Finally comes inspiration – Theologian Walter Brueggemann dead aged 92

[Ken Gray]

I met Walter Brueggemann at a North American Cathedral Deans conference in Cincinnati a few years ago. We were table mates at a conference where he was the featured presenter. I think he was curious about this Canadian ecologically engaged small cathedral dean. His mood was as relaxed as his wit was sharp. A brilliant scholar and faithful Christian he will be missed in both the church and the academy though his legacy in books, lectures and media presentations remains inspiring to me and so many others.

I use the word “inspiring” intentionally as this is the man incarnate. Browsing through some of his book titles the word comes easily to my mind and memory. From a recent biography here we learn:

Walter Brueggemann is surely one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles. He has been a highly sought-after speaker.

Brueggemann was born in Tilden, Nebraska in 1933. He often speaks of the influence of his father, a German Evangelical pastor. Brueggemann attended Elmhurst College, graduating in 1955 with an A.B. He went on to Eden Theological Seminary, earning a B.D. (equivalent to today’s M.Div.) in 1958. He completed his formal theological education at Union Theological Seminary in 1961, earning the Th.D. under the primary guidance of James Muilenburg. While teaching at Eden, he earned a Ph.D. in education at St. Louis University.

Brueggemann has served as faculty at two institutions in his career: Eden Theological Seminary (1961-1986) and Columbia Theological Seminary (1986-2003). He later became the William Marcellus McPheeters professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia.

Brueggemann’s primary method with the text is rhetorical criticism. Words matter to Brueggemann, and one can tell that by listening to him speak as he hangs on to particularly theologically significant words. His magnum opus, Theology of the Old Testament (1997), is a rhetorical-critical look at the Old Testament through the lenses of “testimony, dispute, and advocacy.”

It was the late Rev. Dr. Kim Murray who first directed me to TOOT and to Brueggemann’s other work. personal favourite was Finally Comes the Poet.

A eulogy by Jason G.Edwards published in The Christian Century notes:

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann died yesterday at age 92, and I can already feel the silence he leaves behind. Not the peaceful kind of silence, but the kind that follows a thunderclap—or the pop and sizzle of a transformer blowing out in the dark. The kind that rings in your ears.

He may not have been a household name—depending, of course, on the household. But he was a seismic force beneath the surface of American Protestant Christianity—especially for preachers, prophets, and weary truth-tellers who found in his words a kind of permission. Permission to speak harder truths. Permission to leave space for lament. Permission to read the Bible like it was still breathing.

Brueggemann didn’t give us easy answers. He gave us tension. He gave us poetry. He gave us language when our own ran dry.

He once wrote that the role of the prophet is to “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness of the dominant culture.” That line alone could be carved on his gravestone, and it would be enough. Brueggemann is gone now. But the disruption remains.

In his hands, the Bible was a living, aching, burning thing.

These are marching words for me personally, and I hope for many others. We have not inherited a dead tradition; we have inherited an imaginative approach to that which has been passed on to us. And a huge part of that inheritance lies in the teaching of Walter Brueggemann.

RIP Water Brueggemann, and thank you.

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