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The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship

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William Brueggemann's collection of eloquently written essays challenges readers to awaken to God's call for holiness and radical engagement with our neighbors in the world. Newly available in paperback, these were written between 1998 and 2004 and originally published as a collection in 2006. Brueggemann divides the essays into three sections that emphasize the unique nature of the Biblical text as inspired by God, the substantive claims of the text highlighting the impossible possibilities of life with God, and the imperatives of the text understood for the Christian as faithful obedience lived in true discipleship.

In demonstrating what he proposes for preachers, Brueggemann speaks "truth to power." The truth resonating in all of the essays is the indictment that Christianity in the West has succumbed and acquiesced to a culture defined by an ideology of "technological--therapeutic--militaristic--consumerism." He proposes that Christians must give themselves fully to the countercultural, Scriptural mandates of "generosity, compassion and forgiveness grounded in a daily commitment to study, prayer and fellowship."

The goal of the Christian life of discipleship is forming a community that at once demonstrates God-given peculiarity and relational engagement with the culture. This communal life proclaims to the world that all human power is penultimate before the creator God who speaks and acts in his creation. For Brueggemann, the Scriptural text provides the missional energy, imagination and identity of the "baptismal community." These virtues counteract the timidity and cultural collusion from which the church suffers.

In identifying himself as "post-liberal," Brueggemann puts forth a high view of Scripture and imagination. The author seems to keep the relationship between the two flexible enough for him to stray from orthodox views on something like sexuality and claim that he is "reimagining" God's expression. So, at times, Brueggemann appears to interpret Scripture subjectively giving more weight to liberal cultural leanings than prior orthodox exegesis and praxis. He also will insert some political statements sort of out of the blue throughout the book that are distractions.

As a collection of essays, the book lacks a progressional theme that a traditional book would follow.

Readers cannot come away from these essays unchallenged or unchanged. The ethic of resistance and engagement that Brueggemann puts forth demands a response equally vigorous and passionate. In that sense, he finds himself in the company of the prophets that the Old Testament scholar so highly esteems.