Walter Brueggemann

Cover of Radical Christian and Exemplary Lawyer

History & Biography

“New readers not yet familiar with Stringfellow will be gripped by the Stringfellow of these pages. More familiar readers will return for more of his energy, daring, and imagination.”

Re-enchanting the Text

Theology

“One can only voice a vigorous ‘yes’ to this wise and welcome book by Cheryl Bridges Johns. Johns sees clearly that the numbing impact of Enlightenment rationality on our view of the Bible has left us with the toxic options of progressive liberalism and reactionary fundamentalism, neither of which can allow the biblical text its proper work of wonder and deconstruction. Having identified these lamentable options of disenchantment, Johns applies her energy and courage to the work of re-enchantment of Scripture that defies both of these modernist options. Her rich Pentecostal legacy lets her see that it is the free, unfettered, unrestrained work of the Spirit that inhabits Scripture and that may also inhabit our reading of the text. Such a reading leads us into the holy mystery where the otherness of God may meet us and invite us to alternative living. Johns’s work is at once breathtaking and breath-giving in its expansive hopefulness.”

Reading for Preaching

Preaching & Worship

“Two matters are unmistakably clear in this book. First, Plantinga loves words, phrases, sentences, and stories. He remembers them, relishes them, and knows their durable power. Second, Plantinga cares about ministers. He knows the burdens and wonders of ministry, and treats preachers with deep respect. . . . Preachers will find in these pages a colleague and fellow traveler who exudes courage and pathos and joy in our common calling.”

Reading the Bible with the Damned

“The book breaks apart our usual categories of interpretation and lets texts speak afresh.”

Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah

Theology

“Marvin Sweeney here mobilizes his mastery of critical study of Scripture, his attentiveness to Jewish interpretive tradition, and his acute sense of disruptive violence in the life of Judaism to produce an important book that needed to be written.”

Redeeming Judgment

Theology

“The heft of this formidable book is to be measured, not by its impressive length, but by its substance. Patrick is a seasoned veteran of text work, a senior member of the discipline. Here he exhibits the maturity of his scholarship with his sensibility to the text in producing an important and exquisite study. His book is a significant contribution to the tasks of biblical theology. Beyond exegesis he displays his uncommon capacity as a theologian. This book addresses a remarkable lacuna in our recent thinking, a redress that is welcome and exceedingly well done.”

Rehearsing Scripture

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“Anna Carter Florence issues a cunning, compelling invitation to her readers, namely, to recover the reading of Scripture as a communal, oral, contextual, dramatic enterprise—as though in a theater. This book is a rich resource for church folk (clergy and laity) who clamor for ‘more Bible’ but do not know how to get it. This is how to do it!”

Religion and Cult

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The Norwegian scholar Sigmund Mowinckel is a rarity in the discipline. His work is still compelling and taken seriously nearly a century after its publication. Mowinckel's big insight that he exposited in many directions is that communal worship in ancient Israel is a generative enterprise that functions to provide a 'social construction' of an alternative world. His insight is of immense importance in contemporary study, especially in a culture of technological reductionism that is matched by rationalistic theology that lacks dynamism. Contemporary readers will be powerfully instructed by the welcome re-issuance of this classic work.”

Remembering That It Happened Once

Arts & Literature

“Dennis Johnson has gone to the huge trouble of collecting these Christmas poems that override the jadedness, the mind deadening, and the all too familiar. This wondrous collection (with much that is new) is a must-read for us. My favorite lines (so far) are from John Shea, offering a five-year-old whose ‘quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars’ and who blurts out, ‘The baby was God’! Find your own favorite here. This collection is revelatory in its force, the old revelatory narrative made freshly available and now revelatory to us here and now.”

Renounce, Resist, Rejoice

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“It is much more difficult and much more important to respond to the Trump phenomenon in a way that is theologically informed, pastorally sensitive, and politically pertinent. Michael Coffey has made just such a response that moves beyond emotive satisfaction to truthful evangelical witness. He makes that witness with courage and finesse, with good humor and compelling honesty. I heartily commend this faithful read of the tradition that now requires much of us.”

