Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation

by Michael J. Gorman

American activist Daniel Berrigan and South American liberation theologian Pablo Richard, while others have blended more historical approaches with interpretations that focus on justice (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza) or anti-imperialism (e.g., Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther). Martin Luther King Jr. also turned to Revelation in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and in sermons. The theopolitical approach may focus on criticizing injustice, promoting transformation and justice, or both.14 5. The fifth approach can be termed the pastoral-prophetic approach. This approach views Revelation primarily as a document of Christian formation designed to call the church to faithfulness in the face of inevitable conflict with hostile powers. One commentator who combines this approach with careful historical work is Charles Talbert. He writes that Revelation “functions in the interests of spiritual purity, single-minded devotion to God,” or “first-commandment faithfulness.”15 The commentaries of Gerhard Krodel and Robert Wall, among others, have a similar tone. This pastoral-prophetic approach is bound to be closely related to the previous two. If we read Revelation poetically, concluding that Babylon is not merely Rome, as the preterists might, and is definitely not some future reconfiguration of the Roman Empire in modern Europe, as some futurists would say, then its seductive and oppressive power can be felt—and must be both named and resisted—in the political realities of our...