Books by Walter Brueggemann

The NRSV Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible

by Eugene H. Peterson, Dallas Willard, Richard J. Foster (editor), Walter Brueggemann

In this major new Bible, the foremost names in Christian spirituality and biblical scholarship, including Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson and Walter Brueggemann, come together to provide a unique study Bible that rediscovers Scripture as living and active text of spiritual formation. NRSV translation.

The NRSV Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible with the Deuterocanonical Books (With Deuterocanolical)

by Richard J. Foster, Eugene H. Peterson, Dallas Willard, Renovare, Walter Brueggemann, Bruce Demarest, Evan Howard, James Earl Massey, Catherine Taylor

The foremost names in Christian spirituality and biblical scholarship come together to provide a unique study Bible that rediscovers Scripture as living and active text of spiritual formation.

Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent

by Walter Brueggemann

To “prepare for Christmas� in our society is to be sucked into a vortex of indulgence, from decor to gifts to calorie-rich foods. Layer upon layer of tinsel, lights, and wrapping paper create the illusion of abundance, disguising the feeling of emptiness in our souls. The arrival of the Messiah, by contrast, is true abundance disguised by the impression of scarcity. Training our eyes to see through the rough stable, the adolescent mother, and the anxious escape to Egypt, we can see in that poverty and powerlessness the wonder of God's abundant life and grace coming down to dwell among us.

This powerful devotional by best-selling author Walter Brueggemann includes daily reflections on the Scriptures and stories of Advent in order to invite us to see beyond the world's faux extravagance and realize the true feast laid out before us. Twelve prayers are also included for the twelve days of Christmas.

Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study

by Walter Brueggemann

In Isaiah 9:6, a divine utterance is given to us using four royal titles--Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Names for the Messiah ponders each title and how the people understood it then, how Jesus did or did not fulfill the title, and how Christians interpret Jesus as representative of that title.
Christians have claimed from the beginning that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. In this study, best-selling author Walter Brueggemann tackles the questions: "What were these expectations?" and "Did Jesus fulfill them?"

A Way other than Our Own: Devotions for Lent

by Walter Brueggemann

Lent recalls times of wilderness and wandering, from newly freed Hebrew slaves in exile to Jesus' temptation in the desert. God has always called people out of their safe, walled cities into uncomfortable places, revealing paths they would never have chosen. Despite our culture of self-indulgence, we too are called to walk an alternative pathâ€"one of humility, justice, and peace. Walter Brueggemann's thought-provoking reflections for the season of Lent invite us to consider the challenging, beautiful life that comes with walking the way of grace.

Gift and Task: A Year of Daily Readings and Reflections

by Walter Brueggemann

The God whom we meet in Scripture is one who gives generous gifts in the wonder of creation, in the miracle of emancipation and reconciliation, and in the surprise of transformation. We are invited to receive those abundant gifts on a daily basis, with a posture of anticipation, awe, and gratitude. In response, we accept the worthy task of daily discipleship.
Gift and Task is an original collection of 365 devotions by best-selling author Walter Brueggemann, providing the opportunity to consider in critical ways the cost and joy of discipleship. Perfect for daily use, this book begins with the First Sunday of Advent and provides insightful reflection and thought-provoking commentary on the Scriptures for each day of the year. Brueggemann guides disciples with wisdom and encouragement for our never-ending walk along God's challenging, grace-filled path throughout the Christian year.

The Message of the Psalms : A Theological Commentary

by Walter Brueggemann

Originally published in 1985, this renowned and esteemed introduction to the Psalms that merges devotional literature with critical scholarship is more relevant than ever.
The Psalms nourish and nurture. The Psalms provide voices of faith in the life of community. Dr. Brueggemann provides insightful perspective, depth of understanding, and a structured overview of the psalms using orientation, disorientation, and new orientation to help readers comprehend the full experience of this rich book of the Bible. The Message of the Psalms is a wonderful resource for personal growth, spiritual growth, and overall Bible study, highlighting areas of contemplation throughout its pages. Songs of Creation, Wisdom, Well-Being, and Complaint along with Thanksgiving, Kingly Psalms, and Hymns of Praise are explored and explained, yielding deeper relevance to the Christian life.
The Message of the Psalms brings together Christian faith, expressions of suffering, eternal hope, and seasons of everyday life. Brueggeman unravels how the psalms of negativity, the cries for vengeance, and profound penitence are foundational to a life of faith, contemplating the reality that deep loss and extraordinary gifts are held together in a powerful tension.
Brueggemann incorporates Jewish words and the Hebrew alphabet in this work to enhance understanding for those who are not familiar with the language. Readers are encouraged to study the Psalms in tandem this offering as well as use this book to encourage and counsel other Christians. The Message of the Psalms provides clarity and is a highly recommended, valuable resource for any reader of the biblical text.

