Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Revelation as Anti-Imperial Christian Manifesto
86 Plays3 months ago
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!” Revelation is loaded with descriptions of Rome’s oppressive systems, exploitative wealth, and coming downfall. Nick and Matt discuss the vivid imagery used to embolden the early Christian communities against their surrounding corruptions. They consider how Revelation encourages Christians to stand against Babylon in our own day as we look forward to the future restoration of all things.
Resources: In the Shadow of Empire, Revelation chapter by Greg Carey, Edited by Richard Horsley, Exiles: the Church in the Shadow of Empire by Preston Sprinkle, Reading Revelation Responsibly by Michael Goreman, Revelation for the Rest of Us by Scot McKnight, “Towards an Ethical Reading of the Apocalypse: Reflections on John’s Use of Power, Violence, and Misogyny,” by David L. Barr, Revelation (Word Biblical Commentary) by David Aune, Revelation (The New International Greek New Testament Commentary) by G.K. Beale, The problem of violence: discipleship and non-violence in the Book of Revelation by Rob Nicholls, The Lion and the Lamb in Revelation 5 by Sergio H Monteiro.
Interlude Music: Heavy Handed by Ballpoint
Recommended
Transcript
Pressure to Worship the Emperor
00:00:00
Speaker
Imagine you're a new follower of Jesus in the late first century in the city of Pergamum, which is an important city in Asia Minor, in Rome. Temples to emperors are as ubiquitous as our bars in small town Wisconsin. Oh, they're everywhere.
00:00:14
Speaker
There are regular festivals honoring Caesar. There's statutes everywhere. Basically, the emperor was treated like a god and everyone was expected to play along. You have an uncle named Antipas who first introduced you to the Jesus community.
00:00:29
Speaker
He also lives in your town. And keep in mind that Pergamum was a major center of the imperial cult. Some people in your house church were even calling it the throne of Satan. It's little ominous.
00:00:40
Speaker
And for good reason. Saying no thanks to emperor worship there would be like insulting the flag at a military parade in our context or or taking a kneel at the national anthem, probably even with harsher consequences. Hmm.
00:00:53
Speaker
Your uncle refused to offer the incense to the emperor or honor the emperor as divine. He publicly lived out his faith in a city where that kind of thing was basically a death sentence.
00:01:04
Speaker
As Dr. George Colantis said, Rome didn't care if you had your little religious beliefs. In his words, if Jesus was in your heart or if Zeus was in your heart. As long as you kissed the emperor's ring.
00:01:16
Speaker
Well, Uncle Anty didn't. And what did he get for it?
Revelation as Anti-Imperial Manifesto
00:01:20
Speaker
Execution. According to some traditions, they roasted him alive in a bronze bowl. Rome didn't just want him dead, they wanted it loud and painful.
00:01:29
Speaker
A warning to anyone else thinking of putting loyalty to Jesus above loyalty to Caesar. Yeah, a little worse than insulting a flag at a military parade or taking a kneel for the national anthem.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's not just your next NFL contract that you miss out on.
00:01:46
Speaker
The book of Revelation calls him a faithful witness who is killed where Satan dwells. Rome tried to burn him into silence, but obviously his story survived as one of the first clear Christian acts of political resistance in Asia Minor.
00:02:01
Speaker
Revelation 2.13 says, I know where you live, where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city where Satan lives.
00:02:14
Speaker
So there he is, Uncle Anty, memorialized for us today. I'm convinced that Revelation can be read as an anti-imperial Christian political manifesto.
00:02:26
Speaker
and don't usually hear my Bible described as a manifesto, Nick. But if we look closely at it, what else is it? Like we talked about last time, we tend to think of politics as way different from the Christian faith.
00:02:39
Speaker
The Christian faith is about my beliefs or feelings, or as I like to say, the way my neurons in my brain fire about God, right? Like that's what we've reduced Christianity to.
00:02:51
Speaker
Doctrinal affirmations, and Maybe some ordinances or practices. i sing along to the Christian radio or I go and worship in a church building on Sunday. But we definitely don't mix the two. The separation of church and state is like central to the American identity.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, we've almost completely lost sight of the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is forming a new political reality for the people of God. It is inaugurating the kingdom of God, which you can't mix kingdoms. If there is a new king on the throne, if there is a gospel of the kingdom, then something's being displaced.
00:03:28
Speaker
The kingdom is pretty political. Exactly. And the book of Revelation is just an outflow of that new political reality. And it's a reflection upon the kingdom of God coming and displacing the oppressive kingdoms in that context, obviously, the Roman Empire.
00:03:46
Speaker
So we get to see what happens when this new kingdom of God or this kingdom of heaven that Jesus described hits the ground and clashes with an existing kingdom in place. Exactly.
Critique of Roman Empire's Exploitation
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. So we can see this political language in the judgment of the empire that's described in pretty vivid detail.
00:04:04
Speaker
In Revelation chapter 11, we see visions of judgment upon the empire. These are couched in the phraseology of three woes. The purpose of that judgment is so that God's kingdom can then take its place.
00:04:18
Speaker
The kingdom that's been inaugurated in the community of Jesus will now be realized over all the earth. And the existing powers will just have to go away. They will have to be dissolved.
