Episode 301: Walter Brueggemann - Resurrecting the Bible in the Mainline Church (REISSUE)
In this reissued episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete and Jared sit down with the late Walter Brueggemann to reflect on how the Bible can be reclaimed in the mainline church after generations of historical criticism. He challenges both liberal and evangelical tendencies to reduce Scripture to rigid certainties, instead offering a vision of the Bible as a dynamic, imaginative script meant to be performed. With insights on authority, contradiction, justice, and the role of the church, Brueggemann invites us to take the Bible seriously—without taking it literally. This is a reissue of The Bible for Normal People Episode 4 from April 2017 in loving memory of our dear friend Walter (1933-2025).
Mentioned in This Episode
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Pete: You’re listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas. All right, everybody, it's that time of year again.
Pete: Yeah. Baseball season. Go, go Yankees!
Jared: Yeah. No, no, no. Boo.
Pete: Yeah. Okay, fine.
Jared: It's time for another year of summer school and we have some awesome classes. We're resurrecting the hall pass for another year, which gets you access to all three classes, and it's a great way to support the work we do.
Pete: Our June class is “Who the [expletive] Wrote the Bible?” taught by the one and only Aaron Hagashi.
Jared: Ever wondered who really wrote the Bible? Aaron's gonna take a closer look at who may have written the Pentateuch, the historical books, and some of the most well-known prophets, plus a few thoughts on the New Testament too, of course.
We're not gonna leave the New Testament out, but you can expect big words like anachronisms, archeology, ideology. But don't worry, we're gonna explain them. This is the Bible for Normal People after all.
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Pete: Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in. Normally today, we would be airing a Pete Ruins episode, but we are rescheduling that for next week. Today, we are re-issuing Episode 4 from way back in season 1, which was our interview with the late Walter Brueggeman, who passed away on June 5th. Many of you know who Walter was, and his tremendous legacy as a speaker, author, and teacher. Bottom line, he was without question one of the most influential, prophetic, and prolific scholars of the Hebrew Bible of our time. And I can speak for Jared here that Walter was an inspiration for us in his personal warmth, and remarkable control of the Bible, and the many insights he had about how the Bible can speak to our existence today.
If I had to distill Walter’s career, I would put it this way. His focus was on the theology of the Hebrew Bible, informed by historical critical thinking for the benefit of the Christian church. Now, specifically, the mainline church of which he was a part. Mainline churches had historically lost some of their connection to the Hebrew Bible, and in that sense, Walter was a true post-liberal. How can we regain the Bible as our source of life-giving theology after generations of neglect? Put another way, how can we put ourselves back under Biblical authority in a fresh way?
For me personally, two of Walter’s books were absolute game-changers. The first is The Prophetic Imagination, published in 1978. Here, Walter explained to me the function of the prophets in a way I had never heard before. They were all about resisting a consumerist, depersonalized political machinery, and instead casting a vision of how life under God could be.
The biblical prophets arose as a response to the abuse of political power during the period of the monarchy, and the prophets’ job was to call that power to account. Israel’s monarchy was, in effect, not just a troubled institution, but a step back to Egyptian bondage. The prophets sought to turn that tide.
The other book is his Theology of the Old Testament:Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, that came out in 1997. Here, Walter laid out for me the different voices of the Bible, and how intentional it was on the part of the editors to let these different voices be heard. And he uses the memorable analogy of a courtroom, where witnesses give testimony to what God is like. Now Israel’s core testimony, it’s main testimony for how it speaks of God, is a God who operated on a reward and punishment system. Those who follow God’s laws will be blessed, and those who don’t will be cursed or punished.
This core testimony extends from Genesis through 2 Kings, but there is also a counter-testimony that calls this neat view of God into question. Psalms of lament, Job, and Ecclesiastes, for example, are a cross-examination of the core testimony. It’s like, “hey pal. It doesn’t always work out as neatly as all that. After all, the righteous suffer. The unrighteous are rich.” Seeing this dynamic at work opened my eyes to the Bible as much as anything I have ever studied.