The Prophetic Imagination: 40th Anniversary Edition

by Walter Brueggemann

A classic text in biblical theology--still relevant for today and tomorrow.
In this 40th anniversary edition of the classic text from one of the most influential biblical scholars of our time, Walter Brueggemann, offers a theological and ethical reading of the Hebrew Bible. He finds there a vision for the community of God whose words and practices of lament, protest and complain give rise to an alternative social order that opposes the "totalism" of the day.
Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Linking Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus, he argues that the prophetic vision not only embraces the pain of the people, but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing.
This edition builds off the revised and updated 2001 edition and includes a new afterword by Brueggemann and a new foreword by Davis Hankins.

Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty

by Walter Brueggemann

Why bother with the interpretive categories of biblical faith when in fact our energy and interest are focused on more immediate matters? The answer is simple and obvious. We linger because, in the midst of our immediate preoccupation with our felt jeopardy and our hope for relief, our imagination does indeed range beyond the immediate to larger, deeper wonderments. Our free-ranging imagination is not finally or fully contained in the immediacy of our stress, anxiety, and jeopardy. Beyond these demanding immediacies, we have a deep sense that our life is not fully contained in the cause-and-effect reasoning of the Enlightenment that seeks to explain and control. There is more than that and other than that to our life in God’s world!

Virus as a Summons to Faith

by Walter Brueggemann

Why bother with the interpretive categories of biblical faith when in fact our energy and interest are focused on more immediate matters? The answer is simple and obvious. We linger because, in the midst of our immediate preoccupation with our felt jeopardy and our hope for relief, our imagination does indeed range beyond the immediate to larger, deeper wonderments. Our free-ranging imagination is not finally or fully contained in the immediacy of our stress, anxiety, and jeopardy. Beyond these demanding immediacies, we have a deep sense that our life is not fully contained in the cause-and-effect reasoning of the Enlightenment that seeks to explain and control. There is more than that and other than that to our life in God's world!

Peace (Understanding Biblical Themes)

by Walter Brueggemann

Each book in this series provides an in-depth look at a major recurring biblical theme and its lasting theological influence. The series is designed to enhance the reader's understanding of our biblical heritage and its relevance to faithful life today.

Money and Possessions: Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church

by Walter Brueggemann

The Bible is rich with complex and diverse material on the topic of money and possessions. Indeed, a close look at many scriptural texts reveals that economics is a core preoccupation of the biblical tradition. In this new work, highly regarded preacher and scholar Walter Brueggemann explores the recurring theme of money and possessions in the Old and New Testaments. He proposes six theses concerning money and possessions in the Bible, observing their contradictory nature to the conventional wisdom and practice of both the ancient world and today's society. Brueggemann advises us to reassess the ways in which our society engagesor does not engagequestions of money and possessions as carriers of social possibility. He invites the church to move toward an alternative neighborly economy that is more consistent with the gospel we confess.

