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A new heaven and a new earth: the book of Revelation and lat america Liberation Theology. Works on Revelation by four Latin American liberationist authors are discussed in detail. Liberationist readings of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way. They find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.
Originalbeschreibung:
Originaltitel
THDDOCTORAL-A New Heaven and a New Earth- The Book of Revelation and Latin American Liberation Theology
A new heaven and a new earth: the book of Revelation and lat america Liberation Theology. Works on Revelation by four Latin American liberationist authors are discussed in detail. Liberationist readings of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way. They find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.
A new heaven and a new earth: the book of Revelation and lat america Liberation Theology. Works on Revelation by four Latin American liberationist authors are discussed in detail. Liberationist readings of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way. They find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.
A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH: THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND
LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY
__________
A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Denver
__________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
__________
by
Alicia M. Olson
June 2008
Advisor: Gregory Robbins
1453944
1453944
2008 Copyright 2008 by Olson, Alicia M.
All rights reserved
Copyright by Alicia M. Olson All Rights Reserved
ii Author: Alicia M. Olson Title: A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH: THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY Advisor: Gregory Robbins Degree Date: J une 2008
ABSTRACT
The Apocalypse of J ohn is often cited as a favorite text of base communities in Latin America, but little has been written about how Revelation is interpreted in this context. Works on Revelation by four Latin American liberationist authors, Pablo Richard, Carlos Mesters, J orge Pixley, and J usto Gonzalez, are discussed in detail. Content, method, and the influence of the themes of liberation theology on their interpretations of the Apocalypse are discussed in relation to each. Liberationist readings of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way that they do not ignore the past or future, but rather find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.
Chapter One: Revelation in North Atlantic Scholarship ...................................................3
Chapter Two: Latin American Liberation Theology ......................................................10 Liberation TheologyHistory and Major Themes ............................................10 Hermeneutics in Liberation Theology ................................................................20 Criticisms of Liberation Theology ......................................................................23
Chapter Three: Pablo Richards Apocalypse, A Peoples Commentary .........................28 Author and Audience ..........................................................................................28 Significant Pericopes and Characters ..................................................................31 Vision of the Future ............................................................................................34 Human Activity ...................................................................................................36 Method ................................................................................................................37
Chapter Four: Carlos Mesterss The Hope of the People who Struggle: A Key to Reading the Apocalypse of St. John .................................................................39 Author and Audience ..........................................................................................39 Significant Pericopes and Characters ..................................................................40 Vision of the Future ............................................................................................42 Human Activity ...................................................................................................43 Method ................................................................................................................45
Chapter Five: J orge Pixleys Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American Perspective ....................................................................................................................48 Author and Audience ..........................................................................................48 Significant Pericopes and Characters ..................................................................49 Vision of the Future ............................................................................................51 Human Activity ...................................................................................................51 Method ................................................................................................................52
Chapter Six: J usto Gonzlezs For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict .........................................................54 Author and Audience ..........................................................................................54 Significant Pericopes and Characters ..................................................................55 Vision of the Future ............................................................................................57 Human Activity ...................................................................................................58 Method ................................................................................................................59
Chapter Seven: Analysis and Conclusions .....................................................................61
Religious texts are a unique set of literature. They gain special authority to mediate the nature of the divine and/or the divine will for humanity. Part of their greatness lies precisely in their ability to speak to perennial human questions of suffering, death, and relationships to other humans and to the divine. But once divorced from their original contexts their timeless authority can also be used to devastating ends; in the name of great religious texts and traditions, all manner of tragedies have been justified. However, because religious texts stand as sources of authority that are, ultimately, independent of the traditions that surround them, they can become sites of protest. Rereadings, and even rewritings, of religious texts have served as a sacred mandate for those groups who lack the social, economic, or political authority to pursue change. In this thesis, I will be exploring the significance of one of Christianitys sacred texts: the book of Revelation. Specifically, I will be studying several interpretations of the Apocalypse of J ohn produced by Latin American liberation theologians. Liberation theology begins in an awareness of the poverty that the majority of Latin American people face, and a commitment to relieving it. Liberation theology finds in its readings of the biblical texts, especially Revelation, a vision of their own oppression overcome by the power of God. In the Bible, liberation theology finds a divine ally in its pursuit of freedom for the oppressed.
