The necessary context of prophetic preaching, Walter Brueggemann argues, is "a contestation between narratives": the dominant narrative of our time, which promoting self-sufficiency at the national level (through militarism) and the personal (through consumerism), and the countervailing narrative of a world claimed by a God who is gracious, uncompromising, and real. In previous work, Brueggemann has pointed us again-and-again to the indispensability of imagination. Here he writes for those who bear responsibility for regular proclamation in communities of faith, describing the discipline of a prophetic imagination that is unflinchingly realistic and unwaveringly candid.
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