God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good

by Walter Brueggemann

Justice, mercy, and the public good all find meaning in relationship--a relationship dependent upon fidelity, but endlessly open to the betrayals of infidelity. This paradox defines the story of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Yet the arc of this story reaches ever forward, and its trajectory confers meaning upon human relationships and communities in the present. The Old Testament still speaks.
Israel, in the Old Testament, bears witness to a God who initiates and then sustains covenantal relationships. God, in mercy, does so by making promises for a just well-being and prescribing stipulations for the covenant partner’s obedience. The nature of the relationship itself decisively depends upon the conduct, practice, and policy of the covenant partner, yet is radically rooted in the character and agency of God--the One who makes promises, initiates covenant, and sustains relationship.
This reflexive, asymmetrical relationship, kept alive in the texts and tradition, now fires contemporary imagination. Justice becomes shaped by the practice of neighborliness, mercy reaches beyond a pervasive quid pro quo calculus, and law becomes a dynamic norming of the community. The well-being of the neighborhood, inspired by the biblical texts, makes possible--and even insists upon--an alternative to the ideology of individualism that governs our society’s practice and policy. This kind of community life returns us to the arc of God’s gifts--mercy, justice, and law. The covenant of God in the witness of biblical faith speaks now and demands that its interpreting community resist individualism, overcome commoditization, and thwart the rule of empire through a life of radical neighbor love.

The Book That Breathes New Life Scriptural Authority and Biblical Theology

by Walter Brueggemann

"The purpose of this collection of Brueggemann's essays is to bring to the fore a much more extensive critical engagement on his part with the current discussion about the Old Testament, its character, its authority, its theology, and especially its God.... Readers of these essays who think they may have grasped what Brueggemann has to say about the theology of the Old Testament from reading his magnum opus will find that he is still thinking, still listening, and still helping us understand the scriptures of Israel and the church at an ever deeper level." from the foreword

Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition with Study Guide: Saying No to the Culture of Now

by Walter Brueggemann

In this new edition that includes a study guide, popular author Walter Brueggemann writes that the Sabbath is not simply about keeping rules but rather about becoming a whole person and restoring a whole society. Brueggemann calls out our 24/7 society of consumption, a society in which we live to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess. We want more, own more, use more, eat more, and drink more. Brueggemann shows readers how keeping the Sabbath allows us to break this restless cycle and focus on what is truly important: God, other people, all life. Perfect for groups or self-reflection, Sabbath as Resistance offers a transformative vision of the wholeness God intends, giving world-weary Christians a glimpse of a more fulfilling and simpler life through Sabbath observance.

Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out

by Walter Brueggemann

Silence is a complex matter. It can refer to awe before unutterable holiness, but it can also refer to the coercion where some voices are silenced in the interest of control by the dominant voices. It is the latter silence that Walter Brueggemann explores, urging us to speak up in situations of injustice.

Interrupting Silence illustrates that the Bible is filled with stories where marginalized people break repressive silence and speak against it. Examining how maintaining silence allows the powerful to keep control, Brueggemann motivates readers to consider situations in their lives where they need to either interrupt silence or be part of the problem, convincing us that God is active and wanting us to act for justice.

A Gospel of Hope

by Walter Brueggemann

Beloved and respected by scholars, preachers, and laity alike, Walter Brueggemann offers penetrating insights on Scripture and prophetic diagnoses of our culture. Instead of maintaining what is safe and routine, A Gospel of Hope encourages readers to embrace the audacity required to live out ones faith. This must-have volume gathers Brueggemanns wisdom on topics ranging from anxiety and abundance to partisanship and the role of faith in public life.

Struggling with Scripture

by Walter Brueggemann, William C. Placher, Brian K. Blount

Challenging the traditional meaning of Scripture is not easy, even in the face of issues that call into question those traditional interpretations. In these reflections, Walter Brueggemann says that the Bible, as the live word of the living God, will not submit to the accounts we prefer to give it. The Bible's inherent, central evangelical proclamation has greater and more permanent authority than our inescapably provisional interpretations. William Placher notes that taking the Bible most seriously means struggling to understand its meaning as well as affirming its truth. And Brian Blount distinguishes what some may claim as a "last word," which is necessarily a dead word, from the living word that is God's word to us today.

