3 Ways to Read the Book of Revelation

According to Richard Hays, there are three interpretive approaches to the Book of Revelation. I will list the three and their definition and my leaning towards the method I find most attractive.

1. Predictive: 

The more dominant view throughout Church History, it reads the text of Revelation as 'literal' and as a transcript of historical events. It is usually considered to include varying contemporary political/religious events. The Gulf War, The Soviet Union, etc. I find this to be a poor translation of literal events, especially when it is contingent on our current situation. Thus we read back into Revelation our current circumstances. Highly problematic for me.

2. Historical:

Instead of being read as a prediction, Revelation is to be read as a commentary on political events within the context of the original author of Revelation. Hays states that like the Book of Daniel, Revelation is a resistance document. Simply, the imagery evokes the intended meaning of, say, Caesar and the Roman empire. This is a more attractive interpretation as it affirms the original intent of the author and grants a window into the views/symbols/ideals of the time.

3. Theopoetic:

One reads this text as a theological and poetic representation of the spiritual environment  within where the church finds herself. It is thus a prophetic confrontation of all earthly pretensions of power. This allows for a stronger sense of ethics, and seems to drive most fluidly within the context of apocalyptic literature, especially with the imagery there within.

I don't pretend to understand the Book of Revelation. I find it to be a fascinating but also a maddening document. Mostly because I cannot read it without the image of Putin and Reagan. But, it is indeed a fascinating document.

For a pacifist reading of Revelation, Hays "The Moral Vision of the New Testament" is quite good. Material taken from 170-173.

--Nick

Mark Driscoll, Pacifism & The Cross of Christ

I have a new policy. I used to write a response post to any post that offended/challenged me, and I would write it immediately. Instead, I am now trying a new tactic. I won't be writing and releasing posts daily that respond to instant current events. mostly because I want a cooler head to prevail. Its an attempt to avoid adding gasoline to an outraged internet firestorm.

So when well-known pastor Mark Driscoll decided to make pacifists angry enough to fight, I figured this was too interesting to ignore. I am not up to date on pacifist exegesis, and the strongest example I can cite that I've fully read is Richard Hay's "The Moral Vision of the New Testament." I found it compelling enough to recommend here, even if I'm still working through my thoughts on the entire topic of non-violence. So I'm a pretty big stranger to this discussion.

Below are several collected comments, written by various New Testament scholars. I will cite Richard Hays at the end to sum up. Pacifism shouldn't be assumed as my outright position. I'm merely collecting data on a debate (within evangelicalism) that I find fascinating and worthy of serious consideration, even though the framing text for Driscoll about Jesus is to be found in the book of Revelation. Personally, the Sermon on the Mount makes it somewhat difficult to see how Jesus restricts the Torah in regards to retaliation (Matthew 5).

But anyway. Each comment should be read by the links below, including Driscoll's:

Mark Driscoll:

One of the defining attributes of God’s coming kingdom is shalom—perfect peace untainted by sin, violence, or bloodshed of any sort. Such a kingdom is only possible if an all-powerful, benevolent Authority vanquishes his enemies. In other words, the Prince of Peace is not a pacifist.

God is the author of life and sovereign over death.

Those who want to portray Jesus as a pansy or a pacifist are prone to be very selective in the parts of the Bible they quote. But the God of the bloody Old Testament is Jesus Christ. When he became a man, he walked the earth as a working-class carpenter. The European, long-haired, dress-wearing, hippie Jesus is a bad myth from a bad artist who mistook Jesus for a community college humanities professor. But if we want to learn all about Jesus we have to read all that the Bible says about him. Here’s how Jesus will appear one day:

"Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia" (Rev. 14:14–20).

Today is a season of patience as Jesus Christ waits for people to come to repentance. Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist; he’s patient. He has a long wick, but the anger of his wrath is burning.

Once the wick is burned up, he is saddling up on a white horse and coming to slaughter his enemies and usher in his kingdom. Blood will flow.

Then there will be peace forever as the Prince of Peace takes his rightful throne. Some of those whose blood will flow as high as the bit in a horse’s mouth for 184 miles will be those who did not repent of their sin but did wrongly teach that Jesus was a pacifist.

Jesus is no one to mess with. 

Scot McKnight ("The King Jesus Gospel" and "Jesus Creed"):

Driscoll has a flat Bible. What is in the OT is the same as the NT is the same as Jesus is the same as Paul is the same as Revelation. It’s a Bible that he believes in a text of propositions, not a Bible with a Story, and because there’s no flow to his reading of the Bible he can choose which texts best fit his moods. So he omits important elements:

1. Why not discuss Matt 5:38-42? [See my new commentary on The Sermon on the Mount.]
2. Why not discuss the “passive” Jesus in the crucifixion scenes?
3. Why not discuss 1 Peter 2 which evokes the image of Jesus as suffering as a model for others absorbing suffering?
4. Why not examine the blood of Revelation and see whose blood it is … it is Christ’s?
5. Why not learn the stories of martyrs who conquered by suffering?
6. Why not look to Dietrich Bonhoeffer — talk about manly faith?

