Here's Brueggeman's big idea:

"Prophetic proclamation is an attempt to imagine the world as though YHWH—the creator of the world, the deliverer of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whom we Christians come to name as Father, Son, and Spirit—were a real character and an effective agent in the world" (2).

This understanding of the prophets stands in contrast to both conservative and liberal theological traditions:

1. Conservatives tend to view the prophets as fore-tellers of the future.

2. Liberals tend to view the prophets as people who scold other people's lack of social justice.

Brueggemann's understanding of the prophets—that they imagine a world where God is King, then speak to a world where it's evident that his rule isn't carried out—gives them a new lease on life. The world of the prophets (where the Davidic monarchy was apostatizing in the name of God and abusing the downtrodden) looks a lot like modern Western culture.

The world we live in today can be described as "therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism" (4). This is a world that the prophets need to speak to.

Old Testament prophets spoke of judgment and loss when the monarchy was running away from God. Once exile happened, the prophets changed their message to hope and future. One of the highlights of the book for me was chapter 5, "The Burst of Newness amid Waiting." Israel was in exile, living out the effects of continued disobedience to God. This cause-effect relationship is clearly detailed in Deuteronomy—what hope was left? It was then that the prophets traveled further back to the creation narrative to call upon a God who can bring life out of nothing. Ezekiel's famous valley of dry bones story illustrates this. To be sure, Israel was suffering for their sins—but the God who breathed life into dust in Genesis can breathe life into the exiles.

When I consider the message of the prophets today, I'm discouraged. The prophets who spoke of judgment and loss to the self-satisfied and secure kingdom would likely say the same things to the West today. Brueggemann notes that there have been some signs of real brokenness, though. 9/11 has stolen our sense of invulnerability. The sub-prime mortgage crisis has stolen our financial security. I'm not sure how far our fall will be, but I know God's final words will be new life.

The author gives a good 14 minute overview of the book here:

http://youtu.be/w12zcpWNo-8 ( )

A large part of Walter Brueggemann's immense corpus is devoted to writings on the biblical imagination. This, his latest work on that theme, attempts to connect the prophetic utterance of the Old Testament prophets with the task of preaching prophetically in the contemporary world.

The key message is that the dominant imagination - characterized as "therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism" (p.4) - is one of self-autonomy and is worthless. By contrast the alternative narrative of God as found in the bible, including the prophets and the life of Jesus. This narrative differs fundamentally in affirming God as the key agent in history and thereby exposes the "simplistic explanatory logic of dominant imagination" (p. 96).

Brueggemann expounds this narrative with heavy use of the prophetic texts, and in doing so combines exegesis with homiletics to produce a powerful statement of God's sovereignty. His method exists within a tension between reiteration of the text and letting it speak in new ways that speak to our world afresh.

This book understands the pastoral and preaching tasks of ministers and priests seriously and would be of value for them in learning how to handle prophetic texts with the power to move people. The book is also valuable for those who in the scholarly work, whether from biblical studies or theology, wish to make connections between the biblical narrative and contemporary life.

Richard Davis