It is a salutary experience for all of us who read and write ‘theology’ to pause sometimes and turn to such a text as McIntosh's fine ‘introduction’ to theology. The difference is an important one. Most of us who consider ourselves theologians will add some clarifying or defining prefix. In my case it is ‘secular’ theologian, for others it may be feminist, systematic, narrative, gay, liberation, political, black, indigenous, post-realist, postmodern and so on. Add to these the qualifiers ranging from the broad traditions of Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, to the more specific denominational, the various political and church-political, the areas of specific interest from patristic, to Barthian, to mystical, and add the various radicals, conservatives and varieties of neo- etc. and we can become both individually and collectively a series of balkanised theologies and theologians. Given these self-delineations, such a text as yet another ‘introduction to theology’ is something many of us (mea culpa) will tend to overlook. For while having encountered such texts in the dim distant days of our initial theological studies, we can all too easily, and perhaps understandably, view them as necessary but personally passé stepping stones to our current specialisations and interests.

This wonderful book should cause us all to pause and rethink. For Divine Teaching is not just an introduction to theology; it is, for those of us who consider ourselves theologians, also a reintroduction to theology beyond our current focus and obsessions, a reintroduction beyond all our tribal theological boundaries. For this book is a proclamation – and challenge – to rediscover theology as first and foremost a joy, a passion, a wonder, a universal encounter and response and most centrally, a demand on ourselves as theologians. Central to McIntosh's vision of theology lies the risk of ‘the adventure of thinking into the deep heart of reality’ (p. 30). In short, this is an expression of analogical theology, for it argues that for humanity all theology is necessarily analogical. To express this central concept we encounter again a wealth of experiences and expressions from the past 2,000 years of theological thought. The reader is encouraged to compare and contrast, to think anew and challenged to engage with a common series of narratives which are discussed in various possibilities. None of the examples can be considered radical, but that is the point. This is an introduction and we who may seek particular expression, emphasis and issues must continue to do so in dialogue, response and intelligent, informed critique with what is the more central, orthodox tradition in its noted plurality. For as McIntosh demonstrates, even what could be generally termed varieties of Christian orthodoxy exist in historical and analogical variety. McIntosh's concluding call for theology to recover a humble and faithful self-confidence and ‘begin to propose some interdisciplinary conversations’ (p. 221) is qualified by his challenge that ‘a test for theological legitimacy and integrity . . . [is] examining the kind of person their theological journeys make of them’ (p. 50). Without slipping into Donatist piety, what McIntosh offers is a re-engagement with what can be termed a theology of praxis, a theology of lived politics; that is a self-corrective demand on all of us who may profess, in various expressions, to be theologians. This is therefore to be reminded of what is the outrageousness of the Christian claim, or as we might theologically express it, the scandal of the gospel.

Introductions as comprehensive, sensitive, challenging, nuanced and perceptive as this text are rare. Introductions that theologians should seriously engage with are, to be honest, even rarer. We should put aside our established modes of thought and particular theological identities and seriously engage with this text. We do not and – as theologicans – should not uncritically engage and respond to its claims, examples, analogies and expressions. But we should read it, wrestle with it – and read it again.