Walter Brueggemann delivers another of his thought provoking works (in the vein of The Prophetic Imagination and its various spin-offs) intended to provide a positive framework and application of the Sabbath for the Church. Brueggemann offers a simple proposal to move from a negative appropriation of Sabbath (what one does not do) to a positive appropriation (following such works as Marva Dawn’s Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Fasting and Abraham Heschel’s classic The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man). The negative approach has long dominated the Protestant worldview with images of Puritanical laws enforced by draconian measures.

However, Brueggemann attempts to offer here a vista of Sabbath as “an affirmative declaration of faith and identity” (x). He frames his proposal between discussions of the relation of Sabbath to the first and tenth commandments in order to locate Sabbath within the life of Israel in faithful relationship with Yahweh and neighbor (following the lead of Patrick Miller’s The Ten Commandments in the Interpretation series, 1). Enclosed within this framework, he describes Sabbath specifically as resistance to anxiety (20-33), coercion (34-45), exclusivism (46-57), and multitasking (58-68). All of these belong to the tyranny of enslavement and disorder of life. The resistance of Sabbath is liberation from the domination of these taskmasters and a movement into the land of promise with its hope of life and blessing, fruitfulness and ultimate rest.

His premise is that restlessness is pervasive in our current context in typological likeness to the restlessness of Israel in bondage. The Pharaonic taskmasters rule our time and energy, but Yahweh says, “Let my people go!” and gives freedom to the captives and recreates society around restfulness. “Sabbath-keeping is a way of making a statement of peculiar identity amid a larger public identity, of maintaining and enacting a counter-identity that refuses ‘mainstream’ identity, which itself entails anti-human practice and the worship of anti-human gods. [Thus]…Sabbath is a bodily act of testimony to alternative and resistance to pervading values and the assumptions behind those values.” (21) Sabbath reorients all of life to the reality of the God who created all, the God of Israel, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is God alone. It also calls for the humanizing of humanity as made in the image of this God. In this way, Brueggemann argues essentially that Sabbath observance/remembering cannot be reduced to practices of a day. It is the reorientation of all of life toward resting in the Deliverer’s faithful provision and ultimate claims upon us as Lord.

Walter Brueggemann, Divine Presence Amid Violence: Contextualizing the Book of Joshua (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade, 2009), xii + 82 pages, ISBN 9781606080894.

To begin this review quite honestly, I chose the text because of the difficult dilemma it was attempting to resolve, namely violence and the Bible and even more specifically violence and war as ordered by God. The second factor that influenced me was the author. If someone can offer a reasonable apologia on the subject, it is Walter Brueggemann. Of value to my choice was also the perfect timing of the book with the war in the Middle East.

Divine Presence Amid Violence argues that aggression in the Bible, and more specifically, aggression that “comes” from God, is not to be against the people, but against the chariots and horses. In the Joshua context, they are the tools used by the evil empire to oppress people and use their labor while holding them in fear. Thus, Yahweh’s command is not to destroy peoples and nations, but to destroy the evil empire that oppresses them through destroying its tools of oppression. Brueggemann believes this is evident on many occasions in the book of Joshua where cities and ethnos are left untouched by the destruction of Israel’s attack.

One, perhaps shocking, aspect in Brueggemann’s apologia comes in the opening chapter, which deals with meaning and interpretation of the Biblical text before approaching a series of narratives from the book of Joshua dealing with violence in the Old Testament as an order from God. This however, does not give enough reason for the statement in the second chapter that, “It is clear that this text, like every biblical text, has no fixed, closed meaning.”

A disagreement with Brueggemann for the fundamental Bible scholar here is a must. For it is quite obvious to the reader, that a narrative has a definite and fixed meaning within its own historical context. And while the interpretation of a given passage through various other historical moments or cultural aspects may vary its essence as a piece of history remains intact.

Brueggemann raises an interesting proposal in the conclusion, suggesting that the modern church is often embedded in the culture of chariots and horses, rather than opposing it; thus counter parting a number of modern interpretations of the Kingdom of God and suggesting that with our theology and actions we as people of God are to be liberators from the tools of oppression and not their enforcers.

Reviewed by Dony K. Donev

Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 125 pages, ISBN 9780664235161.

This excellent little book presents three addresses given by the author. This, together with the narrative theology represented, makes this work eminently readable and engaging. Brueggemann, a pre-eminent Old Testament scholar, is deliberately provocative whilst thoroughly rooted in contemporary Old Testament perspectives, bringing to the reader an insight of how the world of Biblical Studies can effectively and usefully address issues facing the church and our witness today.

In three chapters, Brueggemann looks at Scriptural narratives which engage the liberation from captivity in Egypt through to the Sinai visitation and instructions of God; the conflict between the revelation of God and the choices made by Israel in the succeeding years; then the challenges of engaging with God’s vision for reconstruction in the post-exilic period. Brueggemann takes each of these and, having identified the main narrative themes present, applies them to present issues and challenges affecting the North American context.

Two features of this book were of especial interest to the present reviewer. Firstly, Brueggemann expertly brings the narrative themes together and shows how his observations find expression in and through the ministry and teachings of Jesus Christ. In this way, he properly shows how the Old Testament narratives lead to their realisation in and through the ministry of our Lord. His skill in doing this is exemplary, and whilst the reader may not agree with all his final observations, the method which he employs in bringing the whole scope of Biblical testimony into play is, in itself, something for all to learn from.

Secondly, Brueggemann holds to an understanding of righteousness which, in the present debates between advocates of imputed righteousness and other forms, brings an important contribution. As Brueggemann puts it, ‘Righteousness concerns active intervention in social affairs, taking an initiative to intervene in order to rehabilitate society, to respond to social grievance, and to correct every humanity-diminishing activity’ (page 63).

This is a manageable piece of scholarship for the working pastor to digest, an informative as well as a challenging resource both for personal study and sermon preparation.

Reviewed by Jim Purves

Preview Journey to the Common Good: books.google.com/books?id=aN0JVqSMIHAC