Presbyterians and Pentecostals
Here’s another excerpt from Conrad L. Kanagy’s upcoming biography entitled Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography.
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Reverend Clover Reuter Beal dreaded the knock on the door that she knew was coming. A late evening email from a frustrated parishioner was just the thing she did not need before drifting off to sleep. Why had she bothered to look at her phone one more time before going to bed? She was relatively new to this congregation and felt the urgency to pay attention to concerns and questions that members had about her ministry. Clover had grown up in a Pentecostal congregation. So how had she ended up Presbyterian? And the pastor at that? So much of her spiritual DNA was still hardwired to the experiences of church in her childhood. The free expressions of praise. Raising hands in worship. Spontaneous testimonies of “God-sightings” and inexplicable healings of all sorts of diseases. Outbursts of “God is good! All the time!” And then there were the prophetic words. Members could stand and freely share something God had spoken to them that week. That the second coming of Jesus was imminent. That Aunt Martha had seen an angel on her deathbed. That the pastor’s last sermon was not a word from the Lord. That the candidate running for governor was anointed by God.
Church was cosmic drama. The sense of the “Lord’s presence” could be felt. The Bible was real and to be taken literally. But God also spoke to individuals directly. Were these special words equivalent to Scripture? No one ever asked. But everyone was sure that their word aligned with the Scripture. Clover often wondered about that. It was clear what it meant to be a Christian, and that if one stayed within the parameters of the narrow way, heaven was assured. Periodically someone would speak in tongues, though it was never obvious when or why or for what. But emotion, affect, and feelings were all part of the religious experience of Clover’s upbringing. And though much had changed about her understanding of God and the biblical text, she remained deeply connected to the “heart religion” of her childhood, to the belief that the Bible was God’s Word, that God was moved by prayer, and that the community of faith was still the place where the Story was most easily accessed.
So how in the world had she ended up a Presbyterian— often considered the far opposite of her own upbringing and religious DNA? And how had she and her partner Tim, who also grew up an evangelical, ended up moving in the same direction together? The answer—other than Providence—was Professor Walter Brueggemann. Clover and Tim were both undergraduates at Seattle Pacific University in the mid-1980s. Both were interested not only in each other, but in continuing their education in the study of religion, Bible, and theology. Though Seattle Pacific was within the evangelical tradition, one of their faculty mentors strongly encouraged them to study with Professor Brueggemann: “Go wherever he goes!” Whether this was the word of the Lord or not, they never did decide at the time. But looking back, the answer is clear. They began to investigate Professor Brueggemann’s whereabouts and why it was so imperative that they follow him like Abraham and Sarah followed YHWH and Ruth followed Naomi. They discovered that, in fact, Brueggemann was also on the move. After a quarter-century at Eden Seminary, he was packing his bags too. Whether it was because the Spirit was calling or because the current president was so recalcitrant no one knew for sure. But God moves in mysterious ways and in the divine mystery of it all the three of them ended up at Columbia Theological Seminary at just about the same time.
Of course, the reception that Professor Brueggemann received was quite different from the Beals. Walter was a rising star. Along with Brevard Childs of Yale, he would soon be considered one of the two leading Old Testament theologians in the United States. He was given the perks he finally deserved for all that he had accomplished—a secretary, a schedule amendable to writing, financial support, and an esteemed group of colleagues. In many ways, Brueggemann’s presence completed the dream team that Columbia Seminary was aiming to create. Walter had been invited to teach at Columbia previously, and like every other invitation turned it down. But now he was here!