In other words, Driscoll needs a Story and christocentrism shaped by cruciformity to read the Bible well.

Shock talk theology demeans the gospel.

Preston Sprinkle ("Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence" and "Erasing Hell"):

I actually really like Mark Driscoll. He’s a former ball player, and so am I. He loves red meat, craft beer, and has no time for diaper wearing pansies behind the pulpit. Mark is a manly man, and since I was recently labeled a “manly pacifist,” I think we have a lot in common. Mark says it like it is. So do I. So let me say it like it is: Mark’s assumption that pacifists are pansies is historically naïve, theologically horrendous, and shows that Mark’s been more influenced by the worldview of those who put Jesus on the cross rather than the One who hung on it. Everything Mark says about violence is eerily close to what Rome said about it 2,000 years ago. Contrary to Rome, Jesus taught that suffering leads to glory, cross-shaped weakness radiates divine power, and loving your enemies showcases the character of the Father (Matthew 5:44-48).

Mark’s selection of passages that talk about violence has been violently ripped from the cruciform flow of the New Testament itself.

Gregory A. Boyd ("Myth of a Christian Nation"):

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.

It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.

As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).

To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.
It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.
As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).
To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

- See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/10/responding-to-driscolls-is-god-a-pacifist-part-i/?utm_content=buffer06a2d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.0viZbXkh.dpuf

Richard B. Hays ("The Moral Vision of the New Testament" p317-346, 344):

If we live in obedience to Jesus' command to renounce violence, the church will become where the sphere of the future of God's righteousness intersects -- and challenges -- the present tense of human existence. The meaning of the New Testament's teaching on violence will become evident only in communities of Jesus' followers who embody the costly way of peace.

While the OT allowed for, and even required, retaliation, Jesus commands us to instead love and pray for our enemies. (In Luke 6 he adds “and do good to those who hate you” [vs 27]). Rather than to ever respond to violence with violence, we’re to instead love like the sun shines and like the rain falls – namely, indiscriminately. Whether the person is a friend or life-threatening enemy, we’re to love and bless them. And Jesus makes our willingness to love like this a precondition for being considered a child of our Father in heaven – “that you may be.”  By the standards of Jesus’ teaching, therefore, anyone who obeyed the OT laws requiring violence could not be considered a child of the Father in heaven.
It’s also important we notice that Jesus never qualifies who the “enemies” we’re to love are (nor does Paul in Rom 12:14-21). Indeed, his instruction to love indiscriminately rules out any possible qualifications. What makes Jesus’ teachings even more radical is that any talk about “enemies” to a Jewish audience in first century Palestine would immediate call to mind the Romans – the one’s who unjustly oppressed, abused, and often randomly killed the Jewish people. Jesus’ command to love enemies and to never respond violently to them thus includes the very worst kind of enemies we can imagine: the kind that threaten us, our country, and/or our loved ones. It includes the kind of enemies people naturally feel most “justified” killing, if they need to, in order to protect themselves. But these are precisely the kinds of enemies we’re to always love and never retaliate against.
As radical as this teaching might sound to us, however, I don’t believe it should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph. 5:1-2).
To sum it all up, in this passage Jesus is doing nothing less than telling us that our willingness to set aside a violent OT law in order to obey his new command to love and refrain from violence toward even the worst kind of life-threatening enemies is a precondition for being considered a child of God. And this, folks, is why I don’t believe Driscoll’s argument about the sixth commandment allowing for some forms of killing is relevant to followers of Jesus.

I am a bit puzzled as to why Driscoll didn’t address any of this material in his attempt to refute the idea that “God is a pacifist.” One might have thought it would be relevant since Driscoll is, after all, a Christian pastor, and he’s addressing a Christian audience.  Instead, to prove that “Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist” (one wonders if the two are not synonymous for Driscoll), he cites one passage from the book of Revelation (14:14-20). To address this, I will offer some reflections on the nature of this book in my next post, and I’ll then conclude my response in a third post by addressing the specific passage Driscoll cites.

- See more at: http://reknew.org/2013/10/responding-to-driscolls-is-god-a-pacifist-part-i/?utm_content=buffer06a2d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#sthash.0viZb

McKnight. Sprinkle. Boyd.

--Nick

Roger Olson on "Christians & Pacifism"

Good schtuff.

"When it comes to Christian social ethics I have two heroes, but the problem is they are widely considered antithetical. John Howard Yoder and Reinhold Niebuhr. Much of Yoder’s reputation is gained from contradicting Niebuhr. And of course, much of Niebuhr’s reputation was gained from contradicting pacifism. Admittedly, the pacifism Niebuhr was against was not Yoder’s. He even tipped his hat to Anabaptists as a needed witness. He was against the liberal Protestant pacifism of the social gospel movement (people like Edwin Dahlberg). Nevertheless, insofar as Niebuhr thought ALL pacifism is wrong and Yoder thought pacifism (Christocentric like his or liberal) is right, they are opposites on that and many other issues. 

Yoder has in recent years enjoyed a revival of interest, probably mainly through Hauerwas. Niebuhr’s influence continues, of course, as he is almost always named as “the most influential Christian thinker” by politicians. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama have so identified him. 

