Walter Brueggemann - Materiality as Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World

M ATERIALITY AS R ESISTANCE

Also by Walter Brueggemann
from Westminster John Knox Press

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MATERIALITY
AS RESISTANCE

Five Elements for Moral Action
in the Real World

W ALTER B RUEGGEMANN

Foreword by Jim Wallis

2020 Walter Brueggemann

Foreword and study guide 2020 Westminster John Knox Press

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

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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.

Book design by Erika Lundbom-Krift

Cover design by Mark Abrams

Cover image Texture Fabrik

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brueggemann, Walter, author.

Title: Materiality as resistance : five elements for moral action in the real world / Walter Brueggemann ; foreword by Jim Willis.

Description: First edition. | Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, 2020. | Summary: What is materiality? Jesus practiced materiality when he healed the bodies of the sick, proclaimed Jubilee to the poor, and fed the five thousand. He practiced materiality over materialism. In Materiality as Resistance, Walter Brueggemann defines materiality as the use of the material aspects of the Christian faith, as opposed to materialism, which places possessions and physical comfort over spiritual values. In this concise volume, Brueggemann lays out how we as Christians may reengage our materiality for the common good. How does materiality inform our faith when it comes to food, money, the body, time, and place? How does it force us to act? Likewise, how is the church obligated to use its time, money, abundance of food, the care and use of our bodies, observance of Sabbath, and stewardship of our world and those with whom we share it?. With a foreword from Jim Wallis, Materiality as Resistance serves as a manifesto of Walter Brueggemanns most important work and as an engaging call to action. It is suited for group or individual studyProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019052223 (print) | LCCN 2019052224 (ebook) | ISBN 9780664266264 (paperback) | ISBN 9781611649888 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Church and the world. | Church and social problems. | MoneyReligious aspectsChristianity. | FoodReligious AspectsChristianity. | Human bodyReligious aspectsChristianity. | TimeReligious aspectsChristianity. | HomeReligious AspectsChristianity.

Classification: LCC BR115.W6 B785 2020 (print) | LCC BR115.W6 (ebook) | DDC 261.8dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052223

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052224

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CONTENTS

Excerpt from Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition
with Study Guide: Saying No to the Culture of Now,
by Walter Brueggemann

I LOVED READING THIS BOOK, WHICH REMINDS ME AGAIN that nobody does it better than Walter Brueggemann in applying the Bible to how to change the world. Indeed, thats what most of the Bible is about: how God is acting in the world and how Gods people should act with their Creator. Walter has been the prophet to all the prophets of our age. His prophetic imagination has always to do with how we can partner with Gods purposes in the world.

I could never understand how my church missed all this as I was growing up. Their favorite verse, and the one they forced me to memorize first (an experience that I know many people raised in evangelical churches will easily relate to) was, of course, John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (I used KJV cause thats what I memorized!) I memorized it, as have countless millions of others. And that solved it: the Christian life. Just believe this and you will go to heaven, and therefore not to hell (the worst fear that was drummed into us).

The problem is, my church completely ignored the very first part of the text: For God so loved the world....

And the world had nothing to do with our faith, except that we were not to be worldly. In fact, the world never came up in our church or its teaching, which instead focused on how to escape the world by believing in Jesusnever