00:04:30
Speaker
That's the vision of judgment. And that's what all this vivid, strange, and violent imagery means. It's a stark and shocking way to describe the evil of the current kingdoms of the world that are under the control of the adversary, to describe their end in a way that's appropriate to their own wickedness.
00:04:48
Speaker
Be sure your sin will find you out. Remember the wrath of God that's revealed, as Paul expresses in Romans 1? is allowing people and communities to have exactly what they want.
00:05:00
Speaker
If you want wickedness, death, and destruction, you'll have it. The seer is a good Jewish Christian who understands that societal sin is disgusting and that the wages of sin is death.
00:05:12
Speaker
He's not afraid to showcase this fact with the kind of shocking imagery that he uses. So in Revelation 17, we see the vision of the notorious prostitute, as some translations have said. The older ones usually say the great whore.
00:05:27
Speaker
Notorious prostitute sounds like a stage name. but Whatever you prefer there. But all the rulers of the world have had sex with her and have become drunk on her, according to Revelation 18.3. The imagery here is obviously kind of mature, but it's effective.
00:05:44
Speaker
The nations of the world have gotten into bed with her. And just as they joined her in her luxury, they also joined her in her judgment. The woman is called Babylon the Great, obviously coded language for the Roman Empire.
00:05:58
Speaker
She's depicted as riding a beast, adorned with wealth, gold, jewels, fine clothes. Not only is she immensely wealthy, she's also drunk.
00:06:08
Speaker
With what? With the blood of the saints. As we'll see, Rome had an imperial economy that at the end of the day was built on the backs of the oppressed.
00:06:20
Speaker
But before we get more into that, I wanted to take a quick excursus through this song in chapter 18 of Revelation. The angel of heaven begins singing this glorious song.
00:06:32
Speaker
fallen fallen is babellon the great it has become a dwelling place of demons a haunt of every foul spirit a haunt of every foul bird a haunt of every foul and hateful beast for all the nations have drunk on the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.
00:06:54
Speaker
Verse 5, For her sins are heaped as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her as she herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds.
00:07:06
Speaker
Mix a double draft for her in a cup she is mixed. Verse 9,
00:07:18
Speaker
they'll stand far off in fear of her torment and say alas alas the great city babylon the mighty city for in one hour your judgment has come and the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her since no one buys their cargo anymore And then we get to this key part.
00:07:35
Speaker
It lists out all the trades, all the goods that are being exchanged in the Roman imperial economy. Pay attention to this. So picking up in the middle of the list in verse 13, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves and human lives. Hmm.
00:07:59
Speaker
That's a tell that this imperial economy, for all the wealth and luxury and good that it provided for the participants in it, at the end of the day had a deeply disturbing underbelly.
Symbolism of Rome's Fall and Hope for Christians
00:08:10
Speaker
The exchange and devaluation of human lives and the exploitation of their labors. So everyone that's taking part in this economy, when they see it crashing to the ground, they're mourning. Verse 15, Verse 17,
00:08:23
Speaker
who gained wealth from her they'll stand far off in fear of her torment weeping and mourning aloud seventeen at all the shipmasters and seafarers sailors and all whose trade is on the sea they stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning Verse 20, it takes a turn and then it kind of gives the perspective of those who were oppressed by her.
00:08:46
Speaker
It says, the reason given is in verse 24. And you was found the blood of prophets and of of all who have been slaughtered earth. and the reason given is in verse twenty four and in you was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slaughtered on earth If I'd been living in the city where my uncle Antipas had been crushed by this machine of the empire of this Babylon slash Rome, reading this would be really vivid and encouraging.
00:09:18
Speaker
It would be like such a powerful reminder that the seemingly invincible machine that is Rome will meet its demise someday. Right. It's come up and has come. Mm hmm.
00:09:31
Speaker
doesn't exactly read like a travel advertisement for come visit Rome. Exactly. But again, the intended audience for this piece of literature is those oppressed people. It is those who've been under the thumb of this system, this economy that has crushed them.
00:09:47
Speaker
It's not for the traders and the merchants and the seafarers who want to take part in it and, you know, gain a buck. Yeah, don't imagine it was super popular literature among those groups.
00:09:58
Speaker
Exactly. the vision is that of the global economy at that time being destroyed. For those who profited off of it, they weep and mourn.
00:10:08
Speaker
But for those on whose backs it was built, they rejoice.
Modern Economy and Biblical Contradictions
00:10:12
Speaker
At the start of chapter 19, we have this continuation of the song of rejoicing. After this I heard what seemed to be a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Hallelujah!
00:10:23
Speaker
Salvation and glory and power to our God. For his judgments are true and just, and he has judged the great whore who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.
00:10:36
Speaker
Later in verse 6, So the by this woman has bride,
00:10:50
Speaker
so the empire that's symbolized by this evil woman has met her end and the faithful people of god symbolized by the bride who were oppressed by the empire they join god and a great marriage ceremony as god's rule is established on earth This whole vision is all about God's rule crushing the ruling powers of the world, the ones that have thrived off the blood and sweat of exploited human lives, the way that empire has always done it.
