Author: ppadmin

The book of Revelation in the Christian canon, interpreted literally, has resulted in bizarre scenarios and fanciful prediction tables.  Conventional interpretation saw it written when the early church was suffering great persecution.  But historical analyses find no evidence for a widespread persecution of Christians in first-century Asia.  “Evidence of both historical documents and the text of Revelation itself suggests that it was seduction by the Roman Empire from within a context of relative comfort that describes the original audience” (p. xxii).  “Revelation is a call to have faith in G-d rather than the empire . . . and is a call to how the disciples were to live in the midst of empire’ (p. xxiii).  “Revelation, like all the other biblical texts, was involved in a pitched battle over issues of spirit such as economics and politics” (p. xxiv).  “The empire itself stood in contradiction to the ways of G-d” (p xxvii).  “Revelation casts a critical eye on Rome’s economic exploitation, its politics of seduction, its violence and its arrogance” (p. 116).  “It was a reminder to the followers of Jesus of the commitment they had made at their baptism” (p. 117).  “The futurist preoccupation with Revelation ignores the verb tenses referring not to a sequential future but to the always co-present other reality in which G-d and the Lamb have already conquered empire” (p 124).  Heaven and earth have the same postal code but represent differing perspectives.  “When the lies and injustices of empire are given currency, there is earth.  Whenever the truth of G-d is believed and practiced, there is heaven” (p 128).

A powerful treatment of the early church’s faith in the face of empire, and a call to that same faith to us.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        This collection of seven essays examines the nature of religious life in the context of religious pluralism and a post-Theodosian world [the Theodosian dynasty was the last of significance in the Roman Empire], as seen from perspectives of classical Lutheran confessions.  The final three chapters deal with “the legal contexts of church-state interaction,” with reference to issues of religious freedom, education and land use contexts, the latter an area frequently overlooked in issues of church and state relations.

        The first essay, “Lutheran thinking on Church-State Issues” summarizes the Lutheran perspective.  “Lutherans recognize government as one of the "masks" of G-d. Government is one of the divinely instituted orders or structures embedded in creation (p. 7).  (The other three “orders” are family, church and labour.)  “Each (order) is a place where the Christian can legitimately live out his or her vocation….  The gospel does not overthrow these orders but requires that they be kept” (p 8). Anabaptists are given short shrift; they “underestimated the presence of G-d in the world and thus failed to understand the nature and extent of G-d’s creation activity” (p 12).  Well!!

        A historical comment came to mind after reading “the Lutheran view of the state keeps the state within limits” (p 13); interesting that there is no mention of the Bethel and Barmen documents (of 1933 and 1934) and the disputation in Germany that did not keep “the state within its limits.”  While the issues of “religious freedom, education and land use” are key in today’s church-state dialogue, to make no mention of violence embedded in the state through bombing and drones and strategic assassinations is to ignore a crucial contemporary issue. 

“Christianity was product of empire. . . . Paul (established assemblies (ekkleisia) that were alternatives to official assemblies at cities such as Philippi and Corinth. . . . The principal social dimensions of this world that is passing away were overcome in these communities of the nascent alternative society. ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek . . . slave or free . . . male or female; all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’” (p. 1)  Contributors to Horsley’s anthology on the clash between Roman society and Christianity make their points clearly with reference to four major points of conflict between the imperial culture and upstart Christian religion.

The most pointed clashes/conflicts were on the issue of the gospel of imperial salvation, the cultural pattern of patronage, Paul’s counter imperial gospel, and building an alternative society (pp. 1-3).

One:  The imperial gospel (the emperor understood as being god, with shrines, temples and games sponsored in his honour) was countered by Paul’s contention that G-d had highly exalted Jesus Christ so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).