This thesis explores the role of lament and praise in the respective theological approaches of Walter Brueggemann and David Ford for the purpose of examining how Christian faith transforms human response to suffering. The first three chapters trace Brueggemann’s engagement with Israel’s lament psalms, beginning with his observation that their typical dual form mirrors the collective shape of Israel’s psalter as well as all biblical faith. Influential interactions with sociology eventually lead Brueggemann to propose faith not simply as response to God’s faithfulness, but rather through rhetorical tension maintained between conflicts perceived in aspects of scripture such as praise and lament. We critique this view of irresolvable textual tension for leaving Brueggemann with an unresolved understanding of divine fidelity which obscures biblical expectation that God will respond faithfully to human lament. The fourth and fifth chapters concern David Ford’s consistent engagement with praise and subsequently, Christian joy. His early collaborative scholarship proposes praise as the result of faith in who God is through the suffering person and work of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, continued ethical concerns lead Ford to identify Christian faith as an inextricable relationship between joy and responsibility resulting from “facing” Christ’s life and suffering death. We critique Ford for failing to clarify how such “facing” is made possible through who God is in Christ, rendering faith merely the result of human expression of Christ’s example, and thus obscuring any real reason for praise amidst suffering. Beyond a synthesis of Brueggemann and Ford’s respective approaches to lament and praise, the final chapter argues that a trinitarian approach to Christ’s atonement is necessary to propose how God confronts both suffering and sin thereby producing faithful human response amidst persistent evil. We conclude by arguing that a trinitarian understanding of praise cannot be proposed apart from either who God is in Christ’s atonement or how the atoning Christ is humanly faithful in lament.

In the vigorous discourse of prophetic preaching in contemporary homiletic fields, especially Brueggemann’s prophetic preaching has strongly influenced preachers, as well as scholars. His work manifests the counteraction between two imaginations – the dominant and alternative imaginations - in the assurance of the transforming and liberating power of the scripture itself, through the conceptualization of imagination and the work of the Holy Spirit. In this context, this study is positioned in the homiletic field of the reformed tradition. In a large sense, it attempts to investigate prophetic preaching in an empirical and interpretive as well as a normative and pragmatic way. The aim of this investigation is to illustrate the interrelationship between imagination and the work of the Holy Spirit in prophetic preaching, and consequently to initiate normative, practical principles in a strategic model for contemporary preaching. To achieve these aims the study explores the ontology and epistemology of prophetic preaching. It identifies problems in the understanding of homiletic praxis, and at the same time examines the definition and history of prophetic preaching. Moreover, to respond to the question of why Brueggemann’s conceptualization regarding imagination has been highlighted, this study conducts an investigation into the available literature relating to Brueggemann’s prophetic imagination. A balanced interpretive and faithful perspective based on a reading of the whole Scripture is consistent throughout Brueggemann's oeuvre and his focus on application based on the transformational message in praxis is remarkable. Normative markers in prophetic preaching, deduced from an exploration and exegesis of specific texts in Luke and Acts, consequently bring about practical principles for application to prophetic preaching. The practical principles are formulated as follows: D (Direction-Diagnosis of the Reality); IEP (Imaginative Embossing of Problems of the Reality); S (Proclamation of the Gospel aiming at Solution); and IP (Imaginative practice). With the use of these principles, example sermons are analyzed and a new sermon for prophetic preaching is written. The results of this study are expected to provide the preacher with a strategic model to bring prophetic preaching into practice. Lastly, the ontological and epistemological exploration attempted in this study has made a contribution in describing a thicker and more developed definition of prophetic preaching. In conclusion, prophetic preaching itself should achieve the following aim: to be a presentation of God’s voice, spoken to the preacher and the listeners with the subjective help of the Holy Spirit's working in message transformation. / MTh (Homiletics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