00:11:22
Speaker
This wasn't new with the Romans, and it's not new since the time of the Romans. Your description of Revelation as a political manifesto is making a little more sense now. I think so. You'll notice throughout that critique, and I didn't read the whole thing in chapter 18, there's a lot of commentary and on the economy, right? Those that traded and bought and sold all these goods.
00:11:42
Speaker
It is kind of an interesting heavy emphasis on money and on wealth, and has a biting critique of the wealth and luxury of this imperial economy. Jesus said it's easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than it is for a wealthy person to enter his kingdom.
00:11:59
Speaker
We evangelicals in the U.S. don't like to talk about this much, but the New Testament has ah fairly univocal critique of wealth accumulation, and Revelation is no exception.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, we like to pour all our resources into manufacturing very large needles or very small candles, as you like to tell me. But the New Testament critiques it in its entirety.
00:12:24
Speaker
Think of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus calls his disciples to live day by day in trust of their good father, who cares about them as much as he cares about the birds. It's almost a slap in the face or a lack of faith to completely buy into this mindset of ever storing up more wealth for ourselves as if that will give us security. Yeah, he dresses that pretty head on with some parables later on too.
00:12:49
Speaker
But not only is the accumulation of wealth critiqued, Revelation also critiques the means by which that wealth and luxury are obtained in the Roman imperial economy.
00:13:00
Speaker
Like we said last time, it's not correct to see Revelation as coded language for any other economy in particular than the one it's critiquing, which is Rome's, right? But we would be wise to read these critiques of the Roman Empire and examine how those critiques could apply to our context today.
00:13:19
Speaker
So let's do that. How is the American imperial economy structured? And what would the seer of Revelation probably critique about
00:13:58
Speaker
I think the seer of Revelation would critique our consumerism and idolatry of wealth. Matthew 6.24, famously, Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, you cannot serve both God and money.
00:14:10
Speaker
And in 1 Timothy 6.10, it says, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. American culture's emphasis on material wealth, success, and consumerism is often idolatrous, frankly.
00:14:22
Speaker
It encourages greed, it fosters discontent, and it leads people to prioritize possessions over community well-being. Consider also that the mere accumulation of wealth, like I said, literally the American dream and the goal of capitalism to accumulate more capital in order to reinvest that capital and accumulate more capital, it's univocally condemned throughout the scriptures and not only in the New Testament.
00:14:51
Speaker
In Leviticus 25, the Jubilee year is prescribed as a system that would actually prevent generational wealth for some while others slipped into poverty. It was a forced redistribution program where every family was to be enfranchised again with equal wealth so that the community would perpetually avoid the evils and class divisions of economic haves and have-nots.
00:15:16
Speaker
Jesus always condemns wealth accumulation, and he commands his disciples to trust God for their future instead of storing up wealth in storehouses.
00:15:27
Speaker
James says, woe to the rich who exploit their workers. The Bible's not consistent on a lot of things, but on this, it's actually pretty consistent. But it's something that we don't like to talk about.
00:15:40
Speaker
Like the feelings i get reading through some of these passages like you described in Sermon on the Mount or in James. I feel this it's like knee jerk reaction to like spit out some of these catchphrases that I've heard kind of growing up in wealthy Christianity. yeah you that Oh, well, it's not about having the money. It's about your heart towards it.
00:15:59
Speaker
Or, oh, but you've just got to make sure that you're using your money for some good things. You know, as long as you're tithing and doing other things. Look at the end. It's important to work hard and store up for winter. Yeah, exactly. Or yeahp go that direction. it's like, oh, well, the Bible also criticizes people who won't work. It's only prudent.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yes. So therefore, shouldn't I now devote the entirety of my life to accumulating possessions? I have been finding myself trying and working to read these passages and let myself be uncomfortable in them. Yeah. Because I think that's probably the conviction i need in my life.
00:16:32
Speaker
I think we all should be doing that. And it's not just a about us individually. i mean, I think the more important thing is that all of us together as a community of followers of Jesus are doing this together, letting our corporate priorities be shaped by Jesus's sermon and be critiqued by the critiques in Revelation. Yeah.
00:16:53
Speaker
I think a second thing that the seer of Revelation would critique about our imperial economy is its disregard for the poor. Proverbs 14.31 says, whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker but whoever is kind to the knee honors god Matthew 25, 45. Jesus says, truly i tell you whatever you did not do for one of The least of these you did not do for me the u economy is structured to prioritize profit over people
00:17:25
Speaker
and this leads to income inequality and inadequate healthcare care access and homelessness More and more folks are falling into poverty while simultaneously more and more people ascend into the ultra-wealthy stratosphere.
00:17:39
Speaker
But the problem is is that by far the majority of folks are moving in the wrong direction. Relative to cost of living, wages are doing less for people than a generation prior.
00:17:50
Speaker
The net effect is mass downward financial mobility. The most acute effects obviously being felt by those already without wealth and security. Incentives that privilege those who have, like a tax code that favors investment rather than earned wages, and punish those who don't have, these are systemic issues in our investment-biased economy.
00:18:15
Speaker
And they only got worse with the recent bill that passed both houses of Congress. Policies that end up neglecting the needs of the poor, whether intentionally or not, they violate the biblical command to care for the least of these.
