Book review: Cadences of Home, Walter Brueggemann

                                                                                                                                          

Brueggemann, Walter. Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles. (Westminster John

Knox, 1997).

 

 

Walter Brueggemann operates from what seems to be a neo-historical critical approach, which is heavily demonstrated in his progressive view regarding hegemony, structure and power. His take on preaching, therefore, leads him to assert the principal task of the preacher as “to nurture a counter-identity enacting power in times of despair. The preacher is called to give spine, resolve, courage, energy, and freedom, that belong to a counter-identity.” (pg. 12) Brueggeman states that preaching is less proclaiming a moral code or a set of teachings, but it is a way to build up people’s strength and courage in a world threatening to eat them alive. Preaching is emboldening to participate in the social life of the world in the perspective of homecoming to the Kingdom of God. That is not a nostalgic place, he observes, but a secure residence where the Baptized are empowered by God to face the challenges of their world.

 In the context of the book, Exile is not primarily geographic, but liturgical and cultural. Therefore, the preaching task is nothing less than a twofold one: to describe the catastrophe and then to reconstruct, represent or redraw the paradigm of meaning that will permit creative survival in our modern times Babylon.

 

Some of Brueggemann’s main claims include:

-The ministry of language is one of the few resources available for the exiles. Speech is then used to create and re-create reality. The sermon becomes an act of challenging the current views and to re-describe the world based on the Scriptures. Speech in exile describes a world that neither speaker nor listeners knew previously. (pg.14)

-In a post-Constantinian World, the Community is not responsible for validating current structures of power anymore. Therefore, it is free to be decenter its preaching towards a more communal experience of sharing the Gospel.

-Preaching to the exiles is a practice of density which connects to the demand for identity in face of indifference to hegemony. It would lead to three main contents: What kind of text is being proclaimed, what kind of people gather for proclamation, and who is the God involved in that discourse.

-Preaching the density of the biblical text meets participants in their deepest fears and anxieties of identification with such biblical characters and stories.

-Preaching is primordially for the “First addressee” the people gathered for worship. But the Church must not lose sight of the “Second addressee”, the hegemonic Babylon who also needs to overhear the prophetic voice of the Good News.

-As the American Church identifies the stages of the journey it has come so far and understands that a new place, new discipline and a dense portray of reality are intrinsic parts of this process, a New Beginning can be inaugurated for the exiles.

 

I appreciate the metaphor of the exiles to the extent it can be used. It is helpful to imagine the Church as exiles, or “resident aliens” who are in the world but do not belong to it. It frees the Church from certain needs and prompts here to provide fulfillment for the life in the world.

As a preacher who likes illustrative language and illustrations, I like Brueggemann’s rich imagery and illustrative language.

 Brueggeman’s work is useful for a deeper understanding of the crisis in which some Churches find themselves, as they feel challenged by new norms for life in society, in terms such as hegemony, power, and patriarchy. The reading instigates the mental process of inwardly digesting its analysis, directions, and perceptions of the exiles of the Church in the Babylonic world.

 

The first major difficulty in reading Brueggemann is his epistemology. A text that starts from a historical critical perspective, not considering the whole Scriptures as the true Word of God leads more to a humanistic Theology rather than a Theology applied to our humanistic context. This creates a tension, or even a separation, in the power of the Word to comfort exiles in the World. According to Brueggeman, exiles need spine, strength, and encouragement. A Christian Community can draw them from the sound and clear proclamations of God’s Word only. However, as the Bible is framed into a neo-historical-critical perspective, the voice of God is weakened and the voice of the community and of the context are empowered. I find it difficult to preach to exiles giving them spine and strength with Word deprived from its authority stemming from Scriptures as the True Word of God. It is demonstrated, for example, when the author suggests that the reconstructing speech should not give continuity to established ways of the past. In the context of his work, it points to embracing “paradigm of meanings” that in many cases will go against sound and solid biblical teaching.

Brueggeman’s work served to me more as a reflection about the Post-modern, Post-Constantinian mood in which the Church is immersed rather than an authoritative Biblical path and framework for the task of Preaching the Word of God in its full power and meaning.

Cadences of home seems to fill the “reflection about contexts of speech” slot better than “reflections on preaching”.