Clover and Tim, on the other hand, settled into their new lives as most graduate students are known to do. Small apartment. Budget meals. Trying to make connections. Nervous and anxious about starting all over again. At least they had each other. They had been warned by other students that Brueggemann was incredibly smart, often dramatic, and sometimes a bit of a curmudgeon. He called on anybody and everybody. He expected the reading to be done and notes taken. He danced around the classroom, gesticulating wildly at times, and dropping the F-bomb in the middle of a deep conversation about God. He was never abusive or intentionally demeaning. He was just damn excited about the biblical text. And if for a moment he thought you were not, he had ways of making it clear that two choices lay ahead. Get with the program or go home! Few would ever choose the latter, regardless of their interest in the Bible. Because what came out of this man’s mouth was mystery and awe and power and energy and light and promise and hope that came from another world. It was as if he could see beyond where they were in that classroom, into an alternative reality that took them all back to 587 BCE and the nation of Israel. If Brueggemann was Jeremiah—which was clear—then who were they going to be? False prophet peers of Jeremiah who claimed that what lay in front of them was real and true? One of the church bureaucrats who was worried more about next year’s budget than about Jeremiah’s predictions of an imminent invasion by Babylon? Were they going to be like King Hezekiah who, hearing the bad news, replied, “At least it won’t happen in my lifetime” (Hezekiah 38:1–5)? Or like King Jehoiakim, who took Jeremiah’s words and threw them in the fire (Jeremiah 36)? Or like poor Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, who was tasked with rewriting the entire thing all over again? It was lucky for everyone that Baruch was known for paying attention. No one had listened more deeply to the fire in Jeremiah’s bones than his loyal friend Baruch.
In all the drama and swinging arms and gesticulation, Professor Brueggemann was forcing upon each student the question: “What are you going to do with this text?” Not what is your neighbor doing with it? Or your mother and father, or even your pastor. But what are you, prospective preacher and teacher of this text going to do with it? The choices were abundant but really came down to three in Brueggemann’s mind. Join the liberals and the historical-critical scholarship that believed the words of the text to be inert and powerless and the God of that text deceased. If that was your choice, then get the hell out of seminary and go save the whales! Or join the conservatives who’d already decided, in the nineteenth century, what the text and the God of the text were up to. By doing so they had created closure to the text, inserted their own interpretations into it, codified it in their own language, and created a God in their image of themselves. If that was your choice, again get the hell out and go to Sunday School.
What Brueggemann presented was something far different. An alternative that neither Clover nor Tim had confronted in their churches or as undergraduates. But while different, there were echoes of their past that whispered to them from Brueggemann’s blackboard and all the wild and woolly antics he performed. It sounded like holiness. Like mystery. Like a spring. Sounds like they had not heard for some time. Sounds that had gotten covered up with a lot of other noise—much of it from the church. The first time Clover heard Walter preach in the seminary chapel it felt as if tongues of fire rose from the top of his head. He was preaching from the book of Isaiah. She could feel the presence of God in his aliveness. She remembers weeping. Tim and Clover began to understand why they had come to Columbia. They thought they came to find Walter, and they did. But more than that, they found God again and, in some ways, for the first time.
Professor Brueggemann portrayed a God who was free. Who could not be bound by socially constructed realities. Who lived above humanity but at the same time had come to dwell with humanity. A God who could change God’s mind, meaning that the prayers of the saints mattered. Clover had always struggled with that. If God never changes, then why pray? If God has decided in advance, then why ask? Until Walter, no one could give her a straight answer. And if God was freed, so was the Word of God. One couldn’t put closure around the Bible, which is why it came alive whenever one went back to the same text again and again. Tim and Clover learned that God was in recovery from God’s self, and that this explained the violence of God in the Old Testament and the Word made flesh in the new. They heard that there is no God outside this text— quite a contrary perspective to the free-flowing spontaneous words of Clover’s Pentecostal congregation. They learned that Freud and Marx had something to teach the church. They began to comprehend a God that felt vaguely familiar but also wildly and freely different from everything they had heard in Sunday School. And like so many others drawn to Brueggemann, it was this combination of familiar orthodoxy and unfamiliar “otherness” of God that kept them connected to Walter. He was neither progressive nor conservative. He neither rejected God nor did he accept the God imposed upon the Bible by so many others. He was a lover of the church but a loyal critic as well. He was, it seemed, an equal opportunity opponent of all poles and extremes. His sermons usually included something to offend just about everybody. Probably even himself.
Progressives seemed to receive Walter more readily, even making him a kind of renegade leader of their team, promoting peace and social justice, civil rights, and gay rights, and fighting racism. And indeed, he was on their team. But what they missed was that Walter believed God was the leader of their team and he was going where God was. He believed ever increasingly that God was on the side of the poor, marginalized, downtrodden, betrayed, and abused. And if one wanted to be on God’s side, you better get on theirs. Find them—find God. And the other way around. Decades later, Walter regrets that some of the progressives who constituted his habitat were not sufficiently attentive to the deep claims he made for God. Over time he felt betrayed by progressives who had betrayed God. He felt deceived by those who had given up sound doctrine. He had begun his career rooted in the irenic and ecumenical posture of the Evangelical Synod of North America. Coming out of the religious wars of Europe, their mantra was “love God and neighbor.” Be magnanimous, for quarrels will only destroy and divide. And give wide latitude to theological differences while being charitable in all things.