00:18:28
Speaker
As Jesus warned, how we treat these people is how he considers that we treat him. The hungry and thirsty, like people in war zones. The stranger, like immigrants with legal status or without legal status.
00:18:44
Speaker
The naked, like unhoused folks without possessions. The sick, like those without access to health care, for example. The prisoners, like those disenfranchised or detained.
00:18:56
Speaker
How we treat those people is how Jesus sees us treating him. And that's such a challenge. And that should strike us right between the eyes in our country right now. yeah i think it's easy for a lot of people to assume that because our country has some sort of a social safety net system, that people aren't suffering these consequences.
00:19:15
Speaker
But from what you're saying here, and I also see a whole bunch of linked resources that you're getting this information from, these are still very much real needs in our country and in our communities that Christians are called to address and called to be involved in.
00:19:29
Speaker
Me and you will argue sometimes about like political theory. In the past, you've taken a more like libertarian approach. And your argument would be it something like, in an ideal world, the community of Jesus will meet needs.
00:19:44
Speaker
And you don't offload that to the government. And in fact, the more you offload to the government, the less opportunity you really have to organically meet those needs because of the less resources you have to control, etc, etc. Preach.
00:19:57
Speaker
Sometimes I'll take kind of the more progressive policy side of that argument and we'll debate about that. What's not debatable is that it's evil to withhold or to withdraw resources from somebody who's dependent on it.
00:20:13
Speaker
So I don't care like if the structure of our social safety net isn't just or it shouldn't have been set up that way. OK, sure, we can argue about that all day long. At the end of the day, though, if you rip that out from under people who have five year olds and two year olds that need those food stamps, that's just wicked.
00:20:33
Speaker
Jesus would not do that to people. Because at the end of the day, that's affecting human lives. Now, if you want to come up with a grand plan, you know, of like getting people off of those programs or whatever, sure. Like, let's talk about that. That's fine.
00:20:49
Speaker
But I think Jesus would look at us and be like, don't withhold food because it's not in your policy preference. Don't take away critical medicines for folks because they didn't earn it or whatever your specific economic policy preference Hmm.
00:21:05
Speaker
Another thing that I think the seer of Revelation would critique is our exploitation of labor. Even in the Old Testament, you have injunctions like Leviticus 19.13.
00:21:16
Speaker
Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. So that's advocating for daily payment. We pay every two weeks.
00:21:28
Speaker
We must move that one into the ceremonial law. Exactly. James 5, 4 again. Look, the wages you failed to pay the workers, they're crying out against you. Low wages relative to the cost of living and unsafe working conditions and the lack of job security, especially for marginalized and immigrant workers.
00:21:47
Speaker
These are economic injustices. It's modern day oppression where the dignity of work and the worker is den denied. The term modern slavery is not hyperbole in many cases today.
00:22:00
Speaker
and The U.S. imperial economy produces an unusually high cost of living so that there's an unceasing pressure of constantly earning and hustling is the word, right? Hustling for those that don't have accumulated wealth. And even those who do have it, like you have to keep it.
00:22:15
Speaker
You have to keep up with inflation or you have to safeguard it by playing all these tricks. Otherwise, you lose it. I described this the other day to you as an economy of frenzy. And I think for poorer folks especially, it lends itself to the situation where predatory lenders can take advantage of people by offering them short-term financial mobility in exchange for long-term indebtedness due to extremely high interest rates.
00:22:42
Speaker
This is a system that's not altogether unlike the indentured servitude of ancient times, of Bible times. Lending and interest is called usury in the Old Testament, yet our entire economy depends on it.
00:22:56
Speaker
People find themselves working meaningless jobs by employers who give little regard for their well-being, and they don't even have the economic mobility to leave those jobs or leave those cities in a lot of cases.
00:23:08
Speaker
And again, these problems are only getting worse. The number of people falling into these situations is just growing day by day. I thought it was interesting. We had a conversation with a guy from a Mennonite background recently, and he described one of the kind of key ideas of Mennonite practice is living simply.
00:23:26
Speaker
We asked him, what does that mean for your family? And he said, well, basically, we just don't try to focus our lives around the accumulation of wealth. Mm-hmm. And on one hand, it's like, oh, well, that's kind of a simple way to apply that principle.
00:23:39
Speaker
But it's also like really rebellious against our culture. It's kind of a radical idea in the face of hustle culture and in the face of a capitalistic system that requires everybody to constantly be working because you can't even save money without it becoming less and less valuable over time to just be like, oh, actually, I'm going to choose not to live my life around the accumulation of wealth.
00:24:01
Speaker
is like a pretty major rejection of key American ideals. Just a gentle but forthright no. This is a really big one.
00:24:12
Speaker
i think another critique that the biblical writers would have and that Revelation would have is our destruction of creation. Psalm 24.1 says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.
00:24:24
Speaker
And obviously, Genesis 2.15, the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden and to work it and take care of it. It is our task as human beings to take care of the planet and of the creation that God made.
00:24:39
Speaker
It's our job. It's intrinsically tied to what it means to be the image of God. Yet the pursuit of economic growth, at least in our system, often results in environmental degradation, harming God's creation and disproportionately affecting, again, the poor and the marginalized already.