Risking Truth

“Widespread attention to the practice of lament in the Bible is no doubt a measure of the sense of loss, hurt, and fear that mark our historical moment. Amid that widespread attention, Scott Ellington brings a peculiarly alert theological sensibility to the subject. He goes well beyond conventional critical approaches to see what is at stake in the practice of faith and what is at risk in the human enterprise of truth-telling, even when truth-telling shatters and jeopardizes old certitudes. The force of Ellington's exposition is further enhanced by his readiness to carry his study into the New Testament, there to find, amid the good news, the reality of loss and the hope for newness that only comes with truth-telling. This book merits wide and sustained attention from those who care about the quality of faith and the health of our common humanness.”

Ruth and Esther

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“This welcome series holds great promise for a new engagement between biblical texts and constructive theology. Readers can anticipate a great deal that may be both fresh and faithful.”

Saving Images

Preaching & Worship

“Gordon Lathrop has written a wise and remarkable book from which I have learned a great deal. He compellingly reflects on the shared work and dynamism of scripture and liturgy and sees how they converge in practical ways in the actual life of the Christian assembly. Lathrop’s deep appreciation of the generative power of images frees scripture from our excessive “historical” preoccupation. The generative work of images, fully operative in the life of the Christian congregation, resists both our thirst for certitude and our yearning for reasonableness, and opens for us transformative power that defies our “low ceilings” of certitude and reasonableness. Good Lutheran that he is, Lathrop sees that “word and sacrament” are the rich processing pad that moves from “gathering” to “sending.” This is a rich discussion that will greatly enhance the actual practice of the Christian assembly in its prayer, its singing, and its preaching.”

Saving Power

Theology

“In Saving Power Peter Schmiechen exhibits his great learning, his theological sensitivity, and his passion for the church as he offers a wide and deep vision of God's love for the world — an urgent vision for the church, seduced as it is into triviality. Schmiechen's sturdy scholarship is an important resource for the church seeking to find its way back to the saving truth that is larger than all our pet projects.”

Saving the Bible from Ourselves

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Glenn Paauw has written a serious and compelling book on the Bible. The tone of his writing is puckish enough to keep us turning pages for more. After identifying our lazy readiness to reduce the Bible to convenient 'scripturettes,' Paauw guides us to a way to the adult work of serious engagement with the Bible. When the Bible is taken with such seriousness, it will indeed serve to refresh and revive the missional energy of the church. His argument is propelled by the deep conviction that gospel alternatives are on offer for the bold, alert and passionate who engage the biblical text beyond our narcoticized habits of reading.”

Scandalous Witness

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“With his emancipated evangelical witness, Lee Camp boldly exposits the reality of a Gospel faith that is deeply political. This is not a tradition of other-worldly, privatized spirituality. Nor is it an advocacy for the right or the left. Rather, this book is a summons to active public engagement in the political economy for the sake of gospel promises. Camp offers a vigorous critique of nationalism and the ways in which US Christians have been seduced by so-called alignment of faith and nation. Beyond that, this book issues a compelling invitation of gospel hope as the engine for generative public engagement. This is a welcome book, one that is sure to evoke fresh thinking and fresh action.”

Scripture Apps Made Easy

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“[Burgess] is deeply grounded in Scripture and has the keen sensibility of a pastor. He has, moreover, confidence to work the interface between Scripture and real life, and has the emancipated imagination to make compelling connections between the two . . . The author knows, as the church has always known, it is about application!”

Searching for Sunday

Christian Living

“into compelling concrete narrative. Her book is a forceful invitation to reconsider that faith has been misunderstood as a package of certitudes rather than a relationship of fidelity.”

Seasons of Faith and Conscience

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“A daring piece of expose and a powerful invitation . . . a nervy affirmation that, in a world of brutalizing power and uncaring technology, human sacramental action can matter decisively.”