Book Review: Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Anxiety - Walter Brueggemann, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020)

 

Published within weeks of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic, this book offers biblical reflections on the crisis. Brueggemann seeks to provide encouragement and discernment to enable the Church to respond missionally in the midst of disaster. In helpful and deeply moving words, Brueggemann develops each reflection into prayers, which ground the exploration in the realities of lived experience.

Drawing from Leviticus, Exodus and Job, Brueggemann initially draws out three stances for interpreting the pandemic theologically; as a brutally just covenantal transaction; as an intentional act of God, with determined outcomes; or as God acting in complete freedom. Whilst acknowledging that the immediacy of peril will initially occupy minds, Brueggemann wonderfully challenges preachers to address bigger questions, suggesting that human imagination will pique curiosity for such interpretative considerations, providing opportunity for transformative revelation.

In two further reflections, Brueggemann takes up consideration of God’s mercy (rḥm) and tenacious solidarity (ḥesed), helpfully expressing the difficulty with applying Old Testament narratives directly to current experience. Firstly, Brueggemann draws from David’s choice of pestilence as punishment from God in 2 Samuel 24:1-14. Here the invitation is to consider God’s mercy moving beyond an interpretation of COVID-19 as divine justice, opening imaginative vistas of renewal and transformation. Secondly, Brueggemann draws from Jeremiah, arguing that God’s tenacious solidarity should inspire hope and prompt action by the Church that witnesses to the goodness of God.

Reflecting on the account of Solomon’s dedication of the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:23-53), Brueggemann considers prayer. Carefully rebuffing elements that might employ prayer to promote institution, or interpret prayer as formulaic incantations, Brueggemann draws prayer as interaction that rights and strengthens the relationship between God and his people. He argues that the pre-eminence of this relationship removes the crisis from being a primary concern or defining reality.

This re-orientation is also the subject of Brueggemann’s profound reflection on Psalm 77, where the opening preoccupation with self is transformed as the psalmist recognises God’s complete freedom in action. This recognition leads to a re-orientation where God becomes the psalmists focus, leading to fresh revelation and interpretation of the psalmists context. Brueggemann helpfully identifies the dangerous nature of this re-orientation for the faithful, describing it as a pastoral moment.

The final two reflections draw attention to the future. Reflecting on Isaiah 43:18-19, Brueggemann bravely imagines God offering a changed society and world, challenging the reader to release past securities and embrace something new. Drawing from Isaiah 42:14-15, Brueggemann argues that the new is given through suffering. In suffering it is right to cry out to God, rather than deny its expression. However, crying out must not be without hope of something new. The crying out, Brueggemann argues, is a necessary part of the new creation being revealed.

The reflections offered by Brueggeman here are profound and full of hope. They encourage the Church to move beyond accepting and adapting a worldly narrative, and provide language and imagination to engage the broader biblical story in our current world crisis.