Walter Brueggemann: Prophetic Voice for Our Time

This insightful and stirring interview with two of the last half-century's most biblically-based prophetic voices. Pre-order Jim's new book The False White Gospel and receive an invitation to a Zoom book-talk with Jim, hosted by Conrad Kanagy. Pre-order and email kanagycl@etown.edu for the Zoom event link, scheduled for March 18 at 7 p.m. EST. If you cannot join us live you can still receive event recording if you pre-order! Below is a description of the book and a link to pre-order. My ...

I am delighted to interview my editor from Fortress Press about his new book on writing. No one has done more to call out my inner voice as a writer. He will be part of a free webinar this week, February 7 with well-known reporter Mark Wingfield. An excerpt from the book is below and a podcast link to our interview.This book seeks to awaken the inner poet.  Whether it can remains to be seen. The odds certainly stacked against it, as such stirring proves a tall order.  Books rarely make poets of people. Life does that. But roused, the fantastic beckons, and the ordinary never again satisfies.  The mundane only triggers deeper discontent, a restlessness about what can be found over the fence. This book more likely finds an earnest welcome with writing already self-conscious, but which also suffers constant ache. The book aspires to disrupt, to prod, to encourage, to grant full permission, to fortify resolve, to bolster. At the same time the book requests forgiveness of writing much further down the path. Such writing smiles knowingly.  The book begs patience, even indulgence.  It holds no illusions. It knows itself. The book draws upon the innocent belief that all are poets, even and especially the noetic, and all writing is poetry—even and especially the noetic.The book decries conformity or converts—but neither turns its back to any.  All welcome.  But fair warning: disappointment awaits those supposing the hunt for writing’s Muse a simple matter.  Writing pairs life. Writing’s habitus mirrors life’s complexities. Both life and writing reside just beyond the grasp. But the analogical extends well beyond asymmetrical. Being a poet comes at a cost. Writing demands sacrifice. Capricious readers wooed only by writing authored in a poet’s own blood. No true poet can hide behind their words, for poets are their words. Writing’s miracle transubstantiates the merely semiotic into the fully symbiotic. Writing meddles with primal mysteries, it strikes a bargain with Fate. But to write opens wide the door of self for all to peer in—just as it is to live. Poets live to write and write to live. They put themselves in, and on, the line. There can be no other.To register for webinarTo order The Mango Tree

This episode begins a "reboot" of this podcast as I have published Walter Brueggemann's biography and have been named Editor of three current or forthcoming books by Brueggemann. The biography is on sale at Amazon for 15.47 and The Emancipation of God for 28.00. Study guides for both are free at http://www.achurchdismantle.org

I’m taking a break from the preface to Brueggeman’s biography, and uploading an old favorite that underlies my belief about the church, God’s sovereignty, and that is informed undoubtedly, or at least reflects theology.

Third installment of the Preface to the Brueggemann biography (Fortress, 2023). Pre-order now to receive by the end of September!

From the Preface of Walter Brueggemann's forthcoming biography, now for preorder at any bookseller! Over the next several days I will be reading excerpts from the Preface.

Another early episode on grace and my response to a listener who took it upon himself to inform me that my mental health struggles were the result of sin. After more than five decades of torment and finding new relief for the first time by recognizing anew the depth of God’s love, I had no time for such nonsense. I’ve learned since that others found comfort in my words. The church is too often an incubator for mental and emotional anguish and fear.

Adapted from my book Ministry in  A Church Dismantled (Masthof, 2022).

Originally published in 2020 and a perennial fan favorite of A Church Dismantled podcast. 

An update that I will offer periodically that allows the listerner to learn something about other listeners and the podcaster!

A "re-run" from 2020 and with my voice on the mend,  tomorrow we return to Brueggemann!