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| Prayers for a Privileged People | 
 enlarge | Author: Walter Brueggemann
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.00
Buy New: $11.35
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 37152
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 183
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0687650194
Dewey Decimal Number: 242.8
EAN: 9780687650194
ASIN: 0687650194
Publication Date: April 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 praying from complicity to candor November 21, 2008
For over thirty years now, Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933) has combined the best of critical scholarship with love for the local church in service to the kingdom of God. Now a professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, Brueggemann has authored over seventy books. Except for a three-page preface, this entire book consists of eighty-six prayers organized around six broad themes. There is no conclusion, no index, or any bibliography at the end of the book. I found myself wishing that Brueggemann had concluded with a theological-pastoral reflection on the theme of "privilege" as he sees it now in the eighth decade of his life.
Some of his prayers reflect on specific passages of Scripture. Others take their cue from the calendar, like those for Super Bowl Sunday, Income Tax Day, or Mother's Day. Still others follow lectionary days like Epiphany or Easter. The psalm-like poems or prayers embody the ancient maxim of lex orandi, lex credendi, that the way or law of prayer is the way of believing. They combine the prophetic-transgressive and the pastoral-compassionate, and demonstrate just how subversive is the act of prayer for those of us who are all too comfortable with privilege, safety, control, and competence. These prayers lead us toward a spirit of true candor about God, ourselves, and the world. I highly recommend this little gem of a book for both personal and liturgical use.
Poetic Prayers September 16, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have never seen prayers like the ones Brueggemann prays here. They are powerful; they get the congregation's attention; surely they get God's attention. What a feel for the language! I am new to the worship field, although I have written for decades. My pastor has powerful prayers, and I am beginning to get the feel of public prayer, but this is a model of praying that I will work hard to approach. (Work hard = become more spiritual.)
 Schism between Inner and Outter Life Not Easily Bridged June 30, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Walter Brueggemann's Prayers for a Privileged People attempts to bridge the world we live in with the retreat we have in prayer life. In this sense, he looks as much to the newspaper as the Bible in choosing his prayer objects. While this approach may work in a collect, I found these prayers too impersonal for personal prayer.
Brueggemann's prayers are generally a page or two in lengthen and he organizes them into six sections: 1. Opening our hearts: The Collect, 2. Well-arranged lives, 3. The world in not safe, 4. Brick production, 5. Can we risk it? and 6. Choirs of hope. The topics he chooses are timely (e.g. Super Bowl Sunday, p. 25) and provocative (e.g. On Controlling Our Borders, p. 95).
I approached this book as a devotional. For me, devotional prayer follows a certain rhythm. My selfish heart needs to be warmed up. The ACTS format works to warm up the heart and push it into more generous realms known only to the head. By eschewing structure and rhythm Brueggemann leaves the supplicant to feel guilty and inadequate. While this may be a legitimate objective in a congregational prayer, where the typical worship service frames the collect with other forms of worship and prayer, the objective of personal prayer is more normally to build relationship with God and foster spiritual growth.
Stephen W. Hiemstra
from Abingdon Press April 16, 2008
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
In this book, this much-published author sculpts--as carefully as if with chisel--prayers on behalf of those who are people of privilege and entitlement--the haves--at an urgent moment in our society. The privileged face, on the one hand, the seduction of denial or, on the other, the temptation of despair. These prayers of wisdom and prophetic power remind us that when things go wrong , when we are afraid , and when we feel prodded by those who lack voice, there is a conversation we can have--a conversation situated amid the promises and commands of God.
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