00:24:59
Speaker
In fact, the stock market incentivizes short-term decision-making. Because companies obviously need to demonstrate monthly or quarterly growth for their stakeholders. This leads them directly to make short-term decisions instead of long-term ones, even if those long-term ones are what's necessary to have an ethical system built out.
00:25:21
Speaker
When short-term decision-making leads to the degradation of God's creation, this is just a failure to steward the earth. An earth that our kids and our grandkids will grow up into.
00:25:34
Speaker
It's not like overnight... we'll wake up tomorrow and the whole earth will be on fire or we'll lose all clean water or something like that. But as resources become more scarce, as weather events become more extreme, as there are more floods, more fires, more famines, which there are, then it puts constraints on the number of resources available.
00:25:56
Speaker
And then nation states end up going to war over them. And then surprise, surprise, the poor of the earth are run over again. This is maybe a more broad critique here, that our economy often just relies on global exploitation.
00:26:13
Speaker
Isaiah 10, 1 and 2 says, Woe to those who make unjust laws to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed. American corporations and policies often exploit labor and resources in poorer nations, perpetuating global inequality.
00:26:32
Speaker
This is due in part to the U.S. making the dollar the global reserve currency, which gives it kind of an outsized value relative to other currencies. And the net effect of this, as I understand it anyway, is it makes U.S. s manufacturing less profitable for companies.
00:26:47
Speaker
So they look to countries with cheaper labor, often with fewer worker protections to produce their goods and more cheaply so that they can maximize profits in the short term. And this entire system, of course, is propped up by the U.S.'s global military dominance, which upholds its interest with brutal force.
00:27:07
Speaker
Just ask the regular people whose family members have been slaughtered in Yemen, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Syria, and in Gaza. Why does the U.S. continue to spend my tax dollars that I earn today on wars and military operations that kill so many innocent image bearers of God, many of whom are are siblings in Christ.
00:27:30
Speaker
As we sit here right now, thousands of kids like mine are starving in Haiti, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan, and of course in Gaza. Dozens will die before tomorrow morning.
00:27:42
Speaker
It's not because there's not enough food for them in the world. Oftentimes, as is the case with the starving in Gaza right now, it's because it's in alignment with our nation's national interests that that situation perpetuates.
00:27:57
Speaker
And usually here we'll appeal to some grandiose idea like, oh, it's for democracy here and abroad. It's for freedom and liberty. It's not for any of those things. In fact, it's kind of a well-known fact that the U.S. has attempted to topple over 50 governments, many of whom are democracies since the Second World War.
00:28:15
Speaker
The reason is simple. Our government kills when it advantages our imperial interests. People are expendable. Our imperial interest is the God that we will follow.
00:28:28
Speaker
That's why our government has military partnership with killer regimes like Saudi Arabia or like Israel that have been known to, you know, chop up journalists or starve children to death or snipe people who are trying to get food for their starving children.
00:28:44
Speaker
It's simple. It's all to maintain world domination. And it's in no small part simply for the purpose of upholding the economic order as it stands.
Christian Engagement with Empires
00:28:54
Speaker
All these things are tied together.
00:28:55
Speaker
And from a Christian perspective, when we value non-American lives less than Americans' lives, that's a failure to love our global neighbors and uphold justice, treating all people with the same dignity that we would preference American citizens with.
00:29:12
Speaker
We see this with our immigration policies right now. We treat these human beings as if they have less value. As if the father we deport to the concentration camp in Florida, his five-year-old doesn't need a dad.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's brutal and it's evil, but it upholds the regime. It upholds the economic order as it stands. And many of us, me and you, the people on the inside, and are actually benefiting from it, if we're honest.
00:29:41
Speaker
I think there are probably a lot of people hearing this and their reaction is to say, but America does a better job than so many other countries and places. And they're quick to point at other issues and other nations and locations around the world.
00:29:54
Speaker
Or they're quick to say that a lot of this messiness that America gets its hands in is just a necessary reality of living in a violent world full of other violent nation states. And to a large degree, I would acknowledge and say, yes, that's correct.
00:30:08
Speaker
Your point here is not simply to say that America is the source of the issues. America is part of a much bigger system, a global economy that is the issue. Babylon is not just America.
00:30:21
Speaker
Babylon is the entirety of all of these systems that are opposed to the ethics and the morality and the vision of Christianity. We need to recognize that America is not either the solution or the problem.
00:30:34
Speaker
It, along with everything that it is involved in, is the problem that Christianity is opposed to. It's just another Babylon. It'll come and it'll go. And another Babylon will take its place if the kingdom of God doesn't finally come over across the whole world.
00:30:52
Speaker
I say that not to minimize the suffering that it produces, but to minimize its relevance to our eschatological hope as Christians. We should put no hope in the US economy.
00:31:06
Speaker
We should put no effort towards supporting the evils and injustices that uphold ah So, in summary, I think that the seer of Revelation would very likely view the U.S. global economy and our government as exploitative as it prioritizes wealth over people, systematically oppresses the vulnerable, and fails to steward the earth, and ultimately values consumerism over compassion.
00:31:36
Speaker
The voice from heaven urges in Revelation 18, 4, come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins, so that you do not share in her plagues.
