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In Unexpected News, Robert McAfee Brown looks at ten biblical texts through a new lens. Brown's analysis is concerned with how our reading of the Bible is dependent on our experiences and worldview. Brown sets out to understand how "third world Christians," that is, Christians who live in poverty and powerlessness, interpret the Bible. Brown argues that by reading the Bible in new ways, we can learn more about other cultures as well as gain a new understanding of the biblical message.… (more)
n Unexpected News, Robert McAfee Brown looks at ten biblical texts through a new lens. Brown's analysis is concerned with how our reading of the Bible is dependent on our experiences and worldview. Brown sets out to understand how "third world Christians," that is, Christians who live in poverty and powerlessness, interpret the Bible. Brown argues that by reading the Bible in new ways, we can learn more about other cultures as well as gain a new understanding of the biblical message.
[back cover quote from Walter Brueggemann] An accessible book on how to read Scripture, why to read Scripture, and why it must not be read in some ways. The book will be unsettling, because the argument itself is unsettling. But it can be used in contexts of lay study for a serious rereading. There is nothing "hard" about the book. The "hardness comes from the text and from the gospel. From these Brown does not protect us as much as we might wish. ( )
If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has his foot on the tail of the mouse, and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate you neutrality. Desmond Tutu, bishop of the Church of the Province of South Africa (Anglican)
Me don' understand politics, me don' understand big words like "democratic socialism." What me say is what e Bible say, but because people don' read de Bible no more, dey tink me talk politics. Ha! It's de Bible what have it written and it strong, it powerful. --Bob Marley, Jamaican folksinger
Reading the Bible with the eyes of the poor is a different thing from reading it with a full belly. If it is read in the light of the experience and hopes of the oppressed, the Bible's revolutionary themes--promise, exodus, resurrection and spirit--come alive. --Jurgen Moltmann The Church in the Power of the Spirit
Dedication
Special thanks to Philip Scharper John Eagleson Miguel d'Escoto, M.M. without whose vision Orbis Books would never have been created . . .
. . . and if Orbis Books had never been created the rest of us might still be reading the Bible from a first world perspective unaware that the Bible cannot be contained within any perspective but is bursting the bonds within which we try to imprison it
First words
[Introduction] A retire Air Force major, now a siminarian, went to a conference on "The Church and Central Africa." As the talks proceeded, he got angry.
Our society puts a premium on knowing.
[Epilogue] We have examined passages typical of biblical emphases that we tend to ignore
Quotations
Last words
[Introduction] At least I am beginning to be able to name the sin from which the Bible tells me I need liberations: complacency. I am indebted to David Steel for some of the impetus in exploring the David and Nathan story. In Scripture quotations, inclusive wording has been substituted for masculine pronouns.
And if we can begin to make that most difficult switch of all--away from the gods of middle-class values and upward mobility and gilt-edged retirement plans--and if we can explore, even tentatively and gingerly, what it would be like to think with and act for those who are the victims, we might just uncover the most "unexpected news" of all: that God got there before we did.
[Epilogue] When we face that question, we are ready as never before to hear--as if for the first time--the earliest words recorded in Jesus' ministry: "The time if fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news" (Mark 1:15).
In Unexpected News, Robert McAfee Brown looks at ten biblical texts through a new lens. Brown's analysis is concerned with how our reading of the Bible is dependent on our experiences and worldview. Brown sets out to understand how "third world Christians," that is, Christians who live in poverty and powerlessness, interpret the Bible. Brown argues that by reading the Bible in new ways, we can learn more about other cultures as well as gain a new understanding of the biblical message.