Chosen?: Reading the Bible Amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

by Walter Brueggemann

“The conflict is only ‘seemingly' beyond solution, because all historical-political problems have solutions, if there is enough courage, honesty, and steadfastness.�
In Chosen?, Walter Brueggemann explores the situation in modern-day Israel that raises questions for many Christians who are easily confused when reading biblical accounts of God's saving actions with the Israelites. Are modern Israeli citizens the descendants of the Israelites in the Bible whom God called chosen? Was the promise of land to Moses permanent and irrevocable? What about others living in the promised land? How should we read the Bible in light of the modern situation? Who are the Zionists, and what do they say?
In four chapters, Brueggemann addresses the main questions people have with regards to what the Bible has to say about this ongoing issue. A question-and-answer section with Walter Brueggemann, a glossary of terms, study guide, and guidelines for respectful dialogue are also included. The reader will get answers to their key questions about how to understand God's promises to the biblical people often called Israel and the conflict between Israel and Palestine today.

First and Second Samuel: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

by Walter Brueggemann

With critical scholarship and theological sensitivity, Walter Brueggemann traces the people of God through the books of Samuel as they shift from marginalized tribalism to oppressive monarchy. He carefully opens the literature of the books, sketching a narrative filled with historical realism but also bursting with an awareness that more than human action is being presented.

An Introduction to the Old Testament, Second Edition The Canon and Christian Imagination

by Walter Brueggemann, Tod Linafelt

In this updated edition of the popular textbook, Walter Brueggemann and Tod Linafelt introduce the reader to the broad theological scope of the Old Testament, treating some of the most important issues and methods in contemporary biblical interpretation. This clearly written textbook focuses on the literature of the Old Testament as it grew out of religious, political, and ideological contexts over many centuries in Israel's history. Covering every book in the Old Testament (arranged in canonical order), the authors demonstrate the development of theological concepts in biblical writings from the Torah through post-exilic Judaism. This introduction invites readers to engage in the construction of meaning as they venture into these timeless texts.

Sabbath as Resistance Saying No to the Culture of Now

by Walter Brueggemann

Discussions about the Sabbath often center around moralistic laws and arguments over whether a person should be able to play cards or purchase liquor on Sundays. In this volume, popular author Walter Brueggemann writes that the Sabbath is not simply about keeping rules but rather about becoming a whole person and restoring a whole society. Importantly, Brueggemann speaks to a 24/7 society of consumption, a society in which we live to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess. We want more, own more, use more, eat more, and drink more. Keeping the Sabbath allows us to break this restless cycle and focus on what is truly important: God, other people, all life. Brueggemann offers a transformative vision of the wholeness God intends, giving world-weary Christians a glimpse of a more fulfilling and simpler life through Sabbath observance.

Journey to the Common Good

by Walter Brueggemann

Respected author and theologian Walter Brueggemann turns his discerning eye to the most critical yet basic needs of a world adapting to a new era, an era defined in large part by America's efforts to rebuild from an age of terror even as it navigates its way through an economic collapse. Yet in spite of these great challenges, Brueggemann calls us to journey together to the common good through neighborliness, covenanting, and reconstruction. Such a concept may seem overwhelming, but writing with his usual theological acumen and social awareness Brueggemann distills this challenge to its most basic issues: where is the church going? What is its role in contemporary society? What lessons does it have to offer a world enmeshed in such turbulent times? The answer is the same answer God gave to the Israelites thousands of years ago: love your neighbor and work for the common good. Brueggemann considers biblical texts as examples of the journey now required of the faithful if they wish to move from isolation and distrust to a practice of neighborliness, as an invitation to a radical choice for life or for death, and as a reliable script for overcoming contemporary problems of loss and restoration in a failed urban economy.

The Word Militant: Preaching a Decentering Word

by Walter Brueggemann

Against the easy assurance of a too-enculturated religion, Walter Brueggemann refocuses the preaching task around the decentering, destabilizing, always risky Word that confronts us in Scripture - if we have the courage to hear. These powerful essays, previously available only in journals, are here combined with a newly composed preface and introduction. Includes a foreword from the Reverend William H. Willimon.

Contents
Foreword William H. Willimon
Preface
Introduction: At Risk with the Text
1. Preaching as Reimagination
2. The Preacher, the Text, and the People
3. Ancient Utterance and Contemporary Hearing
4. An Imaginative 'Or'
5. That the World May Be Redescribed
6. The Social Nature of the Biblical Text for Preaching
7. The Shrill Voice of the Wounded Party
8. Life or Death: De-privileged Communication
9. Preaching to Exiles
10. Preaching a Sub-version
11. Truth-telling as Subversive Obedience

An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination

by Walter Brueggemann

In this book Walter Brueggemann, America's premier biblical theologian, introduces the reader to the broad theological scope and chronological sweep of the Old Testament. He covers every book of the Old Testament in the order in which it appears in the Hebrew Bible and treats the most important issues and methods in contemporary interpretation of the Old Testament--literary, historical, and theological.