00:31:47
Speaker
The difficult question that we, the Jesus community, need to ask ourselves is how much are we willing and even able to extract ourselves from this exploitative system?
00:31:59
Speaker
That's the conversation we're having next time, right? Communal ranching 101. Man, I really think we get confused when we get our identities wrapped up in our nation state.
00:32:11
Speaker
Our nation happens to be an empire. Not everyone's nation state does. Congratulations, Matt. Me and you find ourselves in a somewhat unique position, right? But that pushback that you argued that, you know, some may have, which is like, well, our empire is not as bad as some.
00:32:28
Speaker
Like, it's interesting because on the one level... Yeah, the Roman Empire might not have been as bad in every way as the barbarians to their north, yet you still see the critique in Revelation.
00:32:40
Speaker
The Roman Empire did bring peace for a lot of people and genuine prosperity and ease for a lot of folks. It brought grain across the empire. It brought travel. It brought art and literature and the spread of culture, yet you still see it critiqued in the Bible.
00:32:58
Speaker
I think Jesus calls us to something higher than to be like, well, this is the best case or this is better than them. Therefore, I'm going to throw all my cards in and support it. i think the Christian voice is always a voice of critique of any system that's exploitative, even if it's not as exploitative as others.
00:33:19
Speaker
I would also say, too, think the last couple of years, if nothing else, has really shined a light on the fact that the U.S. does not have moral high ground on the world stage.
00:33:32
Speaker
One could be forgiven for maybe thinking that if they're my age or something like that. We didn't grow up with a lot of wars. Iraq, Afghanistan. Just a few in our lifetime.
00:33:44
Speaker
We made some mistakes there, but we thought they had nukes. Sorry, people. We kind of destroyed the whole region. But anymore, like what's happening in Gaza is just nakedly evil.
00:33:57
Speaker
It's a modern holocaust. It is by any normal sense of the definition genocide. That's not controversial. People don't like that word, but there's just no other normal English word to describe what is happening.
00:34:13
Speaker
And it is not the Israeli government acting on their own. no, no, no, no. They can't do anything. without immense amounts of money flooding their way and munitions and support.
00:34:26
Speaker
And i would say too, in the last several months, diplomatic cover that the US will offer. We are the bad ones. If you were some starry-eyed American that thought we were like a force for good in the world, I mean, that has to be questioned right now, if not at any previous time.
00:34:45
Speaker
I do think historically there's a tendency for people to see America as the force of opposing some Babylon somewhere else in the world. You know, whether that was in the Cold War with Russia or some kind of a global economy or something. I still think a lot of Christians tend to see the world through that lens.
00:35:02
Speaker
And we just miss the fact that we are the Babylon? I think, yeah, if you if you're imagining a Babylon somewhere else that America's fighting, it's easy to kind of see America as being on the side of the good guys.
00:35:14
Speaker
And I think the simple test for a Christian is to say, does America meet the standards of the kingdom of God? And of course it doesn't. No nation state ever will, ever can. Because of the way that they are.
00:35:26
Speaker
Like, until Jesus returns, we're not going to see the kingdom of God in some kind of a formalized system. Of course, every nation state we encounter is not going to be part of that kingdom of God, which makes it part of babylon And that's why I think it's so damaging and confusing to even engage in like, according to just war theory, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:35:48
Speaker
That's damaging because all of a sudden you're already moving the goalposts and you're not having your standard be the teachings of Jesus. If Jesus is preeminent and if he is king and his kingdom has come, as we proclaim, as we say we believe, then all a sudden move his teachings from the center and be like, those are nice, but they're not like the ones that I'm going to live by or that I'm going to critique my culture by.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's a joke to say that he's your king. You're not making sense of those English words. You don't mean that. don't know what you mean, but we don't mean that. We mean king of my heart, maybe.
00:36:30
Speaker
Right? I get warm fuzzies about him when I read the Bible in the morning. Mm-hmm. But I've seen so many Christians do this. I mean, I'm sure the same thing happened in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, all these wars that people older than me have lived with.
00:36:46
Speaker
And I'm sure there is that constant drumbeat from evangelical Christians like me and you to be like, well, Augustine said this about just war theory.
00:36:57
Speaker
to start engaging as if this is a legitimate way to talk. But it's not. Like masks off, it's not. We're engaging in the evil systems of the world and we are giving away our voice, our voice that's supposed to be critiquing the empire as an alternative polis, as an alternative reality that the kingdom of God is supposed to be.
00:37:20
Speaker
We lose all voice. We lose all conviction. We have nothing to offer the world if we just live in it and tack on Jesus' language to it. Revelation fully assumes that Christians will be on the outside of power structures until Jesus returns.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, the mark of the beast, the ones that didn't take it were cast out of the whole economic system. And that obviously wasn't an option for early Christians to start seizing power somewhere. But later when it was for Christians, the instinct was to start seizing power and then afterwards start asking, well, now how are we as Christians supposed to handle this power?
00:37:54
Speaker
Rather than having those difficult questions up front and saying, well, wait, is this actually the Christian thing to do is to start working with and trying to seize these systems of power? And I think that there's a long history of Christianity that's so used to just working in and with these systems of power that it's hard for Christians to step back and say, oh, wow, actually, we're intended to be the ones outside of these systems.
