All posts tagged Walter Brueggemann

  • December 28, 2018

    The Slaughter of the Innocents: The Dark Side of Christmas

    Giotto_di_Bondone_-_No._21_Scenes_from_the_Life_of_Christ_-_5._Massacre_of_the_Innocents_-_

    The Slaughter of the Innocents: The Dark Side of Christmas
    Brian Zahnd

    As the Gospel of Matthew tells us, Jesus was born in the time of King Herod, and the history books tell us that most of civilization has been lived in the time of kings like Herod — that is, in the time of tyrant kings. I’m talking about the time of Herod, the time of Pharaoh, the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the time of Augustus, the time of Nero, all the way into modern times — the time of Hitler and Mussolini, the time of Franco and Salazar, the time of Pinochet and Putin. It’s tragically true that most people have lived their lives in the time of tyrant kings. But the gospel also announces the glad tidings that with the birth of Jesus heaven has invaded the time of tyrant kings!

    Matthew tells the story of the first gentiles to receive the revelation (epiphany) of Christ the King. This is the beloved Christmas story of the Wise Men. These Oriental magi (or magicians) were most likely Zoroastrian priests from Persia skilled in astronomy, astrology, and dream interpretation who evidently somehow discerned in the stars an astrological sign announcing the birth of a new King of the Jews. The Zoroastrian priests regarded this birth as so auspicious that they embarked upon a dangerous and difficult thousand-mile journey from Persia to Judea in order to perform obeisance before the child and present their famous gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Because the magi were looking for a child king born in Judea, it made sense for them to inquire in the capital city of Jerusalem, but by doing so they unwittingly set in motion terrible events.
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    No Comments / Christmas, Jesus, Violence /

  • October 6, 2017

    Postcards From Babylon

    Charles_Le_Brun_-_Entry_of_Alexander_into_Babylon

    Postcards From Babylon
    Brian Zahnd

    At the end of Peter’s first epistle — a letter to believers living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire — the apostle cryptically says, “She who is in Babylon greets you.” What does Peter mean by that enigmatic phrase? Why does Peter end his letter by referring to some mysterious woman living in the once great but now insignificant city of Babylon? The answer to this question has to do with the long and bloody history of empire and the new kind of empire that had just began to emerge in the world, a new empire in which Peter plays an important role.

    In the Hebrew scriptures Babylon is the prophetic icon of empire. Empires are rich and powerful nations that, in their arrogant assumption of a divine right to rule the nations and in their conceited claim of possessing a manifest destiny to shape history, intrude upon the sovereignty of God. Peter sees Rome as the contemporary equivalent to Babylon — the latest economic-military superpower deifying itself and asserting a sovereignty belonging only to God. “She” in “Babylon” is the bride of Christ, the church, the community of those who through faith and baptism have renounced the idolatrous belief that Rome is the savior of the world and that Caesar is Lord, who now boldly confess that it is Jesus who is the world’s true Lord and Savior. This is an audacious claim to say the least! It’s this controversial and dangerous claim that periodically landed Christians in prison and the Coliseum. That is, until the church in the era of Constantine found a way to compromise with the empire and make the convoluted claim that somehow both Christ and Caesar were Lord — one in heaven and the other on earth. Goodbye early Christianity, hello Christendom.
    Read more

    No Comments / Christianity, Empire, Jesus, Politics /

  • March 5, 2016

    It’s My Birthday and I’m an Eclectic Christian

    Card

    It’s My Birthday and I’m an Eclectic Christian
    Brian Zahnd

    Today is my birthday and the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Missouri made me a birthday card. On the cover of the card is a cross composed of the “Five Words” (Cross, Mystery, Eclectic, Community, Revolution) that I talk about in the second chapter of Water To Wine. And since it involves the Sisters at Clyde, let me share a little bit of the Eclectic portion from the “Five Words” chapter. It’s a nice story…
    Read more

    12 Comments / Brian Zahnd, Church, forgiveness, Unconditional?, Water To Wine /

  • April 15, 2015

    Income Tax Day by Walter Brueggemann

    IMG_5278

    Income Tax Day
    Walter Brueggemann

    On this day of internal revenue
    some of us are paid up,
    some of us owe,
    some of us await a refund,
    some of us have no income to tax.

