The Prophetic Imagination

            
             The book I chose to respond to is "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann (1973). I chose this book because the Prophetic is a topic of great interest to me. I think that Brueggemann communicates skillfully with his audience, describing the task of the Prophet. He presents a study of the prophet as a cause of change in the face of an unruly power structure that exploits the weak. He uses Moses as an example of the model prophet, and uses pharaoh and his government as the power elite.
             In the book Brueggemann talks about Moses offering an alternative consciousness of a God who answers the cries of the oppressed. Brueggemann communicates that Israel's prophets were really trying to do two things; criticize the church and energize or comfort the afflicted. On one hand the prophets tried to disturb the status quo, and question the order of things. They would act like skeptics. On the other hand the prophets tried to generate hope, affirm identity, and create a new future. He points out that consumerism has co-opted the American church to the point that it has little power. He says, "The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us." Brueggemann communicates that Christ's crucifixion is the ultimate prophetic criticism.
             Prophetic imagination in essence is imagining something before completion, or before it happens. Brueggemann says this is done by poetry, lyric and future fantasy. The example for prophetic imagination is for people who "have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought" (44). The book seems to make light of the prophetic, almost saying that prophets just think things up. I think that Brueggemann is only trying to make a point about the necessity of the prophetic. To be prophetic means to break with the majority, to imagine and come up with a different reality, to challenge assumptions of society, to break through the numbness of comfortable self-sufficiency, and surrender to God's control.