Picture from https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/2025/06/05/in-memory/
For many years, one of the opening slides for my church’s Sunday gatherings has been a Walter Brueggemann quote: “The church meets to imagine what our lives can be like if the gospel were true.” A scholar and a poet, a professor, pastor and pray-er, an author and a prophet, Brueggemann’s death at 92 this week has left many reflecting on the impact and legacy of this remarkable man and the words he leaves with us.
Brueggemann was born in rural Nebraska. His father was an Evangelical and Reformed pastor from a line of German Lutherans. While his Kansas born mother had only an eighth-grade education, Walter later credited her with empowering him to “live a life deeply grounded in the claims of gospel faith”.[1] He studied theology in Missouri and New York and was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1958. He began teaching at Seminary in 1961, and his writings demonstrate his lifelong commitment to bridging the gap between the church and the theological academy.
I used to joke with my students that one of the first tasks of an Old Testament scholar is to learn how to spell Brueggemann. His influence on Old Testament studies over the last century has been profound, with over one hundred books and countless more chapters, articles, and columns to his name. Just a skim through the names of his books gives a sense of both the breadth of his scholarship and the depth of his insights, with titles like Old Words for a New World; Following into Risky Obedience; The Peculiar Dialect of Faith; Resisting Denial, Refusing Despair; Tenacious Solidarity; A Way Other than Our Own; A Biblical Theology of Provocation; Disruptive Grace; An Unsettling God; Prayers for a Privileged People; Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope; and Texts that Linger, Words that Explode.
It is difficult to choose from among so many, but I would like to highlight just a few of his most influential works. One such is his 1978 book The Prophetic Imagination, which reframed the role of biblical prophecy. He reminds us that the vocation of the Old Testament prophets was not primarily to predict the future but to critique idolatry and ideology in the present and therefore to help us imagine alternative ways of being as God’s people. He later wrote numerous commentaries on the prophets, as well as a range of books drawing out the relevance of these ancient poets’ words to contemporary issues of social justice.
Another significant work, Brueggemann’s 1984 book The Message of the Psalms introduced the simple yet profound categorisation of psalms of orientation (praise), disorientation (lament) and re-orientation (thanksgiving), which has become near ubiquitous. His 1988 book, Israel’s Praise, was my own introduction to his writing and deeply shaped both my own personal interaction with the Psalms and my later doctoral research on them, introducing me to the idea of the psalms as “worldmaking”. His later writings on the Psalms wrestle with their deepest questions and emotions, resisting the temptation to smooth out rough edges or provide easy answers as we sit in grief and uncertainty.
His 1989 book Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation invites preachers to speak the ancient text afresh into their specific context, challenging us not to flatten or trivialise truth but to “open out the good news of the gospel with alternative modes of speech” to ensure the gospel is not “too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat.” Or, in other words, to be “poets that speak against a prose world.”
The sub-title of his 1997 comprehensive Old Testament theology, Testimony, Dispute and Advocacy, captures something of the flavour of Brueggemann’s scholarly approach to the biblical text, combining rhetorical criticism and social analysis with serious exegesis and biblical theology. In 2003, he wrote a textbook for introductory OT studies called The Canon and Christian Imagination which I found a useful companion to the many historically based treatments of the text. For others, his 2014 book Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now has been the most personally influential, inviting us to see Sabbath not as rule-keeping but as a way to become whole persons and restore a whole society.
Brueggemann was at times criticised for being too political or too influenced by modern social concerns. He once said, “Conservatives have found me too liberal, and liberals have found me too conservative,”[2] and he was open about changing his mind on some issues throughout his life. But he consistently sought to speak theologically into his time and place rather than treat the Bible as some timeless other-worldly book that is separate from the very real concerns of our world.
For me, Brueggemann’s little book Redescribing Reality: What We Do When We Read the Bible fundamentally changed the way I think about, practice, and teach preaching. He articulates that the biblical text presents an alternate reality, a different world to what others say it to be, where God is the key character and all our understandings must be reframed in that light. If the gospel is a redescription of the world, then it is not something we are primarily called to believe, but something to embrace and participate in. Biblical interpretation and preaching therefore require imagination, as we bring texts into contact with the world as we have previously accepted it. I resonated with the temptations he names of reducing the Bible to a “closed package of settled truth,” or of privatising it for personal life and overlooking its communal dimensions. As he gives examples of his own reading, writing, and preaching the biblical text, he challenged me to allow the genre of different biblical texts to shape how I preach them and to let the text lead where it will, particularly when I think I am already familiar with it. He reminded me that reading the Bible is always a subversive act, and challenged me, like Jesus does, to “resist the seduction of making things normal, routine, and business as usual.”
As well as being a prolific writer, Brueggemann is remembered as a voracious reader and a beloved teacher. Many have spoken this week about how generous he was with his time and his willingness to share and collaborate with others. I had the privilege of meeting him briefly once, at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Baltimore in 2013, where I heard him “think out loud” as a respondent to some Old Testament papers and saw firsthand why he was so eminently quotable. We had a brief conversation about my own research, and he later read my PhD thesis proposal, writing a short recommendation that I will treasure, saying, “I am of course pleased that Cousins will make use of my proposal for “worldmaking” in the Psalms. She understands well what I have intended. And she has pushed beyond my work in important nuances.” I’m sure his gracious words helped enormously in my proposal being accepted!
Another wise and influential Psalms scholar, William P. Brown, said this about Brueggemann’s death this week: “The world of biblical scholarship will never be the same. Walter Brueggemann single-handedly redefined biblical scholarship for the good of the church and world … Countless students and pastors have been transformed by Walter’s teaching and writing. Colleagues too. We are all in Walter’s debt for his prophetic imagination, creative words, profound wisdom, prolific energy, and sheer grace.”[3] Brueggemann’s funeral will be livestreamed on 19 July at 2 pm Michigan time. No doubt there will be thousands from around the world tuning in to say farewell to a man whose words have impacted our lives, drawing us deeper into God’s Word and sending us out into God’s world with prophetic re-imagination.
[1] https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/the-goodly-company-of-the-good-mrs-murphy
[2] https://jimwallis.substack.com/p/walter-brueggemann-and-the-prophetic
[3] https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2025/6/5/dr-walter-brueggemann-who-published-more-100-books-and-inspired-generations-pastors-and-scholars
Rev Dr Melinda Cousins is the Director of Ministries for Baptist Churches SA & NT. She has a PhD in the Psalms, and has taught biblical studies at Tabor and Bible College SA. She was ordained in 2002, serving as a pastor, global mission leader, and in training and accreditation of pastors.
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