A review of Revelation as Civil Disobedience: Witnesses Not Warriors in John's Apocalypse, by Thomas B. Slater.
JOHN LEWIS died the week I read this book. No American alive in 2020 was a better witness to the courage of nonviolent civil disobedience than Lewis. Ironically, that same week “warriors” from the federal government descended, uninvited and unidentified, on Portland, Ore. Violence exploded. The Bible’s final book, Revelation, seems more relevant than ever.
Thomas B. Slater’s slim volume is not a typical commentary on the biblical book, analyzing all its chapters and decoding all its symbols. Instead, Slater focuses on the political situation of seven small house churches in Roman-dominated Asia Minor (now western Turkey), to whom John of Ephesus wrote (Revelation 2-3). These believers lived in cities where temples or shrines represented the imperial cult, and all subjects were expected to offer sacrifices to the current “divine” emperor.
The everyday life of these Jewish Christians sounds similar to that of African Americans under Jim Crow—enduring prejudice and bigotry, with little or no political, economic, or legal recourse. Pressure to conform was strong. Relationships with other Jews were strained. “In such settings, with no alternative in this life,” writes Slater, “oppressed persons often produce apocalypses that look to the future for divine guidance.”
John’s first vision clarifies the theology of his apocalypse: Jesus, Lion of Judah, metamorphoses into a slaughtered Lamb (chapters 4 and 5), setting the pattern of faithful, nonviolent witness even to death. “By asking Christians to conquer by suffering,” says Slater, “John’s Apocalypse calls upon his followers to be militant (i.e., to stand firmly) without being militaristic. This is a fine line, which takes courage and discernment in equal measure.”
Unfortunately, many people on both the Right and the Left misunderstand this apocalypse and subvert its powerful message. Those on the Left often avoid Revelation as too violent and thus divorced from Jesus’ love ethic. Those on the Right read it as predicting current events related to the politics of the Middle East and future violence, from which Christians will be rescued in the rapture.
Both miss the point, writes Slater. Revelation’s theology and ethics mirror other New Testament writings. And there is no rapture in John’s Revelation; Christians will suffer like everyone else. They are to be “witnesses not warriors.” The blood on the robe of “the rider on the white horse” of 19:11-16 is his own blood. Only “God Almighty” may ultimately use violence to vanquish evil permanently.
On some points, such as dating Revelation between 68 and 70 C.E. rather than during Domitian’s reign in the 90s, Slater differs with most commentators. But, with a clear, accessible style, he moves the reader with his tender description of the ultimate intimacy between God Almighty, the Lamb, and his faithful, suffering witnesses in the New Jerusalem—where John Lewis surely is.
Reta Halteman Finger, a retired associate professor of New Testament and freelance writer, lives in Rockingham, Va.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!