Of course, I don’t see how a Christian COULD be president and NOT appreciate Niebuhr’s approach to social ethics. It would certainly be difficult to be president and have Yoder as your social ethics mentor. 

My problem is that when I read Yoder I find myself saying “Amen” a lot–to almost everything he says. I am convinced that he was right about New Testament, original Christianity and especially the teachings and example of Jesus and how they ought to apply to Christian living today. The church is supposed to be that light set on a hill, living by a different set of values from the rest of the world (not that they can’t sometimes overlap). For example, the way of the world is coercion; the way of Jesus is love. I am convinced that Jesus would not want his followers to engage in deadly force. 

Yoder’s social ethic is focused on obedience. Obey Jesus and let the chips fall where they may. Obedience is our calling; effectiveness is God’s business. We are not called to manage history; we are only called to live as Christ instructed us to live. Amen. 

When I read Niebuhr (e.g., An Interpretation of Christian Ethics or his essays in Love and Justice) I also find myself saying “Amen” a lot. Niebuhr believes it is irresponsible for Christians to abdicate responsibility for the world and he equates pacifism with that. He doesn’t justify war as good, but he believes it is sometimes a necessary evil. He agrees with Yoder that Jesus taught and modeled radical love. They basically agree on the Sermon on the Mount–it must not be watered down or glossed over. Niebuhr thinks it is possible for the individual Christian to live by it somewhat consistently. And he agrees that we OUGHT to live by it perfectly consistently. But he also thinks this is a fallen world where Christians must sometimes hold their noses and do things contrary to the Sermon on the Mount. Effectiveness matters and sometimes requires compromise. That’s where Yoder disagrees. 

John Stackhouse (Regents College) wrote a book a couple years ago entitled Making the Best of It. I reviewed it for Books & Culture. It’s an excellent evangelical re-statement of Niebuhr’s social ethic. I found myself agreeing whole heartedly. 

On the other hand, reading Hauerwas’ War and the American Difference, convinces me Yoder was right. War is something Christians ought to oppose and never participate in or support. 

Well, you see my dilemma. I’m divided within myself. I agree with Yoder that the Christian life, including the life of the church, is one of radical obedience to the love Jesus taught and modeled including “Resist not evil” and “love your enemies.” I also agree with Niebuhr that effectiveness in abolishing injustice is part of the Christian’s calling (including the church’s calling). When Hitler was rampaging through Europe our duty was effectively to stop him. I also agree with Yoder that the church’s main duty is peace making by being a peaceful witness to the Lamb. 

Is there a way to reconcile these two impulses-one toward radical, uncompromising obedience and one toward Christian effectiveness and responsibility for society that sometimes requires compromise (e.g., to abolish injustice using coercion if necessary)? 

Occasionally I look to Bonhoeffer as a guide. Not as a guide in the sense of “Here’s a check list to go through at the end of which you’ll know what to do.” Bonhoeffer was no advocate of casuisty. But a guide in the sense of feeling resigned to the fact that occasionally in this world an evil arises so great that one has to set aside perfect obedience to the new law of love and hold one’s nose and do what it is necessary and trust God to forgive. 

Bonhoeffer was a pacifist–until he was handed the opportunity to participate in the plot to assassinate Hitler. I think he remained a pacifist through that. I don’t think his participation (he volunteered to pull the trigger) was due to a policy of putting effectiveness over radical, uncompromising obedience Niebuhr style. Rather, it had to be something like Kierkegaard’s “teleological suspension of the ethical.” 

IF we think Bonhoeffer made the right decision, even if it was in another sense wrong, then it seems our involvement in World War 2 was justified in the same sense–not due to some policy of just war but due to having no alternative except to allow a madman to take over much of the world and commit genocide against many groups he hated. 

The problem, as I see it, is that AFTER WW2 most previously pacifist Christian groups dropped pacifism altogether and embraced war as good (something to be celebrated). 

That example, Bonhoeffer, doesn’t exactly reconcile Yoder and Niebuhr, of course, but it gives one instance of a person who, while holding fast to pacifism as the norm, embraced violence as the exception (as a necessary evil). Let’s imagine that the Allies liberated Bonhoeffer before he was hanged. (That almost happened.) Would he have then been a Niebuhrian defender of war? I don’t think so. I think he would have remained a pacifist and simply appealed to the exceptional circumstances to justify (not make righteous) his decision to participate in the plot to kill Hitler. 

My point is, the only way forward I can see, to get off the horns of the dilemma, is to stand with Yoder as the norm but remain open to exceptions when circumstances absolutely require them. Some evils are so horrendous that they need to be overcome quickly and the only way to do that is coercion and sometimes even violence. The response is not to create a justification system to prepare for them, but to be the kind of persons who know when they arise and how best to respond. Bonhoeffer was that kind of person. 

As a general rule, I think it is true that God does not call Christians or the church to manage history. He calls us to obedience to the law of love. Coercion using deadly force is always sin but not always wrong. I realize that’s dialectical, but I don’t know any way out of that." -- Roger Olson. 

Full link

--Nick