One final note, if I may, a personal one. About fifteen or twenty years ago, I forget when, but I was speaking at a conference alongside of Walter, and one evening, a group of us went out to dinner. When the waitress came over to take our order, Walter immediately asked for her name and engaged her in an extended, warm, pleasant conversation, to the point where the boundary between the server and the servees was completely gone.
The only other thing he could have done to make her feel seen and respected more was pull out a chair and invite her to join us. That left an impression on me, because I have been in situations where well-known personalities in the Christian world spoke harshly and condescendingly to the waitstaff. To this day, I tell people, you can tell a lot of what people are like by how they treat those who serve them. Walter was one of the good ones, and that moment of extended kindness has stayed with me all these years.
And to this day, when I sit down to order a meal- I kid you not, folks- I tell myself, remember what Walter did.
Okay, as we get started here, a quick production note. This interview was originally recorded way back in season 1, yeah, back in April of 2017. Jared and I were in the strings-attached-to-cans era of sound quality, so please forgive us for the, well, the low-quality you’re going to hear. Hopefully it won’t be too distracting, because we hold our time with Walter dear. Thanks for joining us.
Welcome normal people! Our topic today is Resurrecting the Bible in The Mainline Church with our guest, none other than Walter Brueggemann.
Jared
Yeah, we need a drumroll. I mean, Brueggemann clearly, kind of a hero of mine, written over a hundred books, couldn't even—it would take the podcast-
Pete
Actually, I've heard that in his church, the kids are quizzed, not on Bible verses, but how many book titles they can remember.
Jared
[Laughing]
Pete
Yeah, that's true, I heard that on the internet.
Jared
That's great! So yeah, they just list them by numbers. It's actually "98 Brueggemann,-"
Pete
[Laughs]
Jared
-Page 43. So, just a real spectacular guy, one of the most influential Bible scholars of our time. Really grateful to get to talk to Brueggemann about the Bible, and maybe, what are some of the things that you've learned from Brueggemann over the years?
Pete
Oh! I've learned, I mean really about justice, I think and justice in the prophets. Which is there, and again, in my background, which is probably a fairly typical Evangelical-ish background, that's not always emphasized, prophets basically predict Jesus. They don't say much about too much else, maybe a bit of a caricature, but not too much of a caricature. But what I like about Brueggemann is, how he is trying to reconstruct the Bible for The Mainline Church. Well, why do they need that? Well, because The Mainline Church has passed through a modern period of biblical scholarship and taken that very seriously. The Evangelical Churches tend to sort of do an end around and sort of evade some of the difficult issues. But now, now that The Mainline Church has actually passed through what Walter Wing calls the "acid bath" of criticism. The question is, okay, well, what do you do with the Bible?
Jared
[Hums]
Pete
What's it there for? And that's actually the constructive question that needs to be asked in The Mainline Church, after passing through this period of modernity. And Walter Brueggemann has dedicated his work and his writing to helping answer that question for The Mainline Church.
Jared
Yeah, and I've really appreciated over the years his continued connection to the church. The Bible, you know, the metaphor we'll talk a little bit about, the compost pile of the Bible, and that it's always living and active through the church. And, so he never lost that connection to how this should be lived and breathed today, and how it's relevant for us, and I think in really surprising ways.
Pete
And I also appreciate that he's 130 years old-
Jared
[Laughing]
Pete
-And is doing this podcast anyway. And he was far more coherent than Jared and I were, that's for darn sure.
Jared
Absolutely! Good! Well, let's continue the conversation now with Walter.
Intro
[Highligt of Walter Brueggemann speaking overtop of music begins]
Walter Brueggemann
The problem is, it's not a package, and it doesn't fit together, it is filled with contradictions. The contradictions simply resist finding a formulation that can account for everything so, it requires us to, in some ways, to hold it loosely, but to take it seriously, without imagining that it's going to deliver a package of certitudes for us.
Intro
[Highlight ends]
Pete
Right, well, Walter, thank you so much for joining us! We're just thrilled to have you here on the Bible for Normal People Podcast. So great! How are you?
Walter Brueggemann
I am fine, I get—I'm old, so I get weary this time of day—but I'm good!