00:38:17
Speaker
We're not allowed in. We're not supposed to be involved
Vision of Power in Revelation
00:38:19
Speaker
in them. We're the restored community. They are the fallen community. Like, let's be clear about this. The United States of America and any nation state that props itself up by use of violence and force and killing innocent lives.
00:38:34
Speaker
They are the fallen ones. We are not. Come out of her. Like, what in hell are we doing? in other words, what are we doing in hell? We're people of heaven.
00:39:13
Speaker
One of the most important things that Revelation does for us us is it invites us to have our imaginations shaped by a different sort of power and contemplate the question like, well, what is real power?
00:39:27
Speaker
Revelation 1.5 says, From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Revelation 11.15, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Messiah, and he'll reign forever and ever.
00:39:44
Speaker
Verse 17, For you've taken your great power and have begun to reign. In 15.3, These are In Gospel accounts, when Jesus goes into wilderness to tempted the devil, just and true are your ways king of the nations these are bold political statements and the gospel accounts when jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil Remember that it's the devil who's described as the ruler of the nations.
00:40:09
Speaker
So what happened? Why is Jesus now being described as the ruler of the nations? Either Jesus is the king of the nations or the devil is. And it seems like that's kind of a big difference.
00:40:21
Speaker
Well, an earth-shattering event happened between the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and the writing of the book of Revelation. And that is the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the throne of God. and That pivotal moment in human history where the violent and destructive methods of sinful humanity were focused on Jesus and shown to be insufficient.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah, with some frequency on this podcast, we've read New Testament texts that describe Jesus as being exalted in his death and ascension over all the kingdoms and powers of the world.
00:40:55
Speaker
We've noted that the powers of the world were thought to be actually like demonic powers controlling the oppressive governments and most obviously like the empires of the world. In our apocalyptic Son of Man episodes, we discussed in Jewish apocalyptic literature how empires and oppressive governments are described as beasts.
00:41:14
Speaker
In other words, like the serpent of old, right? But here's the question. How does Jesus exercise authority over the empires and oppressive governments? Because it doesn't really look like he's dominant. Especially not in his crucifixion.
00:41:28
Speaker
Right. Or you look out into the world and it just doesn't appear to be true that he's the king of the nations. David Allen says victory is achieved through apparent defeat and death in the book of Revelation. Another commentator says conquering is dying.
00:41:46
Speaker
Lion is lamb. Not the kind of stuff you would expect to see in a military strategy handbook. Well, exactly. You start to get this idea that Jesus is, in fact, king overall.
00:41:58
Speaker
But through a radically different methodology than the nations of the world would seize and wield power. Right, and only manifested in the people who are allegiant to him, the community of Jesus.
00:42:10
Speaker
Again, that's why it's so damaging when the community of Jesus towards its true identity as kingdom people and latches on to any other identity, especially national ones or, you know, like patriotic ones.
00:42:24
Speaker
So nationalism is such a problem, not just Christian nationalism. That's a whole other can of worms. But like, no, no, nationalism, period, is a problem if you're a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.
00:42:37
Speaker
I read one quote and the author said, humanity will either reject empire definitely or the Earth's and humanity's future will literally be threatened. And this is in the context of contemplating the inevitability of the outcome of dominance of empire and violence toward each other and toward creation.
00:42:56
Speaker
We haven't even talked about nuclear warfare, but like where does this vying for power by use of violence get us? Where does Babylon get us? The logical end is the destruction of creation and of humanity. And those two are linked.
00:43:13
Speaker
We talked, obviously, a little bit about environmental degradation. But one of the worst things for the earth is for humans to be fighting and killing and slaughtering and doing warfare.
00:43:25
Speaker
Sin leads to death. Jesus came to free us from this entire system, this entire cycle. Yeah. In Revelation 2, 26 through 29, it says to the one who conquers, these things will be given.
00:43:40
Speaker
What does it mean today to conquer empire? I'm struck by the fact that it's only those who conquer it that get the authority to rule the nations.
00:43:51
Speaker
It's kind of challenging because it's like, could this mean that those who don't denounce the nations, those who willingly participate in them as good patriots, is that just a form of taking the mark of the beast?
00:44:02
Speaker
Will we basically just suffer the fate of the nations? Will we be judged with the empire that we willingly serve? Hmm. You know, there's some fear-mongering talk amongst some about like ah a one-world government coming, right?
00:44:16
Speaker
This totalitarian system probably would be, you know, problematic and it would be scary and all that. Sure, sure, sure. But it's typically used as kind of a lazy battering ram for like nationalistic tribal propaganda. and It's used as an apologetic for why nations are actually good things and they need to be protected from globalism.
00:44:35
Speaker
It's basically used as a cudgel to embrace the world as it currently is. But for followers of Jesus, there really is already a one-world government, where Jesus is right now the king of the nations.
00:44:48
Speaker
He has a community. He has a kingdom sprawling across the entire globe right now. A kingdom that our nation often harms and often kills.
00:44:59
Speaker
you know, we can live in this reality or not. We can have our sin and its wages if we want. And God evidently will let us have exactly what we want, like Romans 1. And that's a terrifying thought, that we can have the hell that we create.
