Walter Brueggemann, In Memoriam — When the World We Have Trusted In Is Vanishing

The great Christian scholar of the biblical prophets died on June 5, 2025. Yet, in the lineage of the prophets, who called humanity to face its hardest realities, this profound, warm, and timeless conversation is a stunning offering straight into our present. "The amazing contemporaneity of this material," Walter Brueggemann says to Krista in this conversation from 2011, and we relive by relistening, "is that the issues are the same: the world we have trusted in is vanishing before our eyes and the world that is coming at us feels like a threat to us and we can't quite see the shape of it." He embodied as much as taught a prophetic way of fearless truth-telling, fierce hope, and disarming language that can break through "human hearts and human hurt.." What is the calling of the Christian in a time like this, and what is the role of the preacher?

Episode 1152 of the On Being with Krista Tippett podcast, hosted by On Being Studios, titled "Walter Brueggemann, In Memoriam — When the World We Have Trusted In Is Vanishing" was published on June 11, 2025 and runs 66 minutes.

June 11, 2025 ·66m · On Being with Krista Tippett

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Summary

Episode Description

The great Christian scholar of the biblical prophets died on June 5, 2025. Yet, in the lineage of the prophets who called humanity to face its hardest realities, this profound, warm, and timeless conversation is a stunning offering straight into our present. “The amazing contemporaneity of this material," Walter Brueggemann says to Krista in this conversation from 2011, “and we relive by relistening, is that the issues are the same: the world we have trusted in is vanishing before our eyes and the world that is coming at us feels like a threat to us and we can't quite see the shape of it." He embodied as much as taught a prophetic way of fearless truth telling, fierce hope, and disarming language that can break through "human hearts and human hurt." What is the calling of the Christian in a time like this, and what is the role of the preacher?

We are lifting this episode out of the archive to mark this moment. Krista felt particularly called to point to this unedited version of their conversation, which was previously edited to meet time constraints, as the full discussion has such timely resonance.

You can also watch the video of this conversation between Krista and Walter Brueggemann on our YouTube page.

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Find the shorter, edited and produced version of this show — and all of Krista's conversations across the years — on our website at onbeing.org/series/podcast.

Bio

Walter Brueggemann was the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia. He died on June 5, 2025. He was the author of many books including The Prophetic Imagination, The Spirituality of the Psalms, The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, and, written in his 90s, Real World Faith.

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