In this timely and provocative work, Walter Brueggemann applies his experience and skills in the area of biblical interpretation to the theme of evangelism. He argues for the importance of considering afresh how the Bible itself thinks and speaks about evangelism, how it enacts the dramatic claims of the "good news." Brueggemann here describes evangelism as a drama in three scenes, concerning (1) God's victory over the forces of chaos and death, (2) the announcement of that victory, and (3) its appropriation by those who hear the announcement. This same dramatic sequence, as he shows, is many time re-enacted in the Bible; the times and circumstances of the re-enactment may differ, but the essential message, as well as the structure of its presentation, remains the same. Walter Brueggemann (1933-2025), one of today’s preeminent interpreters of Scripture, was William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He authored numerous scholarly articles and over one hundred books, including his magnum opus Theology of the Old Testament, The Prophetic Imagination, and Message of the Psalms. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism Living in a Three-Storied Universe By Walter Brueggemann Abingdon Press Copyright © 1993 Abingdon Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-687-41233-4 Contents Chapter 1: Evangelism in Three, Unfinished Scenes, The Drama in Three Scenes, The Theological Conflict, The Announcement of Victory, The Lived Appropriation, A Recurring, Patterned Drama, Three Practical Implications, Chapter 2: Outsiders Become Insiders, From a Troubled, Dysfunctional Family, A Tired Business Executive, A Member of the Permanent Underclass, Lives Redescribed, Story-Based Imperatives, A New, Covenantal Identity, Chapter 3: Forgetters Made Rememberers, The Meeting with Ezra, A Gift and a Warning, The High Cost of Amnesia, The Struggle to Remember, Ezra's Reincorporation, Our Forgetting and Remembering, Chapter 4: Beloved Children Become Belief-ful Adults, Being With and For Our Children, Testimonial Answers, Narratives of Saturation, Narratives Which Command, Telling a Past/Dreaming a Future, A Fragile Fidelity, Conclusion, Notes, CHAPTER 1 Evangelism in Three Unfinished Scenes For all our confusion and disagreement about the meaning of evangelism, it is important to identify, as best we can, the structure, sequence, and elements of the "news event," in the Bible itself. I shall argue in this chapter that acts of evangelism have a characteristic structure and recurring pattern which are worth noticing. That structure and pattern are in part shaped by the material claim that "God has triumphed," a claim made repeatedly in various ways. But the structure and pattern are also part of a determined rhetorical intentionality. This is the way in which the community within these texts speaks about what is most crucial and transformative in its life and identity. The material claim can never be separated from rhetorical intentionality. Part of the task concerning evangelism is to recover nerve about our modes of speech in church traditions that have debased our speech, either by conservative reductionism or by liberal embarrassment. The noun "gospel," which means "message," is linked in the Bible to the verb "tell-the-news" (one word, bissar, in Hebrew). At the center of the act of evangelism is the message announced, a verbal, out-loud assertion of something decisive not known until this moment of utterance. There is no way that anyone, including an embarrassed liberal, can avoid this lean, decisive assertion which is at the core of evangelism. The act of announcement, however, is not barren and contextless. I argue here that the announcement itself is the middle term of a three-part dramatic sequence. No reductionist conservative can faithfully treat evangelism as though it were only "naming the name." We are required to notice that behind (prior to) the announcement is an "event" of mythic proportion to which we have no direct access. And after the proclamation comes the difficult, demanding work of reordering all of life according to the claim of the proclaimed verdict. It is clear then, that the taxonomy I suggest here concerning evangelism intends to critique and reject many popular notions of evangelism. The reader is urged not to assume that this taxonomy will accommodate many of our careless and ill-thought notions and practices of evangelism. This way of understanding evangelism is a challenge to the epistemology of many culture-accommodating Christians. Conversely it is a challenge as well to the ecclesial, economic practice of Christians who have spiritualized and privatized the gospel away from its demanding social, this-worldly dimension. * * * The parable was enacted in St. Louis about a decade ago. The then St. Louis football Cardinals were playing the much despised Washington Redskins,