The church has had an uneasy relationship with the material world ever since Paul blasted Greek gnostics in the first century for their perversion of the Gospel. Like it or not, the Christian faith is rooted in materiality, and Walter Brueggemann cites five areas in which believers can reengage with the material world for the good of everyone.


He describes our disengagement as a preoccupation with spiritual matters and a preference for a “convenient, private, otherworldly gospel about ‘souls’ rather than the solid food of informed critical thought about the materiality of our faith.” (170) Materiality puts our hearts in a right relationship to our”things,” while materialism puts us in service to our “things.”

The invitation of Materiality as Resistance is for us to examine our use of food, money, our bodies, our time, and the place we inhabit and to ask ourselves probing questions around stewardship, Sabbath observance, and our concern for others.

Jesus calls us to moral action in the real world. How else can we make a difference and gain an audience with people who are completely disengaged from matters of spirituality? Brueggemann employs his prophetic imagination to invite readers into a discussion of what partnership with God’s purposes would look like as part of our “mere Christianity.” It turns out that our relationship with the physicial world might be the most revealing indicator of our spiritual health.

Many thanks to Westminster John Knox and NetGalley for providing access to this book to facilitate my review which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.

Walter Brueggemann is known for his wisdom, wit, and writing skills. This book does not disappoint. Taking on the false duality of Western Christianity, which sees humans as body v soul, Brueggemann reminds the reader that Christianity that is only concerned with a person's "soul" is not following the example of how Jesus engaged people on a daily basis. When so many who claim "Christianity" are focused on an otherworldly "reward" for right belief, this book proclaims that the work of justice is the true calling of those who seek to walk in the way of Jesus. This book is a concise and informative read for anyone who seeks to be a reflection of the Holy in the world today.

Materiality as resistance by Walter Brueggeman is a very educational and do you bleed thought provoking read.
The books description says:
What is materiality?

Jesus practiced materiality when he healed the bodies of the sick, proclaimed Jubilee to the poor, and fed the five thousand. He practiced materiality over materialism. In Materiality as Resistance, Walter Brueggemann defines materiality as the use of the material aspects of the Christian faith, as opposed to materialism, which places possessions and physical comfort over spiritual values. In this concise volume, Brueggemann lays out how we as Christians may reengage our materiality for the common good. How does materiality inform our faith when it comes to food, money, the body, time, and place? How does it force us to act? Likewise, how is the church obligated to use its time, money, abundance of food, the care and use of our bodies, observance of Sabbath, and stewardship of our world and those with whom we share it? With a foreword from Jim Wallis, Materiality as Resistance serves as a manifesto of Walter Brueggemann's most important work and as an engaging call to action. It is suited for group or individual study.

Like many of Brueggemann's books, this book is a corrective against the excesses of the past. It is not about materialism which is bad. It is about materiality, which is the rightful understanding and constructive use of material things. There was a time where the Church has played a key role in "sanitizing" material things. In the sixth century, many people were overly preoccupied with all things spiritual to the detriment of material things. With dualism and gnostic beliefs, people were quick to segregate the material from the spiritual. Taken to the extreme, they consider all material things bad and all spiritual things good. "Materiality as Resistance" is about resisting such dualistic beliefs and to redeem the creative use of material things, without compromising on our spiritual beliefs. The five elements are: Money; Food; Body; Time; and Place.

On Money, Brueggemann begins with a push-back against John Wesley's popular maxim: "Earn all you can; give all you can; save all you can." While generally accepted by believers, especially Methodists and those from the Wesleyan tradition, this common saying about earning, saving, and giving has often been accepted without much critique. Yet, Brueggemann boldly pushes against this by asking three formidable questions:

How much is enough to earn?
How little is enough to save?
How might one invest one's savings?

He breaks down not only Wesley's points but helps us fill in the gaps by giving us a more holistic picture of stewardship. To date, I have not seen anyone as bold as Brueggemann who would challenge Wesley's teaching. Beware of the treacherous effects of consumerism, readers are shown an alternative that resists unbridled greed; endless accumulation; and erratic giving.

On Food, Brueggemann helps us meander through the perspectives of "scarcity and abundance" starting from the origin of our food sources, from food production to the distribution channels, and from the distributor chains to our homes. He reminds us that we are not mere consumers or the end-users, but a part of the entire community chain. We are not a food chain but a food network. Three things sum up Brueggemann's advice: Resist unethical practices in the industrial production of food; resist the food distribution practices that play according to our economic status; and to resist "indulgent domination."

On the Body, distinguish between "food and clothing" and "life and body." Prefer the latter. For "mature materiality" to happen, observe "healthy sexuality." This means fidelity. Resist self-gratification ways. Offer our bodies as a "spiritual worship" to God and to behave in a manner that honours our neighbours. This has other applications as well. Once we learn to practice "healthy self-care" and "healthy sexuality," we will naturally resist discriminative practices like racism, selfish behaviours like individualism, and practice "bodily sacrifice" to put the interests of others before ourselves.

On Time, Brueggemann reiterates his early work "Sabbath as Resistance" with a reminder to consider the kairos of God's time, rather than the chronos of human time. Resist the temptation to be endlessly busy. Learn to put time in perspective with the reminders from Ecclesiastes 3. Wait upon the Lord.

Finally, on Place, there is no better place than our heavenly home. Starting out with the parable of the Prodigal Son, the author reminds us about the negative effects of homelessness. Not only is he talking about physical locations, he extends it to the "homeless mind" and the "homeless body." Homelessness is a serious physical and spiritual matter. We can be too busy trying to make a living, even when it comes at the expense of increasing the causes of homelessness.