The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word

by Walter Brueggemann

Walter Brueggemann declares that the necessary character of truly prophetic preaching today is "a contestation between narratives." If the dominant narrative of our time promotes national self-sufficiency (through militarism) and personal self-sufficiency (through consumerism), it must be opposed by a different narrative. Prophetic preaching takes its stand in a world claimed by a God who is gracious, uncompromisingand real. Brueggemann writes here for leaders in faith communities who bear the responsibility of preaching. He describes the discipline of a prophetic imagination, in an unflinchingly realistic, unwaveringly candid manner.

Psalms (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)

by Walter Brueggemann, William H. Bellinger Jr

This text introduces the book of Psalms and provides an exposition of each psalm with attention to genre, liturgical connections, societal issues, and the psalm's place in the book of Psalms as a whole. The treatments of the psalms feature a close look at particular issues raised by the text and the encounters between the world of the psalm and the world of contemporary readers. The exposition of each psalm provides a reader's guide to the text in conversation with relevant theological issues.

The Prophetic Imagination

by Walter Brueggemann

In this challenging and enlightening treatment, Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision and not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing. In this new edition, Brueggemann has completely revised the text, updated the notes, and added a new preface.

Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann

by Walter Brueggemann

This thoughtful collection of prayers emerged from Brueggemann's thirty-five years of teaching in seminaries. Full of reflection, faith, and dialogue, they reveal another side of this gifted author from what his many readers are accustomed to. These deeply felt and sparklingly articulated prayers reflect a wide range of life experiences. As readers, we are taken from the depths of pain and loss to the heights of joy and praise. The author takes on life in its fullest as he utters his praise and lament, petition and thanksgiving. Brueggemann's prayers lead us to deeper commitment, deeper faith, and deeper reflection.
The volume also includes an index of biblical allusions that will be useful for preachers as well as the general reader looking for the biblical roots of these fears, hopes, struggles, and aspirations.

Worship in Ancient Israel: An Essential Guide

by Walter Brueggemann

In an engaging style--characteristic of the author, Walter Brueggemann--this Essential Guide describes the leading motifs of ancient Israel’s worship traditions in the Old Testament. The author guides the reader through the themes, central texts, prayers, festivals, and practices of that worship. He sees throughout the Old Testament a central emphasis on worship as a covenantal gesture and utterance by the community in the presence of God. In addition to being an essential guide to this subject, this book is intended to be in the service of current theological and practical issues concerning worship of the church in its ecumenical character.

Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy

by Walter Brueggemann

Tenacious Solidarity features essays and new writings from 2014 to 2018. As all of Walter Brueggemann's writing is, the chapters are deeply biblical while also concerned with the identities, practices, and obligations of religious communities in contemporary contexts within the United States. Brueggemann consistently attempts to weave the biblical texts--vested as they are with the authority of a storyteller--into the deep contours of his readers' experiences, in order to foster a tenacious solidarity that might overcome both the psychic numbness cultivated by a 24-hour news cycle as well as the anxious possessiveness nurtured by so many privatized spiritualities.
Brueggemann brings the "transformative potential" of the biblical texts to bear on critical contemporary contexts, including but not limited to economic disparities, racial injustice and white supremacy, climate and care for creation, and the power of memory and mentoring. He delves deeply in the Psalms, which he says, "provides a foundational script for living into the fullest and deepest realities of human existence." And he draws from the Prophets his foundational concept of totalism, which he defines as "automated fragmentation of social life such that we habitually and callously disregard our relations with others."

