Washington National Cathedral

The Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, host

Walter Brueggemann joins Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III for a look at reading the Bible nearly two millennia after it was written. The discussion opens with a basic question: Why should Christians be interested in the Hebrew Scriptures, aka the Old Testament? “The Old Testament offers the categories and a vision of how to create a viable, working society. And in tracing out that vision, it grounds that vision in a holy God who is endlessly elusive and beyond our control....” Brueggmann says.

“One has immediately to say that the Old Testament has many dimensions of violence and brutality that are an enormous embarrassment to Jews and Christians,” Brueggmann allows. “But if one can wade through that, then the categories of covenantal justice and covenantal peace, and an ordered creation, provide the kind of revolutionary notions that have really fed most of the human revolutions in the history of the world. So it is an endless process of interpretation and sorting out what is usable and what we take to be true.”

In addition, focusing solely on the New Testament leads churches to focus too much on sin and personal salvation, omitting what Brueggman calls the “public dimension,” questions of justice.

Is it true that the Old Testament portrays a God of wrath, and the New Testament a God of love? “That obviously is a statement that comes from somebody who never read either testament,” Brueggemann quips.

Brueggmann discusses the “royal consciousness,” exemplified by Solomon: no matter how much Solomon accumulated, Scripture says that a bird or a flower was better off. In the royal consciousness, one never has enough, one has never done enough, one is never safe enough. “There are no neighbors in the royal consciousness,” Brueggemann summarizes. A “covenantal neighborhood,” on the other hand, honors the neighbor. Brueggemann believes that a modern-day royal consciousness, characterized by overreaching, has brought about current economic woes.

Brueggemann’s work focuses on the relationship between the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian faith. His 58 books, hundreds of sermons, and worldwide lecture events have deeply influenced contemporary theology and biblical exegesis. Brueggemann’s books include The Prophetic Imagination, Praying the Psalms, Theology of the Old Testament, and numerous commentaries on the Hebrew canon. Brueggemann is professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and a minister in the United Church of Christ.

About Dr. Walter Brueggemann

Brueggemann’s work focuses on the relationship between the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian faith. His 58 books, hundreds of sermons, and worldwide lecture events have deeply influenced contemporary theology and biblical exegesis. Brueggemann’s books include The Prophetic Imagination, Praying the Psalms, Theology of the Old Testament, and numerous commentaries on the Hebrew canon. Brueggemann is professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and a minister in the United Church of Christ.