Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church

Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007. Pp. xii + 209. Paper. $19.95. ISBN 0664231217. Stephan Joubert University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa Walter Brueggemann needs no introduction. He is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Considered by many scholars and church leaders alike as the world’s leading interpreter of the Old Testament, he is the author of influential monographs, commentaries on various Old Testament books, and essays in recognized theological journals. Brueggemann is also an acclaimed international speaker. Mandate to Difference is the result of Brueggemann’s numerous speaking engagements on his topic of choice, that the church of today must set itself in deliberate tension with the surrounding context. This book is the outcome of sermons and presentations at various churches and gatherings throughout the year 2005. As Brueggemann admits in the preface, the presentations are to some extent ad hoc, since each chapter is the result of a self-contained contextual exposition. Nonetheless, the thread that binds these eleven chapters together is Brueggemann’s phenomenal exegetical competency to move between the diverse contexts of the various biblical texts in question and that of mainstream U.S. culture today. [Full Review]