Walter Brueggemann Column
Church Anew is honored to host Walter Brueggemann as our featured columnist. We look forward to sharing Walter’s work with church leaders and faithful people worldwide. May his powerful and reflective writings inspire, energize, guide, and comfort you.
In Our Abandonment
The good news entrusted to the church is that the God of the Gospel is indeed to us as an attentive receptive mother, as an attentive, receptive friend.
Living Outside the Lie
...it will be important that the church be engaged in that daily assault on denial, precisely because it is the truth, and only the truth, that can make us free.
Beyond a Fetal Position
Even when it feels like we're alone, God reminds us: you have allies, you have purpose, and you have work to do.
Calling a Different World Into Being
So imagine—a church of hope that gathers yet again to affirm the abundance, hospitality, forgiveness, and peace-making reality of God.
The Force of Id and Otherwise
The good news is that we are not and need not be propelled by the negating work of God, of Satan, of the devil, or the id.
Liberated From Shame
Without a capacity for embarrassment, every greedy selfish action is accepted as legitimate.
The Great Contest
It turns out that in “the water of baptism” the church has been entrusted with a mighty claim for the priority of community that resists and refuses the ideology of capitalist privatism.
What are the Ten Commandments?
We take a look back at Walter Brueggemann's thoughts on Biblical law and its place today, revisiting some of our favorite posts.
Don’t Vote for Kudzu!
One need not do more than point out the claim of Jotham that when good people default on public responsibility, kudzu-like exploitative alternatives occupy the public space.
When Sociology Disappears
It is a moment of great importance when it dawns on one that there are other worlds and that a different world is chooseable beyond the one we had taken for granted.There is something teasingly elusive about such singing; we are able to sing what we cannot say
Singing Faith Lyrical and Truthful
There is something teasingly elusive about such singing; we are able to sing what we cannot say
Always Means Never Meant
"... when the church recovers its own voice and its own nerve, the biblical text may continue to surge out of the past with a generative forcefulness into the present."
On The Role of Bishops
Walter Brueggemann writes on the church's lost duty to the poor, and how ecclesiastical leaders can help recover its most elemental mission.
The Production and Defeat of Poverty
Walter Brueggemann examines debt, hoarding, and the failure of our economy, and shows how Scripture may allow the creation of an alternative.
The Legacy of James C. Scott
Walter Brueggemann writes on the scholarship of late anthropologist James C. Scott, and how “the weapons of the weak” may be found in Scripture.
Sermon-Proof
Walter Brueggemann writes on how to make sermons penetrate to the heart of the listener and encourage them to be active and empowered agents of God.
Anticipating the Election
Walter Brueggemann writes on the intersection between politics and faith, and the values that the church must endorse in the coming election.
Out-Interpreting the Ten Commandments
Walter Brueggemann writes on Louisiana’s public exhibition of the Ten Commandments, and how we may interpret and reframe Biblical Law to better serve our marginalized neighbors.
Workable and Purposeful
Walter Brueggemann writes on Biblical and constitutional fundamentalism, and the increasing need for flexibility in a dynamic world.
In Memory of Sam Balentine
Walter Brueggemann writes Sam Balentine, a brilliant writer, brave pray-er, and beloved friend in a eulogy detailing his excellent character and courageous theology.