Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out
Overview
Silence is a complex matter. It can refer to awe before unutterable holiness, but it can also refer to the coercion where some voices are silenced in the interest of control by the dominant voices. It is the latter silence that Walter Brueggemann explores, urging us to speak up in situations of injustice.
Interrupting Silence illustrates that the Bible is filled with stories where marginalized people break repressive silence and speak against it. Examining how maintaining silence allows the powerful to keep control, Brueggemann motivates readers to consider situations in their lives where they need to either interrupt silence or be part of the problem, convincing us that God is active and wanting us to act for justice.
- Includes discussions of specific biblical texts relating to breaking silence
- Explores themes of justice, marginalization, and repression
- Provides reflection questions for each chapter
- The Oppressed Break Silence
- Prophets Refuse to Be Silenced
- Silence Kills
- Jesus Rudely Interrupted
- Casting Out Silence
- The Crowd as Silencer
- Truth Speaks to Power
- The Church as a Silencing Institution
Top Highlights
“Luke understands continual prayer not simply as passive waiting but as the active quest for justice.3” (Page 92)
“In this context, faith consists in the resolve to seek justice. Faith is both the conviction that justice can be accomplished and the refusal to accept injustice.” (Pages 91–92)
“Thus in these three verses we have three dramatic moves. First, a resolve of silence that turns out to be acutely disabling; second, a bold, abrupt breaking of the silence in candor; and third, a prompt generous response from YHWH who restores to life. In the final line of verse 5 attention is turned from ‘I’ to ‘You,’ from guilt and alienation to risky restoration and glad rehabilitation.” (Page 41)
“It has struck me through these several textual studies how silence breaking is evoked by attention to the body in pain. The body knows that silence kills. When the silence is broken, the body may be restored and the body politic may be open to new possibility.” (Pages 6–7)
“Thus saith the Lord.’ That is, the prophets understood that their offensive utterance cast in offensive figure was not their own idea or speech.” (Page 26)
Brueggemann examines eight biblical narratives where the puncturing of silence is the trigger for God to bring about rescue, restoration, or healing. From the cries of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt to the Syro-Phoenician woman gate-crashing that Jewish dinner party, Brueggemann highlights the ways, in scripture, in which speaking out unbalanced the status quo and power structures of the day.
—Fraser Dyer, Church Times
Examining how maintaining silence allows the powerful to keep control, Professor Brueggemann motivates readers to consider situations in their lives where they need to either interrupt silence or be part of the problem, convincing us that God is active and wanting us to act for justice. Inspired and inspiring...
—Midwest Book Review
- Title: Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out
- Author: Walter Brueggemann
- Publisher: Westminster John Knox
- Publication Date: 2018
- Pages: 128
- Resource Type: Bible Study
- Topic: Christianity