The death of Walter Brueggemann on June 5, 2025, occasioned an outpouring of reflections on and appreciations of his extraordinary life of scholarship and service, one defined by erudition as well as scholarly innovation in the study and application of the Bible. Though he was perhaps not as well known in American Catholic circles as in Protestant ones, his influence in the academy reached across denominations and traditions.
Brueggemann was born in 1933 in Tilden, Neb., but grew up in neighboring Missouri. He attended Elmhurst College (now Elmhurst University) in Illinois, graduating in 1955. After studies at Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves, Mo., he was ordained in 1958 in the United Church of Christ. After earning a Th.D. from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1961, he returned to Eden Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of Old Testament from 1961 to 1986; he also served as dean of the seminary from 1968 to 1982. In 1974, Brueggemann earned a doctorate in theology from Saint Louis University.
In 1986, Brueggemann moved to Columbia Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary in Decatur, Ga., where he served as the William Marcellus McPheeters professor of Old Testament until his retirement in 2003. In 1990, he was elected President of the Society of Biblical Literature. He was a founding editor of Journal for Preachers, where he remained an editor for more than four decades.
He wrote more than 58 books over the course of his career, including his 1978 text The Prophetic Imagination, which sold over a million copies and is still considered a classic almost half a century later. The book’s themes of how the biblical prophets were disruptive forces in the politics and cultures of their day would remain some of Brueggemann’s themes throughout his career. In his writings and public talks, he was often critical of the consumerism and nationalism that he saw as anti-biblical and yet pervasive in much of American life.
In a 2018 essay in Sojourners on the 40th anniversary of The Prophetic Imagination, five prominent scholars commented on its impact. “Brueggemann’s critique of royal consciousness and structures opened the door for us to engage in post-colonial critique of the Bible and imperialist ideology in religion,” wrote the theologian Kwok Pui-Lan. “Rarely would you find a classic that speaks so poignantly to today’s political situation as it was published 40 years ago.”
In 2007, Brueggeman published Like Fire in the Bones: Listening to the Prophetic Word in Jeremiah, a collection of 15 articles on the Old Testament prophet. In a short review for America, Dianne Bergant, C.S.A., noted that the book offered a fair summary of the “emphases of Brueggemann’s own Christian concerns, namely, careful analysis and interpretation of the biblical tradition, remarkable insight into the reality and needs of the contemporary world, and the responsibility of Christians who cherish that tradition.”
“Walter Brueggemann is one of the world’s great teachers about the prophets,” On Being podcast host Krista Tippett told Christianity Today in an obituary. “He translates their imagination from the chaos of ancient times to our own. He somehow also embodies this tradition’s fearless truth-telling together with fierce hope—and how it conveys ideas with disarming language.”
Brueggemann pointed out time and again in his writings that many social and ethical questions in the Bible are not answered consistently across books or eras of composition. At the same time, he did not see this thematic reality as a stumbling block to an appreciation of the Bible as the Word of God. For Breueggemann, wrote Lawrence Boadt in a 2004 review of An Introduction to the Old Testament, “the Old Testament is not a hodgepodge of contradictions, but a unique and extraordinary portrait of the living God, who is always speaking anew through the church and to the church through the richness of its texts.”
America reviewed a number of Brueggemann’s books over the years—with Dan Harrington, S.J., often including his works in his “Books on the Bible” roundups. Brueggeman, wrote Father Harrington in a 1993 review of Old Testament Theology, “is one of the very best biblical theologians at work today. He is concerned not only with describing the theology of the Old Testament writings but also with articulating their significance for Christian theology and discipleship today.”
In 2022, Brueggemann wrote an essay for Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic ministry operating under the auspices of America Media, on “How to read the Bible on homosexuality.” It remains to this day the most-read article in Outreach history. He wrote again a year later on how the emancipatory message of the Book of Amos might apply to LGBTQ people in the church.
“It is easy enough to see at first glance why LGBTQ people, and those who stand in solidarity with them, look askance at the Bible,” he wrote in “How to read the Bible on homosexuality,” noting several biblical texts in the Old and New Testament alike that condemn homosexual acts. However, Brueggemann noted, many of these texts appear in the context of purity codes that were specifically repudiated in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles—such as the declaration in Acts 10:15 that “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
Such statements that seem to obviate the need for adherence to purity codes, Brueggemann wrote, means “the social ordering governed by Christ is beyond the bounds of the rigors of the old exclusivism.” Further, he wrote, the Bible does not speak with one voice, nor does it exist (or is interpreted) in a single context. “All of these angles of interpretation,” he wrote, “taken together, authorize a sign for LGBTQ persons: Welcome!”
In 2023, Brueggemann published Ancient Echoes: Refusing the Fear-Filled, Greed-Driven Toxicity of the Far Right, a collection of essays on biblical texts that had relevance to contemporary political discussion. Reviewed by Harold W. Attridge for America, the book identified eight propositions which Brueggemann associated with the MAGA movement and marshaled scriptural texts against them: “(1) government is bad; (2) yesteryear was perfect, ideal; (3) establishment experts are wrong, science is suspect; (4) people are entitled to their own facts; (5) short-term profits are everything; (6) liberty equals selfishness; (7) inequality is not so bad; (8) universal health care is tyranny.”
While Attridge remained unsure whether “Bible-reading supporters of right-wing politicians will be totally convinced,” he noted that “Brueggemann’s review of biblical texts relevant to contemporary political issues will no doubt delight left-leaning preachers and ordinary faithful, who will welcome the reminder that Scripture strongly defends the poor, the weak and the marginalized while condemning wealthy oppressors.”
Brueggemann is survived by his wife, Tia, and by his sons James and John and their families. A memorial on his official website noted that Brueggemann, a lover of baseball and a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, always had two particular pieces of advice for his sons: “love Jesus Christ and hate the Cubs.”
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Our poetry selection for this week is “Little Skate,” by Lynne Viti. To read more about the selection process for this year’s prize, click here. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.
Members of the Catholic Book Club: We are taking a hiatus while we retool the Catholic Book Club and pick a new selection.
In this space every week, America features reviews of and literary commentary on one particular writer or group of writers (both new and old; our archives span more than a century), as well as poetry and other offerings from America Media. We hope this will give us a chance to provide you with more in-depth coverage of our literary offerings. It also allows us to alert digital subscribers to some of our online content that doesn’t make it into our newsletters.
Other recent Catholic Book Club columns:
David Tracy was more than a theologian
The priest-detectives of American fiction
Riley Hughes, an unsung literary jack of all trades
The history (and future) of covering conclaves
Remembering Peru’s literary master, Mario Vargas Llosa
Happy reading!
James T. Keane
