Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination

Walter Brueggemann issues a passionate call for a bold restructuring of the imagination of faith in our "postmodern" context.

Old assumptions-rational, objectivist, absolutist-have for the most part given way to new outlooks, which can be grouped under the term postmodern. What does this new situation imply for the church and for Christian proclamation? Can one find in this new situation opportunity as well as dilemma? How can central biblical themes-self, world, and community-be interpreted and imagined creatively and concretely in this new context?

Our task, Brueggemann contends, is not to construct a full alternative world, but rather to fund-to provide the pieces, materials, and resources out of which a new world can be imagined. The place of liturgy and proclamation is "a place where people come to receive new materials, or old materials freshly voiced, which will fund, feed, nurture, nourish, legitimate, and authorize a conterimagination of the world."

Six exegetical examples of such a new approach to the biblical text are included.