Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks

by Walter Brueggemann

The vocation of the prophets, in the face of such an enthralling ideology, is to penetrate and expose that ideology by appeal to the reality of the lived world, a reality that steadfastly refused to conform to the claims of that ideology.

The prophets are voices of unrelenting realism in the face of deceiving ideology.

The dominant culture has, in its chosenness, failed to love neighbor and so has failed to regard the weak, poor, and vulnerable as legitimate members of the community. The elite have manipulated the markets, paid low wages, foreclosed on homes, and managed the economy in their own interest to the detriment of others.