Walter Brueggemann - Truth and Hope

Truth and Hope

ALSO BY WALTER BRUEGGEMANN

FROM WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS

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Truth and Hope

Essays for a Perilous Age

W ALTER B RUEGGEMANN

Compiled, Edited, and with
a Foreword by Louis Stulman

2020 Walter Brueggemann

Foreword 2020 Westminster John Knox Press

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2910 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396. Or contact us online at www.wjkbooks.com.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. Scripture quotations not from the New Revised Standard Version are those of the author. Scripture quotations marked CEB are from the Common English Bible, 2011 Common English Bible, and are used by permission.

Book design by Sharon Adams

Cover design by designpointinc.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brueggemann, Walter, author.

Title: Truth and hope : essays for a perilous age / Walter Brueggemann.

Description: First. | Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, 2020. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019052114 (print) | LCCN 2019052115 (ebook) | ISBN 9781611649857 (ebook) | ISBN 9780664265960 (paperback) | ISBN 9780664265960 (paperback) | ISBN 9781611649857 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Old TestamentTheology. | Bible. Old TestamentCriticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. ProphetsTheology. | TruthBiblical teaching. | HopeBiblical teaching. | Church and social problemsProtestant churches. | United StatesReligion21st century.

Classification: LCC BS1192.5 (ebook) | LCC BS1192.5 .B825 2020 (print) | DDC 230/.0411dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052114

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052115

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Contents

During the past fifty years, Walter Brueggemann has emerged as one of the most influential figures in biblical studies and U.S. Protestant Christianity. This impact is not limited to his distinguished writing career, which includes a repertoire of well over one hundred books; it is also the upshot of his passionate work in the seminary classroom (at Eden Theological Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary) as well as hundreds of lectures and sermons given at churches, universities, and conferences across the United States and abroad. A recent conversation at Baltimore-Washington Airport reminded me of Walters enormous impact. While waiting for my flight to Detroit, I lent a hand to a person carrying three massive bags. He had spent two months in the Northwest Pacific Wilderness and was now traveling to Baltimore to visit a grandchild teaching at Johns Hopkins. When he learned I was a religious studies teacher, he told me his partner had taken a doctoral class in Atlanta on the book of Jeremiah. Im not sure if youre familiar with the instructor, Walter Brueggemann, but this extraordinary individual almost singlehandedly revolutionized the way the U.S. church interprets the Bible. This serendipitous meeting only reinforced my conviction that Walter Brueggemannpreacher, teacher, scholar, social critic, organic intellectualhas indeed played a formative role in the church and the academy.

This book may conclude Walter Brueggemanns publishing career. If so, take special note. As we have come to expect from Walter, Truth and Hope is rich in insight, subversion, and imagination. It inspires, disturbs, and pulsates with astonishing clarity. It relishes interpretive complexity, acknowledges a multiplicity of textual voices, and never tires of dialogue over monologue. And like a good number of his books, it is markedly wide-ranging, as if to address as many pressing issues as possible under one cover: public faith, consumerism, intolerance, drifts toward fascism, immigration, loss of wonder, hegemonyall, of course, through the interpretive lens of Christian Scripture. The present book parses Hebrew texts on prayer and justice, inclusion, hope, truth-telling, stewardship, generosity, and fidelity, as well as greed and fear. Like every other work of Walters, it moves briskly and organically into contemporaneity, refusing to relegate biblical texts to antiquity and never shrinking from the most pressing issues of our time. Accordingly, it is not only a robust reading of the Bible and a biting social critique; it is also rich theological engagement, which, I think, is its distinguishing mark. Put directly, this book is unabashedly theological. Whether tackling religion and higher education, homiletics, modern reductionism, or neighborly materiality, Walter, as is his custom, enters the fray and broaches questions of transcendence. He dares to speak of God, even though it is increasingly difficult to do so with intellectual integrity. Kathleen OConnor reminded me recently that people dont talk much about God these days. And I thought to myself, Thats right, and for good reason.