format makes it an attractive gift or souvenir for someone who either has been or plans to go on pilgrimage. The author intertwines a kind of running narrative of the gospel story with side glances toward archaeological discoveries and historical observations. A large number of the illustrations are interior views of Latin churches in various locations. The interiors, mostly modern, are hardly distinguished examples of Christian art or architecture.

Were I editing this volume I would have insisted on a few more user- friendly elements. At a minimum there should have been a brief bibliography of more detailed guide books (like the authoritative The Holy Land [Oxford University Press, 1998] by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, O.P.), a few maps to orient the reader, and, finally, an index. Pax's book is attractive but it is more souvenir than reliable guide.

Porter's book is done in the same large format, with 160 color illustrations, 20 black-and-white illustrations, and 20 maps. He does not cover the pilgrimage sites in the same manner as Pax, though he does explain the land, culture, religious customs, and geography in accessible detail. The book has five large sections: the setting of the life of Jesus; the life of Jesus; his teachings; interpretations of Jesus; and Jesus in art. A glossary of terms, a list of abbreviations, a basic bibliography, and an index are provided.

To show how this book works, I will choose, from many possibilities, Porter's brief discussion on the synagogue in the time of Jesus (under "Setting"). Porter provides a photo of the synagogue remains of Bar'am in the Galilee which is built over the archaeological remains of the synagogue which Jesus may have entered. He then discusses the place of the synagogue in the life of the Jews during the time of Jesus. In a boxed feature in the same chapter there is a brief outline of the cycle of Jewish festivals, which is illustrated by a fifteenth-century Italian panel painting of Jesus at the Last Supper. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of this book is its use of classic works of art to illustrate the topics at hand. None of the chapters (if that is what they should be called) is longer than two pages, but with the boxes that provide ancillary information, a great deal of learning is packed into these pages.

It struck me that were this fine book to appear in a somewhat less expensive edition it would make a nice companion volume for a study group or even a beginning college course on the New Testament. It provides solid information and is a feast for the eyes, a beauty made evident by the high quality of the visual materials on every page of the text.

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion by Paul Griffiths Oxford University Press, $35, 210 pp.

Mystical Theology by Mark McIntosh Blackwell, $26.95, 246 pp.

New Testament Christology by Frank Matera Westminster John Knox, $26, 304 pp.

In the Footsteps of Jesus: 2000 Years Later by Wolfgang Pax Continuum, $29.95, 224 pp.

Jesus Christ: The Jesus of History, the Christ of Faith by J.R. Porter Oxford University Press, $35, 240 pp.