Abstract

The wealth of scholarship on Christian mysticism attests an enduring interest in this subject matter. Amidst the immense collection of commentaries on Christian mysticism lies this valuable book by Nelstrop, Magill, and Onishi. Their book, far from merely offering a survey of current theories on Christian mysticism, does make significant inroads in teasing out logical connections amongst interpretive theories and interpreted themes.Four different theories on mysticism, namely, perennialist, contextualist, performative language, and feminist, are set to work on examining themes within the Christian tradition such as Neoplatonic influences, apophatic language, erotic imagery, scriptural symbolism and exegesis, self-introspection, church hierarchy, female mysticism, and imaginative meditations. The first two parts of the book range over the readings of these themes through the lenses of the four mentioned theoretical approaches. The last chapter of part two presents viewpoints of the four