Pete
[Laughs] You're old?
Jared
[Chuckles]
Walter Brueggemann
I'm old!
Pete
You don't know your Old Testament, Walter, there were plenty of people in the Old Testament much older than you are.
Walter Brueggemann
[Laughs] That's right!
Pete
I'm surprised that you lack [Call cuts out], I'm just deeply moved by that. Hey listen, let's get right into this. You know, we talk about the Bible here, and it's a hot topic, and a lot of people talk about what the Bible is, and what do we do with it. Your whole life in The Mainline Church is probably different than a lot of people who might be listening here, with maybe more of an Evangelical or Fundamentalist background? And, talk to us a little bit about maybe the struggles of the Bible that, in the trajectory of The Mainline Church, sort of where it's been, and I know a lot of your life's work is in leading it to a certain place. So, help us get some context for that.
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think that The Mainline Churches probably have been excessively captured by historical critical study. And, the effect of historical critical study, is to distance the Bible from us and to eliminate the hard questions that make faith scandalous. So, my uphill battle in Mainline Churches, has been to try to show the spectacular ways in which the Bible is contemporary, in which the Bible does not fit any of our reasonable categories, in which the Bible invites us to scandalous kinds of imagination, and scandalous kinds of obedience. I think that the counterpoint in the more Evangelical churches, is that the Bible has been reduced to a package of truths without much dynamism, and that also makes the Bible equally uninteresting. So I sort of have taken upon myself to be working on both those fronts, because I get invited to a lot of Evangelical settings as I do to a lot of Mainline settings. And, I think those are the twin temptations, either to reduce it to a, the Bible, to a rational package, or to reduce it to a doctrinal package. And I don't think either one of them serves the Bible very well.
Pete
Well do you think- that's very helpful. Do you think, Walter, that historical criticism might be an effective challenge, a positive challenge to Evangelicalism and its reduction of the Bible to a doctrinal package?
Well I think that's exactly right. And I think historical criticism emerged two hundred years ago, because of the kind of reductionist Orthodoxy in Germany. So it is, historical criticism is hugely important. The problem is, that Mainline Churches tended to stop there, instead of going on to become post-critical to say, now I understand all these critical maneuvers that you have to make in the Bible. How do I move beyond that, to take this as a script for faith? So it's a kind of two step deal. And I think that Mainline have made the first step but not the second, and my perception is that many more of Evangelical traditions have not made that first step into critical study.
Jared
So with that, Walter, say a little bit more, you talk about in the beginning, scandalous imagination, post-critical, would you say that moving through the historical-critical process, is that a necessary step into this place of imagination and post-critical you talk about-
Walter Brueggemann
I suspect it is, in some form. I think that probably, we have overdone historical-criticism. And we've pushed it farther than is needful. But what historical-criticism wants to show us is that the Bible is a very complex document that has developed over time, and you cannot treat it as a kind of a... seamless package of Revelation. So that's a very important kind of awareness, when we come to take the Bible seriously. And I think that anyone who is really serious about the Bible has got to face that dynamism and that complexity, whether they do it through conventional historical-criticism, or whether they find some other way to do it.
Pete
Yeah. Can you give us an example or two of where historical-criticism has been pushed, to use the phrase, too far?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think, in terms of... If you take the book of Isaiah, for example, historical-criticism has probably settled into the conviction that there are four Isaiahs, there's the first Isaiah, second, third, and probably a fourth in chapters 24-27, or something like that. And, I think that to try to pin down every piece of scripture to a particular historical moment, is to try to do more than we know, and I don't think it really helps us understand the text very much. So we spend an enormous amount of energy or in the Pentateuch trying to sort out the documentary hypothesis into J, E, D, and P. I think that we've pushed that so that German scholars in particular have separated one verse into two sources, and I—that kind of scholarship is still going on in Germany, and I just think probably that's too far and not helpful. On the other hand, historical-criticism has been useful, for example, in trying to understand the two creation stories and why it is maybe that God does not have a proper name in the first creation story and that tradition doesn't let us know God's name until Exodus 6. Whereas in the second creation story, God's name, Yahweh, is known from the beginning. So those sorts of things are kind of helpful, I think, to see that we've got very different interpretive trajectories and interpretive angles on this, that have to be honored and credited as being very different. And the interaction between those different trajectories can be very generative of our understanding.