00:45:15
Speaker
Or we can embrace life and resist these systems of oppression. We can resist tribalistic impulses to protect me and mine by harming them, however you know however they're defined.
00:45:27
Speaker
To embrace life full stop is to embrace the life of our enemies, quote unquote, because all people are God's image. And Jesus said, love your enemy.
00:45:38
Speaker
He wasn't talking about your hard-to-deal-with sister-in-law. He was talking about their political enemies, the Romans. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, he actually just says so.
00:45:50
Speaker
He says, if a Roman soldier makes you go with him one mile, go two. We know who's in view when he's talking about enemies, and it is political enemies. If we really embrace this life and embrace enemy love, that might kill us or imprison us.
Role of Christian Community in Resistance
00:46:05
Speaker
And I don't know if we have the courage to go that route, but that's a sign that we're actually living faithfully in the reality of God's kingdom. People all over the world are paying that price.
00:46:16
Speaker
It's not unique to the Christian experience, globally at least. Kingdoms of the world, controlled as they are by the dragon, they absolutely hate it when there are faithful resistors that use nonviolent and cruciform memes to resist and to call it out.
00:46:34
Speaker
This is what happened to Jesus, of course, but it's also what happened to a large number of the early Jesus community before it kind of sold itself to imperial power and Constantine.
00:46:45
Speaker
The early Christians had no country. They were exiles. That was their primary identity. ah really love this quote from the early Christian writing called the Epistle to Diognetus.
00:46:56
Speaker
Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language, or custom. Or nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric way of life. But while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one's lot is cast and follow the local customs and dress and food and other aspects of life,
00:47:14
Speaker
At the same time, they demonstrate a remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. They live in their own countries, but only as non-residents. They participate in everything as citizens and endure everything as foreigners.
00:47:27
Speaker
Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. What would it mean for us to embrace our identity as foreigners, as illegal aliens in our country?
00:47:39
Speaker
There's almost like a prophetic role that those individuals in our society play. They almost give us a model, an example of what our citizenship arrangement kind of looks like in reality, if we dare believe it That we truly aren't like at home as u citizens.
00:47:58
Speaker
In fact, if you live as comfortable of a life as I do, you're challenged by the fact that you don't get any pushback. I'm challenged by that, and I find myself wondering, like what kind of Kool-Aid did I drink? What kind of propaganda did I swallow?
00:48:15
Speaker
That allows me to live in such harmony with the vicious and malicious system that oppresses all kinds of people around the world, including my brothers and sisters in Jesus, including children whom God loves.
00:48:30
Speaker
I'm not even at the beginning stages of knowing what the future looks like or what it means to resist empire today. But I am challenged by the fact that I still live so comfortably. And so many Christians across the world just naturally are facing oppression and persecution by the way they live out their faith in their communities.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, the default living here is to just go along and be comfortable and participate in consumerism and take advantage of all of these things provided to us by these American systems. To look at these systems of the world and to give a firm and resolute no is actually the active and difficult decision.
00:49:08
Speaker
That is where faith needs to actually start to be lived out, is to be willing to look at all of these things, sometimes even things that are largely embraced by the Christian community, be willing to say, no, I don't think that is in line with Jesus' desire for this community and for me.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, and and and I think we need each other in this process. I think the church is always relied on every member of the body, so to speak. We can't really do this on our own.
00:49:36
Speaker
We might be able to do it for a day, you know, like, I'm going to get out there, I'm going to resist, I'm going to protest, right? Like, that could last a day. We need an entire Christian community who faithfully yet gently but resolutely says no You don't control us.
00:49:54
Speaker
We'll obey. We'll be good citizens insofar as we will be the ones not harming our neighbors. We will be the ones bringing peace. We will be the ones doing good in community.
00:50:05
Speaker
But when you, the government, or when you, the economic incentives... ask us to be or demand us to be disloyal to the Sermon on the Mount?
00:50:17
Speaker
No, we won't do that. You can do what you need to with that situation. You can do what you need to with us. You can do what you need to to make yourself feel whole.
00:50:28
Speaker
But we won't do that because we have been made whole. We know this truth and we understand that you do not. But we're not going to participate in some of these systems.
00:50:40
Speaker
We will not be good patriots. That's disloyalty to our King Jesus. That's a slap in the face to our brothers and sisters who our country has slaughtered.
00:50:51
Speaker
We cannot celebrate our military. We cannot celebrate a lot of our economic incentives. We cannot celebrate a lot of our immigration policies. like These are things that we just will stand against, not from this politically progressive perspective, but from a Sermon on the Mount perspective.
00:51:11
Speaker
We will just be here and we will always be here, but we can't do it alone. Scott McKnight has a really good commentary on Revelation, and I really appreciated this quote.
00:51:21
Speaker
He says, a dissident is someone who takes a stand against official policy in church or state or both, who dissent from the status quo with a different vision for society.
00:51:33
Speaker
We need a generation of dissident disciples who confront and resist corruption and systemic abuses in whatever locations they're found. The book of Revelation, when read well, forms us into dissident disciples who discern corruption in the world and church.
00:51:49
Speaker
Conformity to the world is the problem. Discipleship requires dissidence when one lives in Babylon.