On Thursday, one of the most important American Old Testament scholars most of us have known, studied under, or maybe "just" read, Walter Breuggemann, died at the age of 92. Most famous for work like The Prophetic Imagination, Breuggemann had a wonderful career that educated and influenced all of the contemporary theologians I know. He influenced us in terms of preaching, particularly in his notion of prophetic vocations (i.e., vocations to hope and empowering hope in our world), and he provided us with a coherent (though not univocal!) theology of the Old Testament. In The Prophetic Imagination, he once said, “It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”
One of the presentations Breuggemann gave a few years ago, to be found below, has to do with the dialogical or relational character of Yahweh and also of the human person, where God is always involved dynamically and relationally with us. When we try to understand central elements of theology like grace, law, and justice, faithfulness (fidelity), Breuggemann explains that we must understand them in terms of this great dynamism and relationality. It is a dense presentation focusing on Hosea and three other texts; I think it is really wonderful and timely. You will recognize that, especially in his comments on who can never be excluded from covenantal blessings, or in the mandate to be holy as God is Holy. It is this mandate, viewed in terms of relationality, that becomes crucially important for us today because it allows for no one to be excluded or marginalized or to exclude and marginalize themselves, except paradoxically, to proclaim a radically inclusive Gospel to everyone.
May God give Walter rest and continue to bring his work to fruition for God's sake, in and for the People of God and the world to which we belong and minister prophetically.
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