Pete
So recognizing the tensions, without having to explain them meticulously in great detail, that's almost enough, in a sense.
Walter Brueggemann
That's right. And recognizing that you can't explain them away, or you can't solve them. But you in some way have to try to live with them.
Pete
Right. I mean, it's interesting how in the Evangelical world—and I don't mean to paint everything with one brush here—but, it's the fact that for example, source critics can't always agree on where sources begin and end, that the entire enterprise of seeking and working with these tensions is discredited. Right, so-
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think that's right.
Pete
So, you'd agree that Moses wrote it all.
Walter Brueggemann
Yes. Right, [Chuckling softly] right. I think that—that kind of criticism has been overly ambitious, and has tried to do things that we really can't do. And we need to, we need to just let some of that be.
Pete
Yeah.
Jared
Well, talk a little bit more because, you know, we talk about, [Background movement] you know, when you talk about language like "too far" and "not helpful," it makes me think that you think the text has a different purpose, because I could see a lot of Evangelicals saying, "What's wrong with the Bible being a package of truths?" Because the whole point is to tell us the truth and more people who are more interested in the academic world of critical scholarship saying, "Well, what's wrong with it being a package of going down as far as we can to get as meticulous because it's about the knowledge of where these sources did come from?" So when you use language, like both of those aren't as "helpful," makes me think you have a different vision for what we're supposed to be using the Bible for. So can you talk about that?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think the problem is that it's not a package, and it doesn't fit together. It is filled with contradictions. And the contradictions simply resist finding a formulation that can account for everything. So it requires us to... in some ways, to hold it loosely, by which I do not mean not to take it seriously, but to take it seriously without imagining that it's going to deliver a package of certitudes for us.
Jared
[Hums]
Walter Brueggemann
And that's what, that's really what I want to resist.
Pete
Mhmm.
Walter Brueggemann
Whether it is the rational certitudes of progressives, or whether it is a theistic certitude of more Evangelical people.
Pete
Right. Well, you know, following on that, are words like "inspiration" and "revelation," active theological categories for you for how you think about the nature of the Bible?
Well, I found them in a whole to be not very helpful categories. I don't mind saying that the Bible is inspired, and I don't mind saying that the Bible is revelatory. The problem with those words is that they are so loaded with all kinds of assumptions, that when we use those words, we almost inevitably are misunderstood. And I don't use those kinds of words on the whole, because I do not think they communicate very helpfully. So, if you take the word "inspiration," you can take that all the way from thinking that God dictated and whispered in somebody's ear, the exact words, to the other extreme, that says, well, it's a very artsy kind of book, and it is inspired the way all good art is inspired, that shows us something that we otherwise would not be able to see. And I think that whole spectrum of meanings for the word "inspiration" probably is operative. But it's so slippery that I don't think it gets us very far.
Pete
How about the word "authority?"
Walter Brueggemann
Well... I credit the Bible with having great authority, but then I want to define [Laughing] what is meant by authority.
Right? In some ways, it's the same kind of problem. My sense of authority, in my own practice, is that I have decided, or I have been compelled or persuaded, however one wants to say that, to take this literature with utmost seriousness.
Pete
Uh-huh.
Walter Brueggemann
And I am obligated to be engaged with it and to respond to it.
Pete
Right.
Walter Brueggemann
That's what I mean by authority. But obviously, many other people use the word in more scholastic ways or more authoritarian ways. And I don't find that very helpful.
Pete
Right, I mean, terms like "authority," and "inspiration," and "revelation" are oftentimes discussion enders, rather than beginners. And more often than not, it's really the authority of my tradition, or my interpretation of this that matters rather than really the authority of the Bible. Because the Bible doesn't challenge what we think anymore. We just have-
Walter Brueggemann
That's exactly right. That's right. And when we go to those, what I regard as rather hard categories, we tend to cherry pick... and we really believe that the words that we happen to like are the ones that are most deeply inspired.