In the vigorous discourse of prophetic preaching in contemporary homiletic fields, especially Brueggemann’s prophetic preaching has strongly influenced preachers, as well as scholars. His work manifests the counteraction between two imaginations – the dominant and alternative imaginations - in the assurance of the transforming and liberating power of the scripture itself, through the conceptualization of imagination and the work of the Holy Spirit. In this context, this study is positioned in the homiletic field of the reformed tradition. In a large sense, it attempts to investigate prophetic preaching in an empirical and interpretive as well as a normative and pragmatic way. The aim of this investigation is to illustrate the interrelationship between imagination and the work of the Holy Spirit in prophetic preaching, and consequently to initiate normative, practical principles in a strategic model for contemporary preaching. To achieve these aims the study explores the ontology and epistemology of prophetic preaching. It identifies problems in the understanding of homiletic praxis, and at the same time examines the definition and history of prophetic preaching. Moreover, to respond to the question of why Brueggemann’s conceptualization regarding imagination has been highlighted, this study conducts an investigation into the available literature relating to Brueggemann’s prophetic imagination. A balanced interpretive and faithful perspective based on a reading of the whole Scripture is consistent throughout Brueggemann's oeuvre and his focus on application based on the transformational message in praxis is remarkable. Normative markers in prophetic preaching, deduced from an exploration and exegesis of specific texts in Luke and Acts, consequently bring about practical principles for application to prophetic preaching. The practical principles are formulated as follows: D (Direction-Diagnosis of the Reality); IEP (Imaginative Embossing of Problems of the Reality); S (Proclamation of the Gospel aiming at Solution); and IP (Imaginative practice). With the use of these principles, example sermons are analyzed and a new sermon for prophetic preaching is written. The results of this study are expected to provide the preacher with a strategic model to bring prophetic preaching into practice. Lastly, the ontological and epistemological exploration attempted in this study has made a contribution in describing a thicker and more developed definition of prophetic preaching. In conclusion, prophetic preaching itself should achieve the following aim: to be a presentation of God’s voice, spoken to the preacher and the listeners with the subjective help of the Holy Spirit's working in message transformation. / MTh (Homiletics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

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Denna avhandling har godkänts i Sydafrika och sedan publicerats av Svenska Institutet för Missionsforskning (SIM) i efterhand.

The specific thesis that is tested in this study is that there is continual interaction between the sanctuary cult and personal religious experience in the Book of Psalms. The main theoretical argument is that the sanctuary cult had a formative role in creating the piety of the psalmists. The study attempts to explore the specific nature of that relationship and to benefit from the contributions of three major approaches to the Psalms, i.e., the form critical approach (Hermann Gunkel), the cultic approach (Sigmund Mowinckel) and the Psalter-shaping approach (Gerald H. Wilson, James L. Mays, Jerome F. D. Creach, Mark D. Futato, J. Clinton McCann and Walter Brueggemann). The study suggests that the ongoing interaction between the sanctuary cult and personal piety in the Psalms is the result of the creative power of cult. It offers evidence of the possible shaping of the Psalter around the sanctuary motif. It also offers a unique perspective on the piety of the psalmists, suggesting that the psalmists, and particularly the editor(s) of the present shape of the Psalter, promoted the eschatological hope of Israel in the new temple and the heavenly aspect of Israel’s sanctuary. / Thesis (PhD (Old Testament))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

The specific thesis that is tested in this study is that there is continual interaction between the sanctuary cult and personal religious experience in the Book of Psalms. The main theoretical argument is that the sanctuary cult had a formative role in creating the piety of the psalmists. The study attempts to explore the specific nature of that relationship and to benefit from the contributions of three major approaches to the Psalms, i.e., the form critical approach (Hermann Gunkel), the cultic approach (Sigmund Mowinckel) and the Psalter-shaping approach (Gerald H. Wilson, James L. Mays, Jerome F. D. Creach, Mark D. Futato, J. Clinton McCann and Walter Brueggemann). The study suggests that the ongoing interaction between the sanctuary cult and personal piety in the Psalms is the result of the creative power of cult. It offers evidence of the possible shaping of the Psalter around the sanctuary motif. It also offers a unique perspective on the piety of the psalmists, suggesting that the psalmists, and particularly the editor(s) of the present shape of the Psalter, promoted the eschatological hope of Israel in the new temple and the heavenly aspect of Israel’s sanctuary. / Thesis (PhD (Old Testament))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

This thesis is a study of the theological relationship between divine mercy and judgment in the attribute formula of Exodus 34:6-7 and in three of its "echoes" (Numbers 14:18, Isaiah 53:4-12 with 54:7-10, and Nahum 1:3). The primary scholarly interlocutor for this study is Walter Brueggemann. In his Theology of the Old Testament, Brueggemann offers an alternative interpretation of how mercy and judgment are related in these texts. Against Brueggemann, this study defends the view that in Ex 34:6-7 and these three echoes, divine mercy and judgment are not only mutually compatible but also are integrated with one another. I reach this conclusion by means of an exegesis of the above four texts that is canonical, theological, and contextual. The introduction Chapter 1 includes a survey of relevant scholarly literature, an analysis of relevant aspects of Brueggemann's work, and a statement of the canonical method employed in the thesis. Chapter 2 provides a theological exegesis of Exodus 34:6- 7 in the context of Exodus 32-34. Chapters 3-5 offer theological exegesis of the three echo-texts noted above. Chapter 6 offers a conclusion, summarising the argument and making some final observations.