God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good

In a society rife with conflicting narratives and deafening in the clamor of culture wars, the church is in need of wise guides that are biblically rooted, prophetically clear, and pastorally compassionate. Walter Brueggemann has been once such guide for decades, issuing a clarion call for the church to practice a prophetic imagination.

In God, Neighbor, Empire, a collection of essays initially presented as lectures at Fuller Seminary, Brueggemann calls readers into prophetic listening by demonstrating the continual dialogue between man and God expressed within the pages of Scripture. He not only illuminates the paradoxical nature of the story of God and Israel in the Old Testament, but also reveals how the arc of this story reaches ever forward, and its trajectory confers meaning upon human relationships and communities in the present. The Old Testament still speaks.

Amid the noise luring us to pursue our own interests or to isolate or marginalize our neighbors, Brueggemann demonstrates repeatedly the call to renew a careful listening to God and neighbor that we might be equipped to live in the world with faithful obedience.