Pete
[Chuckles slightly] Right.
Jared
So with that, if it's, you know, going kind of more on the positive end, if it's not a package of certitudes, and these categories, we ended up kind of filling in with what we want, instead of taking the Bible seriously—what would you say the Bible is? How would you phrase it? And how would you talk about its use in the life of the church?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, the formula that I've settled on for the moment—I don't expect to continue it—is that the Bible is a script that is waiting to be performed.
Pete
Mhmm.
Walter Brueggemann
And what I want to say by that is, it's not a head drip, it's not a set of ideas, it's a set of practices. To perform means to... So I think of it like, if you have a score of a Beethoven symphony, what the orchestra and the conductor do is to perform it. And every time they perform it, it comes out differently. So the Bible is open to many performances. And some of them, if one knows enough about good music, some of those performances sort of contradict each other. And so... the way I want to understand that is that the Bible is an invitation and a summons to take this seriously and to see what my life would be like, if I really tried to be deeply and responsibly engaged with what this script is yielding.
Pete
Yeah, and that model-
Walter Brueggemann
See that formulation-
Pete
Right.
Walter Brueggemann
-Wants to cast the Bible, in terms of art, that is an artistic articulation of reality. It's not a dogmatic, it's not a moral, but it's an artistic articulation. That's how my mind works about it.
Pete
Right. And that formulation, or that model of scripture that you're articulating does well in accounting for the reality of diversity, theologically, in the history of the church, and in the church today at any one point in time.
Walter Brueggemann
I think that's right. And you can have an argument about "Well, what did Beethoven really intend?" But then we don't... When we go back to our score, we don't know. So, we are all originalists like Justice Scalia, we know the original meaning. And like Justice Scalia, the original meeting turns out to be what we thought anyway.
The originalist. And I never I never saw Justice Scalia make a ruling that contradicted what he thought anyway. And you know, that's a great seduction with the Bible.
Pete & Jared
[Laughing]
Pete
Right. I mean, so much of this is rooted in your own experience and how we read the Bible in light of that. And, you know, this is a living, breathing thing, it's not just an abstract document that gives us all the answers. We have to engage it from our point of view, from where we live, and when we live, and how we live. And that makes for a rotten inerrant book.
Walter Brueggemann
It does indeed! [Laughs] Well said!
Pete
But it makes it more—I mean you use the analogy, Walter, of a compost pile, as well, as a model for scripture, which I like very much. You know, things grow out of it, and different things will grow out of this compost pile, and our focus is not the pile itself. [Chuckles] It's what comes out of it. And I think there's-
Walter Brueggemann
That's right!
Pete
-Ways of thinking about it.
Walter Brueggemann
And one is often surprised by a compost pile. [Chuckles]
Jared
Yeah, well talk a little bit, you mentioned Scalia contradicting something he already thought. That just made me think of this phrase you often use around counter testimony. The counter testimony of scripture, and talk a little bit about how that's been a useful concept for you as you've navigated the Bible.
Walter Brueggemann
Well, what I am continually aware of is that the Bible reveals—if one wants to use that word—reveals elements of God or of reality that clash with my preconceptions. You know, the hottest topic now for an Old Testament teacher is what to do with the violence of God. And we prefer to think that the whole Bible teaches that God is love. But you can't think that if you read the Bible. So, the big question is, what do I do with the testimony about the violence of God, or the absence of God? There's a church in my neighborhood that currently has a marquee out that says, "If God seems far away, you moved." But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God comes and goes, and sometimes is present to us, and sometimes is absent. And that doesn't fit with a kind of cozy, reassuring gospel. But there's ample evidence in the text, that that is a dimension of God that was revealed or experienced in the life of the community.
Pete
[Hums in agreement] Well, let's continue this and switch maybe slightly, I'd like for you to talk a little bit about how you see the relationship between the two parts of the Christian Bible.
