Abstract
An introduction to the work of this complex theologian has long been needed and will provide a valuable resource for students being introduced to the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid. The book starts with a short bibliography giving the student the skeleton of Marcella’s life and moves through chapters dealing with her main concerns – activism, teaching scholarship. Hermeneutics, liberation theology, post colonial and indigeneity, capitalism, women and god, the body, indecency/decency, heterosexuality, queering the marginal God and crucifixions and resurrections. In this way, the book gives glimpses into the complexity of Marcella’s work. The work also contains a bibliography of Marcella’s writings which will aid students to follow up any chapter that particularly captures them. Cooper does give a picture of how creative and indeed brave Marcella was as her life before academia and during was not always plain sailing. It would however be impossible to give anything more than a glimpse into the complex character who created such challenging theology.
If I have one regret about the book, it is that Cooper did not speak to those who collaborated with her in relation to the work they created together as she attributes to Marcella many ideas and words that were not hers. As Cooper knows a joint writing project is often divided by chapter between the authors – yes from in-depth discussion. This said it is a sound introduction which shows the depth of Marcella’s work. My hope is that those who read it will see the passion for the margins and carry on the mantra that inspired the work that Marcella and I did together ‘we have to be missionaries from the margins to the centre carrying a different divine word’.