Family and friends remember Old Testament scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann
The author of 120 books kept on publishing right to the end
LOUISVILLE — Only death, one mourner noted, will likely slow the prodigious publication rate of renowned Bible scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann.
Brueggemann, who died June 5 at age 92, taught for 17 years at Columbia Theological Seminary, and 25 years before that at his alma mater, Eden Theological Seminary. He was remembered Saturday at Central United Methodist Church in Traverse City, Michigan. Watch the 80-minute service here. The service was officiated by the Rev. Linda Stephan and the Rev. Joan VanDessel, who read, at Brueggemann’s request, Psalm 146 and 1 Cor. 1:18-31.
Brueggemann died peacefully at Munson Hospice House in Traverse City. He was predeceased in death by his brothers Charles and Edward. He is survived by his wife, Tia Brueggemann, his sons, James Brueggemann (Lisa née Simcox) and John Brueggemann (Christina née McHugh), and five grandchildren, Christiana Brueggemann, August Brueggemann, Emilia Brueggemann, Anabelle Brueggemann and Peter Brueggemann.
The Rev. Clover Reuter Beal, co-pastor of Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver, said she became a Presbyterian and attended Columbia Seminary in order to study under Brueggemann. She called her mentor “a signpost pointing to God and God’s steadfast love, to God’s justice and mercy, who was called from humble beginnings to do holy work that he never imagined he would do.”
Brueggemann had a “formidable personality,” but he also “understood the right relationship he had with God,” she said. “In setting his heart upon Jesus and upon the incarnate God in Jesus Christ, he knew at times that he appeared foolish to his contemporaries. Yet Walter never abandoned his prophetic, imaginative Spirit-led belief that the God of the Bible — “Gospel God,” as he called God — the incarnate God in Jesus Christ is wiser than all human wisdom and is stronger than all human strength.”
“Whether it was in his preaching, his teaching, his writing or praying, Walter summoned the church to be foolish enough to trust that when God hears our cries, God responds — not because we deserve God’s attention, but because of who God is.”
When Brueggemann prayed, “he conveyed and embodied a prophet’s intimate conversation with the living God,” she said. “His prayers made people weep. Those who were blessed to hear him pray aloud felt as if we were privy to a private conversation between friends.”
Like the prophets before him, “Walter relentlessly beckoned the people of God — stiff-necked, self-consumed people that we are — to tenacious fidelity in God,” she said. “Out from behind dim glass, he now sees his Creator clearly.”
Quoting the final words of Brueggemann’s favorite hymn, Beal said that today, “we are the ones lost in wonder, love and praise, for the life of Walter Albert Brueggemann — sheep of God’s own fold, lamb of God’s own flock, sinner of God’s own redeeming and beloved child of the living God. Alleluia! Amen.”
Brueggemann’s family invited two of his friends and fellow scholars, the Rev. Dr. Brent Strawn and Dr. Davis Hankins, to witness to his life of faith. Strawn teaches Old Testament at the Duke Divinity School; Hankins teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University.
“Although I was never formally Walter’s student, I’ve pretty much always been Walter’s student,” Strawn said. “Reading ‘The Prophetic Imagination’ as a [college] freshman changed my life, as it did for many other readers. After reading ‘The Prophetic Imagination,’ you might say I became a non-degree-seeking student at Brueggemann University.”
One of Brueggemann’s lasting contributions was stressing the importance of lament, Strawn said. “In his last book, he wrote, ‘My hunch is that every stirring of emancipatory power begins in lament.’ Walter taught us that expressing sorrow and grief is right and good, an inevitable and indispensable part of a faithful life with God.”
Brueggemann “had at least 120 books to his name, 14 of which appeared in the final two years of his life,” Strawn marveled. A friend told Strawn recently, “Walter’s passing will likely slow his publication rate.”
Two of Brueggemann’s qualities loom large, Strawn said. “The first is honesty. The words ‘candor’ and ‘candid’ must be among the most common in his corpus. If John the Baptist was the new Elijah, I’ve got Walter pegged as Jeremiah 2.0.”
“To learn the great Walter Brueggemann also suffered from imposter syndrome might be the greatest gift he ever gave me.”
The second quality is integrity. The last time Strawn and Hankins were at Brueggemann’s home, they organized their friend’s books in chronological order. “It took a minute,” Strawn said.
He laid his hands on one of Brueggemann’s earliest books, “What Are Christians For? An Inquiry Into Obedience and Dissent.”
“It is quintessential Brueggemann in a nutshell,” Strawn said of the 1971 book. “Walter has been showing us and teaching us the same things for more than half a century. That is integrity.”
Strawn imagines the heavenly conversation that now includes Brueggemann.
“He has now taken his place right next to Jeremiah and Job. … Walter is going to set them straight, y’all,” Strawn said. “He now knows as he is fully known. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, and thanks be to God for his servant, Walter Brueggemann.”
“Walter taught generations of people how to read the Bible — and more than that, how to savor and read it with a sense of awe and wonder and expectation,” said Hankins, among the last of Brueggemann’s students at Columbia Seminary. “We believed him, because in his hands, the Bible kept doing that, over and over again. Walter was a seminary professor who refused to seek escape in the nether regions of religion.”
Brueggemann “never tried to explain the inexplicable,” Hankins said. “Instead, he encouraged the church to organize its life around mysteries, around testimony, to inexplicable events like emancipation from Egypt, manna from heaven or the incarnation of God.”
Brueggemann was 69 years old when Hankins became his student. “He had so many books in the past and so many books in the future. It would have been so easy to phone it in, to not take such an interest in one more 20-something Southern white Presbyterian young man who seemed interested in biblical studies,” Hankins said. “But he showed interest. He gave me time. He had me over. He hired me as a research assistant.”
“I ended up editing six of his books, a very small percentage,” Hankins said. “We also wrote pieces together. It all happened after he retired. I would not be who I am without him. I loved him dearly and I’ll miss him sorely.”
In a prayer, VanDessel thanked God for Brueggemann’s “refusal to make peace with injustice and for his commitment to speak of your abundance in the world that fears there is never enough — and for his insistence on hope, on the hope of your promises against all despair.”
“May our almighty and eternal God so draw in our hearts, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly God’s and utterly dedicated to Christ,” Stephan said in a benediction. “May God use us to God’s glory and for the welfare of all God’s beloved, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Before heading to a reception, those gathered listened to organist Eric Strand’s glorious “Toccata from Symphony No. 5” by Charles Widor.
Memorials to honor Dr. Walter A. Brueggemann may be sent to Eden Theological Seminary, 475 E. Lockwood, St. Louis, MO 63119, or Columbia Theological Seminary, 701 S. Columbia Drive, Decatur, GA 30030.
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