The Thirst of God: Contemplating God's Love with Three Women Mystics by Wendy Farley (review)

In The Thirst of God, Wendy Farley introduces "frustrated Christians" to the works of Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich (ix). She hopes that those who feel they are not being spiritually nurtured by their churches may come to a new understanding of Christianity by studying the lives and writings of past Christians who stressed love and compassion, practiced contemplative prayer, and were brave enough to critique the church.

Farley's contemplative study proceeds in a circular modality rather than a linear one: it progressively spirals deeper and deeper into the lives and theologies of Mechthild, Marguerite, and Julian. The introduction briefly describes these three women and some of the historical challenges they faced, arguing that their work should be taken seriously, and that Marguerite Porete's courageous beliefs should receive more respect than the theologies of those who worshipped at the altar of imperial violence by putting her to death. The Prologue and Chapter 1 detail the lifestyles of the pious medieval women called "beguines" and describes the suppression they experienced. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 introduce the texts of Mechthild, Marguerite, and Julian, situating their respective writings in their historical contexts and arguing that their work stood in tension with the ecclesiastical and political orders of their day. Farley's lively accounts bring to life the social systems of the time, shedding light on the power dynamics that each woman navigated. Chapter 5 reaches back to Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius to offer an apologetic for the medieval spirituality of desire and a defense of erotic imagery in the work of Mechthild. Here Farley's words are directed toward those who have inherited modern Christian fundamentalist or Barthian theologies, as well as those attracted to Buddhist philosophy. Nine chapters follow, three each on Mechthild, Marguerite, and Julian, highlighting the following diverse but interrelated themes: desire, love, mercy, suffering, compassion, feminine imagery for God, meditation, the apophatic way, non-dualistic contemplation, divinization, sanctification, virtues, free will, purgatory, ethical action, and criticism of church and society. In the course of these chapters, it becomes clear that Farley sees these medieval women as providing modern readers with theological alternatives to "the arbitrary fierceness of nominalist or Reformation theology" (131). A concluding chapter encourages readers to take from these women's writings whatever they need for their own inspiration, offering examples of what Farley herself has gleaned from their heritage.

The Thirst of God moves fluidly between past and present, between theology and experience, and between description and appropriation. It resembles a wide-ranging conversation between well-read friends who freely reference history, science, theology, novels, yoga, Buddhism, and psychoanalysis in relation to the topic at hand. This is not a work written for those who are concerned to avoid "presentism," for those who wish to keep a firm line of demarcation between the study of Christian spirituality and constructive or systematic theology, or for those who prefer to distinguish carefully between the world behind the text, the world of the text, and the world in front of the text. Farley approaches the writings of Mechthild, Marguerite, and Julian primarily as works of theology—carried out in the idiom of symbolic imagery—rather than as windows into the spiritual dimension of their authors' lived experiences. She is wary of theorizing about the nature of religious experience, particularly in light of the visions claimed by Mechthild and Julian. On the whole, Farley's reflections weave together historical criticism with reader-response criticism and constructive theological claims, while seeking to retrieve past political theologies that might address the spiritual and theological needs of the present.

There is a tension in this book between (a) presenting these women as courageous and innovative theological challengers to the "empires of violence" that employed the "official theology" in order to "underwrite their methods of terror," and (b) acknowledging various ways in which these women drew...