Synopsis: James Atwood contends that the thirty thousand gun deaths America suffers every year cannot be understood apart from our national myth that God has appointed America as "the trustee of the civilization of the world" and even "Christ's light to the nations." Because these purposes are noble, and we are supposedly a good and trustworthy people, violence is sometimes "required" and gives license to individuals to carry open or concealed weapons, which "save lives" and can even be "redemptive." Atwood, an avid hunter, cautions that an absolute trust in guns and violence morphs easily...

World-renowned biblical interpreter Walter Brueggemann invites readers to take a closer look at the subversive messages found within the Old Testament.

Walter Brueggemann bietet in diesem Band die Konturen seiner viel diskutierten theoretischen und methodologischen Uberlegungen zu einer Neugestaltung der alttestamentlichen Theologie anhand der aktuellen Texte des Alten Testaments. Es kommen mehrere Perspektiven zum Verhaltnis von Gesellschaft und alttestamentlichem Text unter die Lupe. Der Verfasser bemuht sich, in einer exemplarischen Entwicklung von Detailthemen sowohl die theologische Relevanz von Motiven wie Gebet, Gehorsam und Gotteslob, als auch die gefahrlichen und anstossigen Aspekte des prophetischen Verstandnisses vom gottlichen...

Biblical faith is passionately and relentlessly material in its emphasis. This claim is rooted in the conviction that the creator God loves the creation and summons creation to be in sync with the will of the creator God. This collection of essays is focussed on the bodily life of the world as it ordered in all of its problematic political and economic forms. The phrase of the title -all flesh- in the flood narrative of Genesis 9 refers to all living creatures who are in covenant with God - human beings, animals, birds, and fish - as recipients of God's grace, as dependent upon God's...

About the Contributor(s): Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is past President of the Society of Biblical Literature and the author of numerous books, including Truth-Telling as Subversive Obedience, David and His Theologian, Praying the Psalms, A Pathway of Interpretation, and Ichabod toward Home.

About the Contributor(s): Paul Riemann taught Old Testament at Harvard University and at Drew University. His special interest has been the psalms of complaint and the proper nature of prayer. Riemann and his wife now live alongside Burnham Cove in Maine.

Description: Biblical texts are the springboards for proclaiming the Good news. For Rev. James S. Lowry, these springboards lead to recollections from life and ministry that make the Gospel come alive in a special way. Memories of two very different creches shed light on Mary's Magnificant; the funeral of dissolute ne'er-do-well Tex Malone provides a surprising context for that most famous of verses, John 3:16; a misspelled word becomes a fountain of grace for an entire congregation; and the low-back, ladder-back, cane-bottom chair with the legs cut off just so to accommodate Lowry's...

Endlessly cunning, elusive, and playful--the Bible consistently unsettles even as it assures. Walter Brueggemann reveals exactly how Scripture exposes the inadequacy of the assumptions and habits that shape our lives. He finds inside Israel's ancient poetry, prophecy, narrative, and legal covenants new words that create new peoples. In so doing this book provokes a theology of transformation--one that compels new social, economic, and political practices. Brueggemann's reading reveals that we are not fated to live a life of greed, anxiety, and violence, but instead can embrace a shared life...

Description:
Contents
1 The Practice of Homefulness
2 A Myriad of ""Truth and Reconciliation"" Commissions
3 Bragging about the Right Stuff
4 A Culture of Life and the Politics of Death
5 Elisha as the Original Pentecost Guy
6 The Stunning Outcome of a One-Person Search Committee
7 The Non-negotiable Price of Sanity
8 The Family as World-Maker

The Shoah is without question the defining moment in modern history, and it has transformed the manner in which the Bible is read and how God is understood. Questions that hitherto were rarely posed publicly must now be posed, and the human drama born out of exile, bondage, and genocide must be reckoned with in a new light. These are issues that are predicated on a faithful God to whom challenging and even unanswerable questions must be voiced. So, how might the Hebrew prophets address such contemporary issues as imperial militarism, eminent domain, trust and trauma, hunger and power, memory...