It is a terrible irony when the Book of Revelation is used not to comfort victims of oppression, as its author intended, but to justify violence against the innocent.
About a week after the bombing in Oklahoma City, a newspaper article drew a connection between the Book of Revelation and the militias that have suddenly become front-page news: “Guiding many of the groups,” the authors argued, “is an apocalyptic religious perspective grounded in the New Testament book of Revelation and its vision of a final, violent confrontation between the forces of good and evil.”1
The use of Revelation as religious justification by armed anti-government militias is a deep mistake. But before turning to the reasons Revelation cannot be so used, it is illuminating to understand its appeal within the militias.
What about Revelation makes it attractive to them? Most comprehensively, it is the worldview or mind-set present in Revelation and in some other ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic books.2 This mind-set has three central convictions.
First, within the apocalyptic worldview, the world is perceived to have fallen under the control of an evil power. Originating in experience, this way of looking at reality is generated by situations of real or perceived oppression and persecution. To the Christians in Asia Minor to whom John of Patmos wrote Revelation near the end of the first century, the evil power was the Roman Empire.a
Rome was the “world government” of the time. Politically oppressive and economically exploitative as colonial powers typically are, Rome had also become a persecutor of Christians, killing Peter and Paul and others. Moreover, Rome (like Babylon some six centuries earlier) had brutally and recently destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of God.3 No wonder the author of Revelation saw the world government of his day as the incarnation of evil—indeed, as the satanic “beast from the abyss” (Revelation 13) and as the great harlot “drunk with the blood of the saints,” who rides on the beast and is named “Babylon the Great” (Revelation 17, especially 17:9, 18).b
Second, for the apocalyptic mind-set, the decisive battle between good and evil is believed to be at hand. Thus it is important to be ready and on the right side. In Revelation, John warned his communities that the time was “near,” “at hand,” “soon” (Revelation 1:1, 3; 22:6, 7, 10, 12, 20). He saw the world as divided between those who bore “the mark of the beast” and those who were loyal to God and refused the beast; and he urged those with ears to hear to be among the latter, for the days of the beast and its followers were numbered (Revelation 13:16–18; 14:9–11).
Third, for this mind-set, God is typically seen as a righteous and wrathful “warrior God” who will rise up against the powers of evil and destroy them. As the leader of one of today’s militias puts it, “Our God is not a wimp; he’s the God of righteousness and wrath.”4
And the God of Revelation is no wimp. Images of God as divine warrior dominate the book. Its visionary sequences of seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls of wrath are a drama of destruction (Revelation 6, 8–9, 16). At Armageddon, the warrior God himself rides forth on a white horse leading the armies of heaven against the armies of the beast. The final battle ends with vultures devouring the corpses that litter the landscape.5 The warrior God has triumphed.
This way of seeing God matters, for images of God have consequences. There is a close connection between how we view God and how we think we should live. If God is seen as compassionate, then I should be compassionate; as forgiving, then I should be forgiving; as holy, then I should be holy.
Those who see God as righteous and wrathful (within the militias and elsewhere) are often filled with righteousness and wrath themselves. “God is angry at the world, and I am angry at the world.” The two go together. Though it is sometimes difficult to know which conviction comes first, it is also easy to see why people who are angry at the world are attracted to the Book of Revelation.
Thus the apocalyptic worldview of Revelation appeals to those in our day who see society as having fallen under the control of an evil totalitarian world power. Yet its use as legitimation of righteous violence in the name of God involves a profound misreading of the book and of the biblical tradition as a whole.
Revelation’s picture of the warrior God must be placed within the context of the larger collection of biblical images of God: as lover, mother, father, shepherd, savior, liberator, companion and so forth. If only the warrior God of Revelation is emphasized, and if Revelation becomes the lens through which the whole Bible is seen, then a serious distortion of Christianity inevitably results.
Moreover, though John of Patmos saw Rome as the enemy, he did not counsel violence against Rome: his audience was not to resist with the sword (Revelation 13:10). John shared the pacifism of early Christianity, which was to last until the fourth century. Though John proclaimed God’s judgment against Rome, he did not enlist warriors for a holy war, but left judgment to God.
048
Addressed to a persecuted community, John’s message of God’s impending judgment was intended to comfort innocent Christian victims of Roman violence. In subsequent centuries, its proclamation of the lordship of Christ over the lordship of Caesar has comforted Christians whenever the world has seemed out of control. It is thus a terrible irony when Revelation is used in our time not to comfort innocent victims, but to justify violence against the innocent.6
We will hear much about Revelation in the next few years, both because of its appeal to the apocalyptic mind-set of some in our culture and because of the approaching end of the millennium. It is thus important to be aware of what this book does and does not mean.7
About a week after the bombing in Oklahoma City, a newspaper article drew a connection between the Book of Revelation and the militias that have suddenly become front-page news: “Guiding many of the groups,” the authors argued, “is an apocalyptic religious perspective grounded in the New Testament book of Revelation and its vision of a final, violent confrontation between the forces of good and evil.”1 The use of Revelation as religious justification by armed anti-government militias is a deep mistake. But before turning to the reasons Revelation cannot be so used, it is illuminating to understand its appeal within […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
Revelation is a letter written to Christians living in seven cities in Asia Minor. Most scholars date it to around 96 C.E. The author was a Christian visionary named John living on the island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor.
Ira Rifkin and Gustav Spohn, “Political Extremists Rally ‘Round Revelation,” The Oregonian, April 29, 1995 (Religious News Service). Agreeing with their claim does not imply that the majority of militia members are religious, or that the Book of Revelation is their primary motivating force. The claim is more modest: some within the militias appeal to the Book of Revelation as legitimation of their cause.
2.
This apocalyptic worldview is typical of “visionary historical” apocalypses, one of two main categories of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses (the other category is “other-worldly journey” apocalypses). For the distinction and a classification of such books into two almost equal categories, see John Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1984).
3.
For the historical circumstances and their social-psychological effect on early Christians, see Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).
4.
Quoted in Rifkin and Spohn, “Political Extremists.”
5.
The place of the final battle is named as “Armageddon” (ancient Megiddo) in Revelation 16:16; the vision of the battle itself is in Revelation 19:11–21.
6.
In addition to the reasons cited in the rest of this article, there is one more: The symbolic language of the Book of Revelation refers to matters known to its late first-century audience. The original meaning of the book is denied when the symbolism is made to refer to our time (or some still future time). See my BR column, “Thinking About the Second Coming,” August 1994.
7.
There are many excellent introductions to Revelation. See, for example, Adela Yarbro Collin’s essay in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 5, pp. 694–708.
