Prophetic proclamation is an attempt to imagine the world as though YHWH–the creator of the world, the deliverer of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whom we Christians come to name as Father, Son, and Spirit–were a real character and an effective agent in the world…The key term in my thesis is “imagine,” that is, to utter, entertain, describe, and construe a world other than the one that is manifest in front of us, for that present world is readily and commonly taken without such agency or character for YHWH. Thus the offer of prophetic imagination is one that contradicts the taken-for-granted world around us…Prophetic proclamation is the staging and performance of a contest between two narrative accounts of the world and an effort to show that the YHWH account of reality is more adequate and finally more reliable than the dominant narrative account that is cast among us as though it were true and beyond critique. This performed contestation between narratives is modeled in narrative simplicity and directness in Elijah’s contest at Mt. Carmel in which he defiantly requires a decision between narratives and so between gods: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (I Kgs. 18:21). This dramatic utterance is in fact a summary of a long, vigorous contestation between two narratives and two consequent construals of reality.
(from The Prophetic Imagination, by Walter Brueggeman)
