These letters seem to be addressed to churches (or rather their angels) who have gone astray (as the author of Revelation views it). The crimes of which they stand accused, over and over again, come down to eating meat sacrificed to pagan idols, or listening to the Jews, or those advocating adoption of the Jewish laws and regulations. In other words, John seems to to enjoining these communities to remember who they are, and to tighten up and clarify their boundaries -- to live in a divided world -- us and them.
My issues are twofold. First, as near as I can figure, the teaching of Jesus and the preaching of Paul, was aimed at relaxing those boundaries not tightening them up. Secondly, when I look to Quakerism and also to other churches I have felt a part of, they have been communities that did not have a strong us/them sense, and who allowed their boundaries to be appropriately fuzzy. Even though I consider myself a Christian, and value the Christian heritage of Quakerism, and even challenge those who deny the present day Christian character of Quakerism, even so, I value the contributions of post-Christians and neo-pagans. And I do not want to see an Exodus of them anymore than I want to see an Exodus of Christians.
So how do I resolve this? I am not (yet) ready to reject this book as spiritually unworthy.
This apocalypse is a myth. The people of thse churches believed in the providence of God. They believed Christ Jesus was God's emissary to earth, that they were God's chosen ones, that they would share in Christ's reign as join heirs with him to God's kingdom, that they would participate in the divine nature. Meanwhile a pagan world empire persecuted them, their fellow Jews rejected them, people were dying. Apocalypse was offered as a sign of hope to bridge the gap between their convictions and the their perceived reality. The world really is in God's hands, we just have to persevere.
Now what threatened their faith and their faith communities? Why paganism and Judaism. Eating meat sacrificed to idols was collaborating with the enemy God sent Jesus to save us from.
Is paganism what most threatens the church today? Is worshipping alongside Wiccans, agnostic post-Christians and Zen Buddhists really a serious threat in 2006?
In my opinion the threat to the Christian faith today comes from power brokers who will use Christian langauge to secure power and gain support for policies while ignoring the gospel and the Sermon on the Mount in exercising that power and in implementing those policies. It comes from the implicit and uncritical acceptance of ideologies in our pop culture.
Eating meat sacrificed to idols today, does not mean worshipping with pagans, or eating halal or kosher foods. It means Britney Spears, Sponge Bob Square Pants, As the World Turns, political campaign buttons, ipods, blogging, the Da Vinci Code, monopoly, Howard Stern, Batman and Robin, and Noam Chomsky.
4 comments:
Thanks for this very worthwhile co:mment, David. I want to address just a few of the issues you raise:
Re exclusive/inclusive: the N.T. advocates both: yes Jesus (and Paul) went out to all sorts of people, but then Paul said, "come out from among them and be separate". Each approach has its appropriate times and places.
You know the history of American Quakers, how we became super-exclusive, then swung back to the other extreme. All I can say about that is that God uses both epochs for creative purposes.
Personally I find pagans, seculars, whatever easier to talk to than the "faithful" tribalists; they seem more open and ready to listen. That was Paul's experience, too, as you know well.
Most atheists have a more meaningful relationship to God than do many of the faithful.
Well I must stop here. BTW I'll be tied up with other matters next week with poor or no web access.
These letters are not Paul's; I see no sign here of anyone persuading church members to practice circumcision, or other Jewish customs beyond the traditional minimum requirements for converts: mainly to not join in practices that honor pagan gods. The (nonChristian) Jews appear in these letters only as accusers, denouncing church members for not being true Jews (an accusation the author reflects back on them) but the most likely reason for all this is the fact that Jewish customs, practiced by Jews, were acceptable to the authorities while mixed assemblies in honor of a crucified troublemaker were not.
If a myth is anything that persuades people that there's order and hope for ultimate justice in the universe, then the Apocalypse did and does serve as a myth.
The purpose I see in it, however, is not merely to provide a plausible case for hope--but to give an actual revelation of the nature of this world and God's intentions and actions in human history. (This is not predictive like the script of a play or the program of a concert, but might be considered predictive like the agenda for a very large and boisterous meeting.)
We are not going to find either encouragement nor enlightenment here, not unless this is a true myth. That is, not only does it provide a rationale for hope, but that rationale must be true.
We have barely begun to read in this book, and already we're complaining that it's written by and for people who thought differently than we do.
(And then we complain that THEIR boundaries were too tight!)
Revelation is a dream and a poem; it's not a "mere" anything. The letters we've been reading strongly reflect the author's culture, which is sometimes downright unattractive. (We would like to see him a little less closed-minded, for example. But then we aren't giving him the benefit of the doubt, whether his focus on "correct" doctrine might have a function and a purpose that our cultural assumptions tend to conceal from us. More on this in a post to come.) But something greater than his conscious mind is at work here, and we aren't going to catch it in a sociological questionaire.
Unexamined ideologies are indeed a big part of what this book is about--and not merely those of pop culture. Is it time to bring up Walter Wink yet? How about William Stringfellow?
A few minor corrections.
One: I'm not complaining about Revelation. I'm being challenged by it. I'm also needing to draw on some pretty hefty analytic tools. One of the objectives of the formalist school is to get you to appreciate alieness of the text. It certainly is that.
Revelation is a dream and a poem; it's not a "mere" anything.
I didn't use the word "mere" -- and if you took my use of the word myth to indicate that, I sorry -- but that's not where I'm coming from.
I'm having trouble taking Revelation seriously as anything inspired. It seems to be a device to keep people in line through fear of punishment and the promise of reward, and it's hard for me to reconcile the Jesus in this book with the Jesus in the gospels.
I came across an article - Towards an Ethical Reading of The Apocalypse: Reflections on John’s Use of Power, Violence, and Misogyny - that begins with the concerns I have about Revelation ,and promises to turn the problems on their head by the end of the article ... I haven't read it yet, but maybe it will be helpful - link.
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