Walter Brueggemann
Yes, well, that's, that's obviously a very important and a very difficult question. And I think that what we have to accent is that there is continuity between the Old and the New Testament, and there is discontinuity. And we have to take both of those seriously. The old marcionite heresy, that talked about the God of the Old Testament being God of judgment, and the God of the New Testament being a God of love, obviously wanted to establish the discontinuity and, thereby get rid of the Old Testament. On the other hand, the recent history of salvation business and so on, really wanted to stress the continuity, so that the event of Jesus Christ is one more, and obviously one more, major, major, major event in God's history of salvation. So one could see in that frame of reference, that the kinds of things that God was doing in the Old Testament are the kinds of things that God continued to do through the life of Jesus. And I think there is no answer in the back of a book about that.
Pete
[Chuckles]
Walter Brueggemann
But you have to, you have to take a text at a time and see how that works. Richard Hayes, has just recently published a very major book on, I think, it's called Echoes of the Old Testament in the Gospels.
In which he shows how the four gospel writers used Old Testament texts in a variety of very imaginative ways and one of the things I will like very much about Hayes is that he doesn't try to reduce this to some explanation or some pattern. But, they obviously exercised great imagination, and they used texts in many, many different ways, depending on what they were trying to say, and the story that they were telling. And that then lets you handle Old Testament texts in the New Testament in a variety of ways of continuity and discontinuity. And I think that—that is faithful to the process of what the early church itself was doing when it appealed to the Old Testament.
Pete
Right.
Pete
When you say early church, you mean New Testament as well?
Walter Brueggemann
That's correct. The community that created the New Testament, yes.
Pete
Well, let me-
Walter Brueggemann
Obviously, the early church and the New Testament, obviously, could not have articulated Jesus, without appealing to the Old Testament. All the categories they use come from the Old Testament. But then they also see that what they want to say about Jesus, in many ways breaks out of and violates the Old Testament categories to which they appeal. So it's a very tricky process.
Pete
Right. Okay, well, let me—This brings up something else here in my mind. And listen, I know that you're old and tired. I don't want to tax you too much here, but here's the tricky question. How do you see the distinction between discontinuity? And, in other words, where do you draw the line, let me put it this way, between discontinuity and supersessionism?
Well, it's obviously very tricky, because I think that if you push discontinuity very far, you will arrive at supersessionism. I think that's exactly right. And one obvious case is in Hebrews 8, where you get this long quote of Jeremiah's New Covenant, in order to talk about the Old Covenant, the NRSV translates it, it's obsolete. And the New Covenant in Jesus Christ is the one that counts. So that is stressing the discontinuity between the Jeremiah covenant and the covenant of Jesus. And I think that text in Hebrews 8, I think there are explanations that do otherwise, but I think it comes very close to supersessionism.
Pete
[Hums in agreement]
Walter Brueggemann
Which is why I don't want to fall out on that side of the equation, that the continuities protect us from supersessionism I think.
Jared
Well, maybe going on the other side of the continuity side, you know, you've done a lot of work again, I'm going to come back to this the word imagination—on how the Old Testament texts still can be, really, a lively place for discussion for the church, can really enrich and empower us in a lot of ways for today, very relevant today. And so, maybe talk a little bit about how you bridge that gap. What's the method you use for allowing these Old Testament texts to be relevant for the church today?
Walter Brueggemann
Well I was preaching at an Episcopal Church on 9/11 this year, I probably wouldn't have accepted if I had noticed that, but the Old Testament reading was a text from Jeremiah, I think it may have been chapter three or four I'm not sure. In which it said, "A hot wind blows from the east." [Chuckles]
Pete
Okay!
Walter Brueggemann
And obviously in Jeremiah, the hot wind from the east was either Assyria or Babylon. He was talking about an invading army! Well, I just laid that out about 9/11 and the hot wind from the east, which took the form of an attack on the, on the Twin Towers in Manhattan and what I said in my sermon that this text invites us to think that God sent a hot wind to destroy God's holy city. And then I said, "Now, I'm not going to make that claim, but you might want to let this text haunt you and see what it feels like." That the hot wind came from the east, because God would not be mocked. That's what I said in my sermon.
