Customer Reviews

Peace (Understanding Biblical Themes)

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With "Peace," Brueggemann has forever changed the way I think about the biblical idea of Shalom.

I'll be contemplating the message and implications of "Peace" for a long time. This book will not let me go; I finished it, but cannot place it on my bookshelf. I continue to read it and even take it on trips.

In the beginning of Peace, Brueggemann sets up a towering metaphor: "The Brickyard." As anyone who has read Exodus (or seen "The Ten Commandments") knows, the children of Israel were slaves to Pharaoh. They made bricks for Egypt.

In Brueggemann's eyes, the brickyard becomes the oppressive, demanding, soulless spirit of our (or any) dehumanizing age.

Most of us understand the heartbreaking futility of the brickyard; we see it every day - in our children, our neighbors, our fellow workers, ourselves. The confluence of technology, economics, marketing, government, health, employment, and religion (and other factors) has created a new and sometimes crushing slavery. More than once, I was deeply moved at the devastating extent of The Brickyard.

From that, he presents Shalom as the antithesis of everything the coercion of the age represents. In short, Shalom is the Kingdom of God.

"Peace" is an eloquently written powerhouse; the best book on the Kingdom of God I've read. I have finished reading Peace. But I suspect that Peace has not finished reading me.

BTW, Brueggemann is often criticized by conservatives for his thoughts on human sexuality. But, I think what he is really saying is that morality must flow from the revelation of the Kingdom of God, and not from "it is written." Heart-deep morality can only be forged in experience with a healing and delivering Yahweh. And, we cannot - as Christ followers - condemn people who are still trapped in the moral brickyard.