But too many progressives loved his social ethic while ignoring his grounding of this ethic in the biblical text. And few ever understood the rich German evangelical pietism out of which Brueggemann consistently responded. Evangelicals were repulsed by his early support for the ordination of gays and his affirmation of egalitarianism among men and women in church leadership. They dismissed or failed to see his high regard for the Bible and that social justice concerns emerged from his understanding of God and God’s Word. The one thing that both progressives and conservatives missed was the one thing that Walter cared about the most—the text and its God.
Curiously, it was Pentecostals like Clover who, among evangelicals, warmly accepted Walter and most seemed to understand him. In 1996 he was invited by Rickie Moore to present a paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. The society had organized a homage to Walter for his work. He was warmly received and adored for his high view of the Bible. For some reason, they cared less than other evangelicals that he bent toward Marx and appeared liberal on social issues. At least he dared to state his love for the Bible. Agree or not with the man’s understanding of where the text took him, at least he stayed in the text on his journey there. It was hard for anyone who took the time to listen to miss the fact that he loved the Bible, grounded himself there daily, and was saturated with the holy.
Brueggemann was always hard to nail down theologically. But this reflected the way he also saw God and the biblical text. He liked to say that “it’s hard to get God said right!” And so perhaps it wasn’t that he intentionally played hard to get as much as his zig-zagging and pivoting here and there was simply his version of big game hunting. The progressives said there was no big game anymore, and evangelicals assumed they had tamed all the remaining big game. Progressives indeed seemed to receive Walter more readily and assumed he was on their team. And indeed, he was. But they missed that Walter believed that God was on their team and he was going where God was. He believed that God was on the side of the poor, marginalized, downtrodden, betrayed, and abused. And if one wanted to be on God’s side, you better get on theirs. Find them—find God. But also the other way around.
Decades later, Walter has some regret that progressives in the church composed his habitat. Over time he felt betrayed by progressives who had betrayed God. They loved his social ethic while ignoring his grounding of this ethic in the biblical text. Evangelicals were so repulsed by his early support for the ordination of gays and his affirmation of egalitarianism among men and women in church leadership. They missed his high regard for the Bible and his understanding that social justice concerns emerged from his understanding of God and God’s Word. The one thing that both missed was the one thing that Walter cared about the most.
Then Clover heard a knock at the door. It was the disturbed parishioner. He had heard of Clover’s efforts to develop a back-to-the-Bible educational program for adults. Clover invited him to sit down. He blurted out, “I hear the Adult Faith Formation team is focusing on the Bible this year. I am uneasy with the Bible and many in this highly educated church are as well. Some have Bible baggage from their upbringing; some have no understanding of the text at all.” Clover replied, “Professor Walter Brueggemann did recommend me for this position, and here is why.” From there on the conversation was easy for Clover. She shared what she had learned of his convictions about the Bible. His high view of Scripture allowed the text to speak. She paused as the parishioner let this sink in. He warmed to Clover as he heard her describe the multilayered mysteries of the text and the openness of the text to ongoing interrogation and revelation. The God who lived in that text could not be confined by the human constructs of the text. “Dr. Brueggemann has shaped generations of pastors and preachers and scholars. I feel like I try to wear his mantle to continually challenge the church to take seriously the biblical text and its rich stories. We need to do the Bible and ask what it is doing to us. We need to be people of the text.”
She continued, “God is in covenant, which means God is in the risky business of being willing to be affected by us. God holds up God’s end of the deal. Prayer is a way of getting at our deepest desires of being in relationship with God and being in relationship in and with the world. It’s an intimate relationship. How do we know that biblical God, other than in the stories of the Bible? These are the stories we have. How about you join us next week for a reading circle of about thirty-five people?” He paused. “Thank you for introducing me more closely to Brueggemann.” She escorted the man to the door and went back to her computer. First, she paused and thanked God for rich conversations such as those. Then she sent a quick note of thanks to Walter for continuing to shape her and draw her into a greater engagement with the Bible.
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