Pete & Jared
[Chuckles]
Walter Brueggemann
And, you know, I could do that because the text let me say it. I didn't push it. But I invited the congregation to imagine some connections that they would never have imagined, had it not been for the text.
Pete
Right.
Walter Brueggemann
And that's my way of handling that particular--
Pete
And with contemporary experience in what's happening in our world—I mean, when you talk like that, Walter, I mean, not to compliment you unnecessarily here, but I think you're sort of doing what the Bible does with itself. Imagination, different contexts, different things happen, and you have to reinvigorate the tradition, to engage what's happening here and now.
That's right, exactly right. Which is what I mean. I like your word, "reinvigorate." That's what I mean by imagination, exactly!
Pete
Mhmm.
Jared
How is that different than, say, other traditions that would, say, take revelation and apply it to particular events, particular people in political places and sort of try to make this end of the world claim? How would that-
Walter Brueggemann
Well, yeah, that's a really important distinction to try to make. I tried to be, in that sermon, I tried to be careful to say this is poetry, it's not a prediction, it's not a program, it's not a description, it's poetry. And poetry invites us to listen and then to listen, and then to listen! The kind of use that I think you're describing, wants to make tight one-on-one correlations between ancient text and a particular present historical reality. And I don't want to make tight connections. So, and it may be that, it may be that some people that morning heard me doing that, but I was pretty careful about it. Because I don't, I never want to do that. And I don't think that the Bible lends itself to nice little clear, unambiguous, one-on-one connections. I think it is an artistic articulation that invites us to mobilize our interpretive imagination.
Jared
[Hums]
Pete
[Hums] Okay, well, here's a very non-controversial question for you. Let's talk politics.
Walter Brueggemann
Okay...
Pete
Because nothing important is really happening in the country right now, as we're taping this.
Walter Brueggemann
That's right! [Laughs]
Pete
But what do you, [Sighs] you know, the Christian left, the Christian right, whatever. What is your... [Sighs] How would you explain to someone, what you think a Christian posture should be? For maybe our current political climate or frankly, any political climate. Does the Bible set visions and trajectories for us for how we should engage the powers that be around us?
Walter Brueggemann
Well I got a number of emails from pastors, recently, saying what do you think? What do you think we ought to preach? And of course, I don't know. But the answer that came to me was, love God and love neighbor. So if you love neighbor, you have to ask, who's our neighbor? And obviously, the Bible thinks immigrants are our neighbors. The Bible thinks that our neighbors are people who need some kind of health care. The Bible thinks that our neighbors are entitled to good schools and good houses, so on and so on, so on and so on. And love of God means, critically, to critique the worship of idols. And we won't have agreement about what the idols are, but I think that American exceptionalism has become an idol. So "Make America Great Again," is an idol, the way it's being parsed. Now, how far in a local congregation, how far one wants to go with that, before one, you know, gets into turmoil one doesn't welcome, I don't know. But I think the place to begin is, that the God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, has commanded us to love God and love neighbor. And we have to ask, what now does it mean to love God and what now does it mean to love neighbor? And those can become very weighty, critical guidelines for us. So, I think it's easy to make a case that our society is increasingly treating the neighbor as a threat, and not a neighbor, and is increasingly distorting God for the worship of idols. I don't think that's a progressive or liberal judgment. I think that's an Evangelical judgment. And I believe that's the conversation we ought to be having.
Pete
Yeah.
Jared
Yeah, so I mean, I just think, talking a little bit about, you know, talk a little bit about that. That these pronouncements, politically, don't really fall on the side—I mean, would you say it's also correct to say we made an idol of political parties? So that we're constantly trying to put God on one side or the other. Sort of God is on the side of the Republicans. God is on the side of the Democrats.
Walter Brueggemann
I think that's right. Yep. Yep. And I, myself, am tempted to that sometimes.
Jared
Hmm. You know, as something that you're tempted by in that, how do you navigate that? What do you think the, the counter testimony, or how does the Bible speak to those things when you're tempted by it?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think we got to get beneath the slogans and the mantras, and talk about human reality on the ground. So for example, we shouldn't be talking ideologically about immigrants. We should be talking about the breaking up of families, and that these are real mothers, and real fathers, and real children, and what do you think it feels like to break up a family?
