Walter Brueggemann was so effective for so long precisely because he called upon the church to see beyond the taken-for-granted realities it confronts by imagining God's alternative reality; to recognize that the bars of the church's entrapment are social constructs that can be deconstructed so that the church can be once again enchanted by God's good news.
To challenge the taken-for-granted reality of the church and to imagine an alternative reality, Brueggemann consistently takes readers back to the biblical text. He moves between a description of the reality that appears in front of the church and the alternative that God is preparing for God's people, which begins now and moves into God's eschatological future. In so doing, Brueggemann seeks to unleash the power of God's words to create a new world--here and now.
In All Things Considered and Imagined, Walter Brueggemann once again assumes the role of a cultural prophet, showing how the world the imagined by the Bible challenges us--our politics, our ways, our desires, our dreams, our hopes. All Things Considered is a fitting last chapter in the story of a true prophet.