    But all of us are taxed,
    by war,
    by violence,
    by anxiety,
    by deathliness.

    And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

    We render to Caesar. . .
    to some it feels like a grab,
    to some it is clearly a war tax,
    to some — some few —
    it is a way to contribute to the common good.

    In any case we are haunted
    by what we render to Caesar,
    by what we might render to you,
    by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
    when what you ask is an “easy yoke”:
    to do justice
    to love mercy
    to walk humbly with you.

    Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.
    Read more

    1 Comment / Poetry, Politics, Prayer /

  • January 19, 2015

    The Cross as Counter-Script

    Andrea_del_Castagno_-_Crucifixion_-_WGA00349

    The Cross as Counter-Script
    Brian Zahnd

    As Americans we are given a script from birth — it is our shared and assumed formula for the pursuit of happiness. Without even being aware of it we are scripted in the belief that our superior technology, our self-help programs, our dominant military, and our capacity to obtain consumer goods should guarantee our happiness. Said just so it sounds silly, but when it is communicated in the liturgies of advertising and the propaganda of state it becomes believable…and we do believe it. Give me a new iPhone, a motivational talk, a trillion dollar war machine, a Visa card, and I can be happy! For the most part the Americanized church has unconsciously bought into this script and concocted a compromised Christianity to endorse the script point for point. It’s Americanism with a Jesus fish bumper sticker. But in the end the desperate pursuit of the brass ring of happiness — even when “Christianized” by the prosperity gospel — leads to a shriveled and disappointed soul. In the final analysis the American script is shamed by the cross of Christ.
    Read more

    11 Comments / America, Christianity, Cross /

  • February 28, 2013

    Walter Brueggemann | Schooled In Denial

    Hey everybody!

    Walter Brueggemann     will be our guest speaker at Faith & Culture 2013!

    (November 4-6, 2013 | Word of Life Church | St. Joseph, Missouri)

    Here’s a taste of Brueggemann’s inimitable genius…

    fcc2013-banner

    Go HERE for more information and to register for Faith & Culture 2013.

    Do it today!

    BZ

    PS

    Here’s some of the highlights from the Brueggemann video…

    The wounded in our society are everywhere, but we are schooled in denial.

    Art both ministers to people at the point of their pain, but may also be a way of penetrating the denial to have a conversation about it in the first place.

    The pressure for certitude and absolutism is a kind of anxious, frightened response to the reality of pain. We think we cannot bear it, so we protect ourselves from it by imagining that we don’t know about our own pain.

    But what we always discover is that if we can get access to our pain in a community that we trust [the church], our pain is almost always is bearable, because the trustworthiness of our brothers and sisters will hold and is reliable and will not let us fall through.

    What good artistry has to do is help us to see or hear that our certitudes are mainly phony, that life does not conform to our certitudes.

    God in the whirlwind speeches [in Job] is also something of an artist; he moves in big images and questions and invites a fresh think about things.

    The church is historically and instrically an artistic operation.

    If people are caught in dogmatism or in moralism they tend not to notice how incredibly artistic it all is.

    3 Comments / Art, Culture, Theology /

  • July 1, 2010

    On Controlling Our Borders

    Because I cannot leave well enough alone and lack the sense to let sleeping dogs lie,
    I post this prayer from a modern day prophet. Read more

    No Comments / America /

  • December 8, 2009

    Schooled in Denial

    Last night I dreamed I had a conversation with Walter Brueggemann.

    Maybe it went something like this…


    Read more

    No Comments / Uncategorized /

  • April 15, 2009

    A Tax Day Prayer

    On this day of internal revenue
    some of us are paid up,
    some of us owe,
    some of us await a refund,
    some of us have no income to tax.

    But all of us are taxed,
    by war,
    by violence,
    by anxiety,
    by deathliness.

    And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

    We render to Caesar. . .
    to some it feels like a grab,
    to some it is clearly a war tax,
    to some—some few—
    it is a way to contribute to the common good.

    In any case we are haunted
    by what we render to Caesar,
    by what we might render to you,
    by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
    when what you ask is an “easy yoke”:
    to do justice
    to love mercy
    to walk humbly with you.

    Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.

    –Walter Brueggemann

    2 Comments / Poetry /
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