My Thoughts
The two key themes throughout the book are resistance and redemption. In resistance, Brueggemann offers an alternative way to look at the five elements of everyday life. This is important because many Christians are not critical enough about accepting the values of the world. Sometimes this is due to the growing comforts with the things of the world. Most likely, it is because of a lack of biblical foundation to help us resist these worldly influences. Jesus said that we are in the world but not of the world. Brueggemann takes what we are seeing in this world, exposes the flaws, opens up the Biblical truths, and then shows us what it takes to resist the temptations. This resistance motif is consistently applied throughout the book. In redemption, the author attempts to put back the sacred into materiality. Put it another way, it is about redeeming the five key elements of the world that some of our learned and pious predecessors had unwittingly dichotomized. For what God had created, God had called creation good. Who then are we to call God's creation anything other than good?

After separating materialism from materiality, Brueggemann urges us to move toward "mature materiality" in all of the five elements. Frankly, even though he entitles the book using materiality as a form of resistance, actually, redemption is a larger theme than resistance. Good judgment is always redemptive. The same applies to constructive criticisms and righteous punishment. In the same way, resistance is a powerful arm of redemption, though it may mean some painful corrective efforts in the beginning. In other words, we do not resist something for the sake of resisting. We resist because we care enough to redeem them. Any change needs to go through a period of breaking down the old so that we can form the new.

This is another great book that constructively engages modern culture from a biblical perspective. Filled with wisdom and experience, Brueggemann continues to bless us with great resources for the larger Christian community.

Walter Brueggemann is currently the William Marcellus McPheeters professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He has also taught at Eden Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1986. He is a recognized authority in Old Testament scholarship and has authored over one hundred books.

Rating: 4.75 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Westminster John Knox Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

These thought-provoking essays call us to consider money, food, the body, time, and place from a Christian theological perspective. Brueggemann advocates for "mature materiality," a way of being in the world that embraces the physical, embodied nature of human existence and does so in way that emphasizes neighborliness, justice, and community. The reader is challenged to spend their money locally, to advocate and contribute toward a solid tax structure, to think about where our food comes from, to exercise and be responsible in regard to sex and sexuality, and to care for their place one lives.

And while these essays are thought-provoking, they could be argued more fully and robustly. It is evident that the reader is expected to agree with the assumptions of Brueggemann about ethics, politics, race, and more. If you love Walter Brueggemann and are familiar with his other work, you'll like this little book and you'll understand the broader context of his arguments. But if this is your first foray into the world of his prophetic imagination, you might find too many assertions that have too little support. Brueggemann will receive plenty of "amens" from those who already agree with him, and for those who disagree, few too invitations to consider matters from his point of view.

I think Brueggemann is correct in thinking there are segments of American Christianity that do not take our embodied existence seriously enough. Every good story needs a foil. Because of this, I think that his primary point is exaggerated. Sure, conservative evangelicalism has problems. But so do the mainline, liberal traditions. Brueggemann's essays will be received by mainline churches, and will be celebrated because of the chastisement he directs towards those not in the room. It would be much better, I think, to address the concerns of one's own house first. Then, proceed from there.

My review of Walter Brueggemann’s forthcoming title, Materiality as Resistance: Five Elements of Moral Action in the Real World.


What does this book offer the Church?
In the 6th century, the future of the Church would forever change, according to Brueggemann, as Constantine started to influence the Church and her spirituality. Part of that spirituality was that the Church started to create too sharp a divide between the material and spiritual world, and the Church began to neglect her ideals of serving the poor, the outcast, the disadvantaged, and the widow.

The Church in the 21st century, he argues, has fallen victim to the same sharp dichotomy, and, in fact, perpetuates it even further than the Church has in the past. Part of this is the way that we teach the Bible, but part of it spins out of the 21st century context we live in. It’s easy for us to neglect our neighbor when we live in an entirely over-connected world through social media. We ignore our communities when Amazon promises us two-day shipping and low prices, while local bookstore owners suffer as their traffic is going to the web rather than their store.

In response to the Church’s neglect of the physical world, he suggests a return to materiality. This is not a return to materialism, something that the veteran pastor has spoken against before. He notes five areas where the Church needs to be more attentive to the physicality of the world around us: money, food, the body, time, and place.

How well does this book accomplish its goals?
A book like this can become really preachy in a really bad way really quickly. Thankfully, Brueggemann is careful to maintain a pastoral tone, yet still provide incisive and probing critiques of the unhealthy ways in which we interact with money, food, our bodies, time, and place. For example, we are called to think about harmful farming practices which hurt our farms, and we’re also called to be mindful of how our obsessions with fashion can cause us to hurt those who exploited to make our clothing.

One thing that I am thankful for with this volume is Brueggemann’s careful practice of helping us think deeply about these issues without telling us *how* to act in response about these issues. As an example, he talks about bookstores and Amazon, which I have already brought up above. He notes that we choose the convenience of online shopping over against the “work” of staying within our local communities and buying from a local bookstore. Sure, we have to do more work to purchase from a local bookstore: they might charge sticker, compared to the allure of cheaper books from Amazon, and you do have to drive there, but you are keeping the money local. The alternative is sending your money to a corporation, which doesn’t give any money to your neighbors, nor does it benefit you where you live. Rather than telling his readers to forego Amazon entirely, Brueggemann paints a vivid of portrait of the biblical idea of being local and supporting your community.

What this all boils down to is a helpful biblical theology of the material world and the way Christians must interact with it. The material world and material needs are not always bad, despite the gnostic patterns we as Christians can fall into sometimes. The material world and material needs are also not the most important issues facing Christians, as materialist Hegelians might try to suggest. Instead, Brueggemann suggests a biblical way to view the Christian duty to meet material needs and interact with a material world.

If you would like more information, you can read the publisher’s comments on Westminster John Knox Press’s website. You can pre-order the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christian Book, or talk to your local bookstore about placing an order for you.