Walter Brueggemann

 

I’m reading another book by Brueggemann, ‘Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism’ I must confess to not always understanding a great deal of what I read, but at some point it starts to make sense, a great deal of patience is needed. This book is one of the most unusual books that I have read on the subject of evangelism. Let me say in advance that of the huge number of theological subjects on offer, the two that are of least interest are ‘evangelism’ and ‘atonement’ part of the reason I suppose for the first at least, is that strangely I have no interest whatsoever in doing this stuff.

Rather disturbingly, I’m not one of those Christians who loses sleep over ‘the lost’ and I have never experienced any sort of ‘passion for souls’, and this has caused me a great deal of guilt and condemnation (to the extent that I’ve wondered about my own right to call myself a Christian). The other reason for this, is the that people always seem to be divided into one part that needs saving and the other part that doesn’t matter… the rest is sort of discarded. Like pornography the only thing that matters is a limited one dimensional view of people. I’m not suggesting that my view is good it just happens to be true. Maybe we should rename it revengalism.

My experience on a practical level have all been rather chilling and very embarrassing a little like doing ‘door-to-door’ sales one braces oneself for the inevitable onslaught and justified rejection. Brueggemann argues that evangelism should first start within the Church; the focus should first be on the ‘insiders’. He goes on to say that we need to remember what it is that we have been ‘saved’ from. Within the Old Testament a word that comes up very often is ‘remembrance’ this is a covenant word ( hased). The Israelites like most of us had a great tendency to forget, its human nature to slip into a sort of god forgetting amnesia. The problem for many is that remembrance is limited to a ‘single time event’ called conversion or being ‘saved’ instead of this being the beginning of the great adventure it becomes the end of the road, a little like standing permanently in the entrance to a large room. The whole Christian experience is sort of frozen in time to a particular time and place. Brueggemann argues that this fosters a sort of naïve illiterate view of all things spiritual. To have an experience that is frozen in time is at the same time to foster a sort of childish illiteracy. If one is still endeavouring to sustain oneself through a childhood supply of baby food years after the use by date have passed, a sort of cycle of infancy will be embraced. Through the very act of continual remembrance an adult present context is nurtured and relived, the events of the past take on a present context this (I would argue!) is the enemy of illiteracy.

Its one thing to thank God for an event that took place 30 years ago, but this event needs to be brought into a present context or will face the very prospect of death. The children of Israel experienced this first hand with the mana from heaven ‘just enough for the day’ this became a daily remembrance and a daily reminder and no more. To not remember is (by default) to surrender to amnesia, this will lead eventually to agnosticism, and like the children of Israel this will lead to a longing for the old gods of Egypt.