My slow-writing through the book of Revelation has taken a back seat lately. I’ve been leaning into and enjoying writing about the French mystic Thérèse of Lisieux, the joy of winter basketball, and more. And yet, as election season in the United States approaches like an ominous storm, I find myself turning back toward the “strangest and most dangerous book in the Bible” (Robyn Whitaker).
I’m fascinated by the book of Revelation because it is so weird and disturbing. More than any other biblical book, it is prone to both comical and disastrous misinterpretation, from the woman who posted a viral video about how the Monster energy drink logo contains the satanic number 666 to Christian Zionists who believe that war in Israel will help jump-start the end times. The book is mostly ignored by mainline Christians and often abused by evangelical Christians, but its visionary power is nevertheless planted in our collective psyche.
Why is it that an ancient book that details both beautiful and grotesque mystical visions, which served as a resistance text for marginalized Jesus followers under Roman imperialism, still captivates today? Heck, two new movies just came out about birthing the antichrist, and while I wouldn’t want to stomach watching them, I will admit I have a soft spot for apocalyptic movies (just watched Civil War) and TV shows (The Last of Us). Most of us are afraid to read it, but there’s no denying that there is an R-rated, sci-fi, horror genre mash-up in the Christian sacred canon. Is there anything there to be salvaged in the book of Revelation? Should we leave the dragon, beast, cosmic war, and end-times visions behind completely? Or is it somehow worth wrestling with wild beasts?
About three years ago during the height of the pandemic, I sought to find out. I launched a lectio-divina style newsletter journey through the book of Revelation. I purchased as many commentaries as I could find and began reading the very same book that has so enthralled doomsday prophets, street corner preachers, and fundamentalist believers waiting for the Rapture. No, I do not believe in the rapture, a thousand-year tribulation, or anything literal about this devastating and complicated biblical text. I fantasized about a preaching series on the book of Revelation when I served as a pastor, but I never could quite pull it off. This multi-year exploration is my quest into the densest of biblical thickets to find out if Revelation can be read through eyes of love and the nonviolent witness of Christ—or if Revelation is beyond redemption. Maybe it’s because watching R-rated movies on Grandma’s second TV became my way of rebelling as a conservative Christian kid, but I’m into it.
I’m not worried about such heavenly terrors as the Rapture because Revelation is science fiction-horror. The mistake of the Left Behind writers and Armageddon-preachers is one of genre. What’s known as the apocalyptic genre in the bible—the writings in which suns fail and stars fall from the sky—most approximates what we know in popular culture as stories about alternative galaxies and futuristic devastation or, say, Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” Science fiction and horror.
Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash
The best science fiction, like the biblical apocalyptic writings, is not really about what is literal or what happens later. Instead, it is a way of imagining an alternative future to reflect upon reality now. Sometimes these colorful visions and cosmic dreams correspond to current realities in startling symbolic ways—Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower pictures society’s collapse due to climate change and inequality in the 2020s, after all. Oh, and Butler’s sequel has a religious fundamentalist running for President under the banner of “Making America great again.” Octavia Butler was a visionary prophet herself! But to take such biblical flights of fancy literally (the same goes for sci-fi and horror) is disastrous, as every prophet who has claimed that Christ is coming back on a specific date has realized. (And there are a lot of them). About that time, Jesus says in Mark’s gospel, “No one knows, not even the angels” (Mark 13:32). Besides, all it takes is the eerie wonder of the sun’s temporary “failure” during a total eclipse to remind us that the cosmos we do live in is more than marvelous and baffling enough!
We need trusted guides to lead us through this challenging material and support us as its meaning is unveiled in our lives. I consider myself a fellow explorer rather than a guide of this wild text, but what I can say is that over the last three years, I have been reading trusted guides. One such pathfinder is the wise Bible-reader and translator Eugene Peterson, who put it this way: “Unfortunately, while there are wise teachers available, they often get missed because there are so many more around who are simply foolish and who, like pushy guides at a tourist site, try to get us to hire them to tell us all about the “furniture of heaven and the temperature” of hell, the number of the beast, and the calendar of doomsday.”
The Greek word for “revelation” is apokálypsis, which means “unveiling or uncovering.” The book of Revelation begins: “The revelation (unveiling/uncovering) of Jesus Christ…” (Rev. 1:1). I feel compelled to read, pray with, and write about Revelation, because I’m convinced we are living in a time of unveiling. Christ is being revealed—always!—just as reality itself is being uncovered. The Greek word used in Revelation 1:1 is a brutal metaphor in its context. The author is probably referencing the naked and bloody stripping of Christ on the cross—which, if the Gospel writers have anything to say about it, brought about a cosmic reckoning. Luke has darkness coming over the land at three in the afternoon while the temple’s curtain tears in two (23:44). Matthew’s version tells of the sun darkening, the earth quaking, and saints’ bodies being raised from tombs (27:45—53).
The unveiling that takes place in the book of Revelation is primarily that of unjust power, which means that it is inherently political. These days, when I am reading the book of Revelation, I am thinking of the real possibility of climate collapse, the unholy alliance of Christians and political power we know as Christian nationalism, the dangerous precipice my country finds itself on at the edge of democracy, the United States’s ongoing arms support to the state of Israel, and more. The visionary, fantastical representation of God, good, and evil power stirs the imagination to peer behind veils.
I’ll be turning back to this slow-burn project in earnest throughout the year and beyond about once a month, and possibly more. For readers drawn to my contemplative writings who may be turned off by my own strange genre mash-up of biblical and political commentary infused with mystical musings, you can feel free to manage your subscription and only read “the holy ordinary” posts on the contemplative dimensions of daily life. (Just click “unsubscribe” at the bottom of the email to view the different options). Hopefully, you’ll continue to stick with me in the shared exploratory trust that the mystical and political are inherently related, just as the dance of action and contemplation is one fluid movement.
The moment of history we’re living in compels an unveiling of our political and inner lives. What are we made of? Who are we? Who do we show up as during times of collective crisis—our best selves, our worst, some combination of the two? What choices do we make? This tells us who we are. The time of unveiling is an unveiling of reality’s (not God’s!) judgment of our choices, and the ever-present invitation to fall more deeply into Love.
I'm always interested in the interpretation of Revelation. I will look forward to what you will reveal.
“...biblical and political commentary infused with mystical musings,”
I’m in 👍