From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: Introducing the Psalms

by Walter Brueggemann

The Psalms express the most elemental human emotions, representing situations in which people are most vulnerable, ecstatic, or driven to the extremities of life and faith. Many people may be familiar with a few Psalms, or sing them as part of worship. Here highly respected author Walter Brueggemann offers readers an additional use for the Psalms: as scripted prayers we perform to help us reveal ourselves to God.
Brueggemann explores the rich historical, literary, theological, and spiritual content of the Psalms while focusing on various themes such as praise, lament, violence, and wisdom. He skillfully describes Israel's expression of faith as sung through the Psalms, situates the Psalmic liturgical tradition in its ancient context, and encourages contemporary readers to continue to perform them as part of their own worship experiences. Brueggemann's masterful take on the Psalms as prayers will help readers to unveil their hopes and fears before God and, in turn, feel God's grace unveiled to them.

An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture

by Walter Brueggemann, Peter Block, John McKnight

Our seduction into beliefs in competition, scarcity, and acquisition are producing too many casualties. We need to depart a kingdom that creates isolation, polarized debate, an exhausted planet, and violence that comes with the will to empire. The abbreviation of this empire is called a consumer culture.
We think the free market ideology that surrounds us is true and inevitable and represents progress. We are called to better adapt, be more agile, more lean, more schooled, more, more, more. Give it up. There is no such thing as customer satisfaction.
We need a new narrative, a shift in our thinking and speaking. An Other Kingdom takes us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where life is ours to create together. This satisfying way depends upon a neighborly covenant―an agreement that we together, will better raise our children, be healthy, be connected, be safe, and provide a livelihood. The neighborly covenant has a different language than market-hype. It speaks instead in a sacred tongue.
Authors Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight invite you on a journey of departure from our consumer market culture, with its constellations of empire and control. Discover an alternative set of beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable―a culture in which the social order produces enough for all. They ask you to consider this other kingdom. To participate in this modern exodus towards a modern community. To awaken its beginnings are all around us. An Other Kingdom outlines this journey to construct a future outside the systems world of solutions.

Alphabet of Faith Prophetic Prayers for a Chaotic World

by Walter Brueggemann

There is no good rhyme or reason to lay out matters of faith according to the alphabet, especially when it comes to prayer. There are no easy ABCs when it comes to following God and God's ways. The reason this present volume follows the alphabet is to prod the reader to think what item might come next and, then, after the last letter is added, to consider alternatives to the present list.

The list contains several groupings. The first and largest group concerns the substance and practice of biblical faith. A second group invites critical thinking about social power whereby we may reflect on how we employ our best reasoning to avoid distorted ideology or self-illusion, with two prayers addressing Brueggemann's own church tradition. Eight of the prayers center on names -- four of which are about contemporary scholars who have greatly impacted Brueggemann for good, and four characters in the biblical narrative -- all of whom model for good or for ill the faith to be embraced.

It is hoped that this alphabetic listing will inspire the work of constructing like "alphabets" of our most treasured and our most problematic legacy.

Old Words for a New World

by Walter Brueggemann

Walter Brueggemann has been so effective for so long precisely because he has consistently called upon the church to see beyond the taken-for-granted realities it confronts by imagining God's alternative reality; to recognize that the bars of its entrapment were social constructs and could just as easily be deconstructed so we could be once again enchanted by God's good news.

To challenge the taken-for-granted reality of the church and to imagine an alternative reality, Brueggemann consistently takes us back to the biblical text. He moves between a description of the reality that appears in front of the church and the alternative that God is preparing for God's people that begins now and moves into God's eschatological future. In so doing Brueggemann seeks to unleash the power of God's words to create a new world--here and now.

Real World Faith

by Walter Brueggemann

Real World Faith articulates a faith that is effectively linked to our real world, the world of our bodies and of the body politic. The real world of our bodies causes us to be largely preoccupied with our health, security, dignity, and sexuality, and causes concern for food and shelter for ourselves and for our neighbors. The real world of the body politic puts us in inescapable touch with issues of money, power, weapons, policies, treaties, taxes, and trade agreements. These are the matters that occupy us most of the time on most of our days. They are the proper agenda of our faith, because our faith consists in trust in the One who governs our bodily life in the world. Our interpretive work is to try to articulate the ways--albeit hidden ways--in which the agency and character of God make effective contact with our world. This is real-life faith.