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.

Lethal Discovery/Toxic Denial
Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Lethal Discovery/Toxic Denial

The “Doctrine of Discovery” is constituted by a series of papal teachings in the 15th century, culminating in 1493, the year after Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World. This series of papal declarations asserted that the “New World” rightly belonged to White Europeans and was to be divided between Spain and Portugal, two states fully supportive of the Vatican. That teaching, over time, provided cover and justification for White occupation of the New World with an eager readiness to convert, enslave, or kill the indigenous population.

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Written Down, Written Up
Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Written Down, Written Up

The Greek term is apographo, that is, “written down.” All were to be “written down” under imperial auspices in the same way I had been “written down” by the church and by the government. Joseph and Mary, vulnerable peasants from the shabby village of Nazareth, were ‘written down” by the empire in its long reach into the peasant economy.

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The Empowering, Illuminating Word From Elsewhere
Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann

The Empowering, Illuminating Word From Elsewhere

In Psalm 119, by contrast, each letter gets eight successive lines. Thus with twenty-two letters in the alphabet, and each letter reiterated eight times, we get a sum of 176 verses. It is for that reason that the Psalm is so long. Our verse 105 occurs as the first of eight verses that start with nun (n) (vv. 105-112). The first word in verse 105, the first of eight lines with nun, is “ner” (lamp).

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Two Kinds of Truth
Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Two Kinds of Truth

Thus everywhere in scripture the issue is joined between these two kinds of truth. One truth is top-down. It originates in and serves the aims of established power. It tends to be quantifiable, provides certitude and security, and grows always more abstract. The alternative truth embodied in and performed by Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus is bottom-up.

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Reflections of My Childhood
Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann Brueggemann Column, Personal Reflections, Ministry Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Reflections of My Childhood

It occurs to me that this deep conviction of God’s providential care (that as instanced for me by my dad) is best sung, because it does not conform to our conventional adherence to patterns of “cause and effect.” That is, it dwells outside of our common rationality and invites us to think in alternative categories.

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