Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks

by Walter Brueggemann

• confidence in the ideology of exceptionalism, • denial, amid the crisis, that that ideology has failed and is not sustainable, and • despair once the denial is broken and reality is faced.

Thus I propose that the prophetic response to the crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem consists in • the assertion of critical reality in the face of an ideology of chosenness, • voiced grief in the face of denial, and • buoyant hope as a counter to despair.