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In the foreword to a book of sermons by Walter Brueggemann titled "The Threat of Life: Sermons on Pain, Power, and Weakness", Charles L. Campbell writes:
'The most striking thing about the sermons is their content: God. The sermons are saturated with God; they are passionate about God. They are fundamentally theological sermons. At a time when personal experience and the therapeutic model often dominate the pulpit, Brueggemann keeps our attention on the biblical story and the God whose identify that story renders. Breuggemann unapologetically proclaims the "odd" God of the Bible, who is never some general divinity or universal principle, but an intrusive, particular God who is active in the world. And Brueggemann invites the church to become an odd people, a countercultural community, whose identity is formed in relation to the peculiar God.'
I discovered Walter Brueggemann at a time when my faith was in an intellectual crisis. As a child, I loved to read the Bible. Many a sermon passed quickly as I read the Bible - sometimes my own but more often one of my parent's. In the Bible I came to understand a God that was different. That God wasn't some vague agent operating in the background but was active, passionate and demanding. The God I read about was powerful and mighty. It didn't seem to be the same God that everyone around me talked about.
I was still struggling to find authenticity in my faith when I met Walter Brueggemann at a conference. I had spent most of my religious life feeling more and more outcast. So much of what was taken without question just didn't make sense to me. After an painful absence from the church, I believed in God but somehow couldn't buy into the full package of beliefs. Often going to church felt like a compromise.
Over about five years, I experienced the theological perspective of Walter Brueggemann in a variety of ways: in lectures, in roundtable discussions, via videotaped series and through his books and commentaries. I still didn't think about God in the same way that most of the people around me did but now I didn't feel so outcast.
Reading Brueggemann again today was like taking a deep breath in an oxygen rich environment after breathing shallow for too long. God is not the universe. God is not a higher power. God is not this vague being that has to be defended.
God is God.
It is enough.
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