Jared
[Hums]
Walter Brueggemann
I think we should be, not talking ideologically about healthcare delivery. But what we should be talking about is, why is it that a guy like I am can count on seeing a good doctor and I got good insurance, and I'm not worried about anything, and what it would be like to have my old age ailments, and have no coverage and not be able to see a doctor because I can't afford to doctor. That is, we got to bring the discussion down to the level of human pain, and human suffering, and human reality. Because what we're dealing with are real people, and not slogans. That's what I think.
Jared
Yeah, and it also sounds like you're tying this imagination that the scripture invites also is about empathy. And like, the way you're talking about imagining yourself in these particular situations, is also an imagination of empathy.
Walter Brueggemann
That's right. And I think it is imagination, that imagines for me out to the other. That is, I ought to start with my pain, and my fear, and my worry, and say, who else might have some of those fears and pains and worries? And what kind of resources do I have and what kind of resources may some other people not have? And why is that? And what does the Gospel ask of us?
Jared
Right.
Pete
Wow, religion for the betterment of other people, who would've thought it?
Walter Brueggemann
[Laughs] Right! What an insight, huh?!
Pete
What an insight that is!
Walter Brueggemann
[Continues to laugh]
Pete
Well, listen Walter, we're coming here to the end of our time, and maybe just one final question, if I can?
Walter Brueggemann
Yeah, yeah!
Pete
Do you have a favorite book [Laughs] of the Bible or a favorite passage, or maybe a theme, something that just, you keep coming back to in your own heart and mind that really connects you with God, maybe on a deep level?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I think probably the book of Jeremiah reads to me like it was—I always told my students that it reads like it was written yesterday. It's so incredibly contemporary. And as you likely know, Abraham Heschel, showed that Jeremiah, more than anybody else in the Old Testament, entered into the pathos of God.
Pete
Mhmm.
Walter Brueggemann
And so the pathos of God, the fidelity of God, the infidelity of Israel, and the endless negotiation around those issues, I think are my constant theme. And obviously that shows up everywhere in both the Old and the New Testament. How is it that faithfulness is possible? And how is it that we regularly violate faithfulness with other agendas and other interests? And so on. And I think that Jeremiah is the most powerful articulation of that.
Pete
Yeah. Well, that's, that's great! That's wonderful! Thank you Walter. Now, are you working on any books at this point in time in your life?
Walter Brueggemann
Well, I have just published a book that I am glad to mention. It's called Money and Possessions in the Bible, and what I tried to do was to trace through both the Old and the New Testament, the way in which money is viewed and critiqued and valued. And, I think it is one of my better books.
Pete
Okay.
Walter Brueggemann
I learned so much from it, and I'm really glad I was able to write it.
Pete
So let me guess, do you think God wants us all to be rich?
Walter Brueggemann
Yeah, he wants all of us, together, to be rich!
Pete & Jared
[Laughing]
Pete
The TV preachers are wrong? Oh, my goodness, gracious!
Walter Brueggemann
Yes, indeed! [Chuckling]
Pete
You're overwhelming my theology once again, Walter, I appreciate it.
Walter Brueggemann
[Laughs] The conclusion I drew is that the Bible is always situated in an economy of extraction, in which powerful people are extracting wealth from vulnerable people.
Pete
Yeah.
Walter Brueggemann
And that the Bible refuses that, and offers an alternative economy.
Jared
[Hums]
Outro
[Outro music fades in slowly]
Pete
Oh my.
Walter Brueggemann
Yeah, yeah.
Pete
That's a must-read. Well, Walter, thank you very much for being our guest. We really, really enjoyed it, and we appreciate your time. We don't take it for granted.
Walter Brueggemann
It's good to talk to you. Thank you!
Jared
Thanks!
Pete
Great, thank you. Bye, bye.
Walter Brueggemann
Take care!
Outro
[Outro begins]
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Outro: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People. Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Joel Limbauan, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