2 The Apocalypse of J ohn is cited as one of the favorite books of the base ecclesial communities in Latin America. Its images of immoral empire, oppression, and martyrdom resonate with many Latin American Christians, mirroring profoundly their own experiences. My thesis is that liberation theologys orientation toward both praxis and the significance of the social situation of the reader lead exegetes toward the use of methods that emphasize the importance of understanding the (historical) social situation of the text (Revelation), and produce exegesis that articulates a vision of the ideal (liberated) future and suggests how the contemporary audience should go about attaining that vision. In this paper I will first address some introductory material for my readers before discussing the liberationist readings of Revelation. The introductory materials include a synthesis of the findings of North Atlantic scholarship on the Apocalypse, and a brief introduction to the history, method, and hermeneutics of liberation theology, as well as a discussion of its limitations. Next, I will discuss the content and method of four liberationist works on Revelation. These works, selected from among those available in English, were chosen for their diversity. I will conclude with an analysis of the ways in which the theology of liberation has influenced the exegesis of Revelation.
3
Chapter One Revelation in North Atlantic Scholarship
Liberation readings are not necessarily historical readings, and a comparison of the two will make this clear. Historical-critical scholarship has as its aim discovering what the biblical texts most likely meant to their authors and first audiences. While this is not the only valid way to read the Bible, and scholarship can never discern with certainty what was in the mind of the author or original audience, this method can bring confusing features of the text to new light. In this section of my paper, then, I will offer an overview of what the dominant (North Atlantic) historical-critical scholarship has to say about Revelation and how its first audience might have understood it, in order to serve as a basis for comparison with the Latin American liberationist readings of Revelation. Between the second century BCE and the second century CE many works similar to Revelation were written. Since they generally report a vision of heaven in which a messenger reveals hidden knowledge, they are known as apocalyptic literature (from the Greek word which means to unveil). The standard definition of apocalypse, as developed by the Society of Biblical Literatures Genres Project, is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a
4 transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world. 1
Apocalypses reveal, with the help of an angel or other supernatural being, a hidden dimension of history, either the future, or the heavenly, or both. The purpose of this writing is to aid the audience in interpret[ing] present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and [influencing] both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority. 2 Apocalyptic visions are meant to give their audiences a new perspective on the present circumstances and encourage them to live differently because of this new perspective. The circumstances that generally inspire apocalypses are times of perceived crisis; that is, times when the people for whom they are written feel marginalized, oppressed, or otherwise hopeless. Apocalypses are also usually written pseudonymously. Writing in the name of a famous ancestor was usually for the purpose of legitimating the writing, and also because many apocalypses have overviews of history which are told as predictions, to which antedating lends credibility. Pseudonymous authorship may also reflect the authors fears of retribution by those of whom his or her apocalypse is critical. Together, these aspects give the impression that the future is fixed and known by God, even though the present is under the authority of those opposed to Gods plans. 3 Revelation (along with one other early Christian apocalypse, the Shepherd of Hermas) is unique in that J ohn does not use a pseudonym. Instead, he speaks in his own name as a prophet of the community.
1 Leonard L. Thompson, The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 24.
2 Ibid., 32.
3 Ibid., 21.
5 Early Christian prophecy was characterized by ecstatic experiences in the Spirit, understood in light of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18). These prophets were often community leaders in areas where more formal hierarchy had not been established. 4 This blending of genres implies that Revelation is not solely the product of an apocalyptic outlook on the world, and that the sense of oppression he felt may have been due to actual historical circumstances. What, then, was the situation in Asia Minor to which J ohn responded with revelation and prophecy? Based on internal evidence and the witness of Irenaeus, the book was probably written around 95 CE. Domitian was the emperor of Rome at that time. Asia Minor, the area in which the communities of chapters 2 and 3 are located, was part of the Roman Empire. Despite the grim picture that later Roman and Christian historians have painted of Domitians reign of terror, Domitian seems to have been no more overtly hostile to Christianity than any other emperor between Nero (5468 CE) and Decius, (24951 CE) who was the first to institute official persecution of the religion. 5 The caricature of Domitian as a persecutor of Christians, who demanded to be addressed as lord and god, is partly due to historians in the time of Trajan, Domitians successor. As part of their strategy to make the new dynasty seem superior to the old, they characterized the previous emperor in an exceptionally unflattering way. Emperor worship was not, in fact, unique to Domitian; it began before his time and continued to be popular with other emperors long after his death. During his reign, titles like lord and
4 Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 2 nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 143.
5 David E. Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic: Collected Essays (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 3.
6 god were probably used by those seeking favor with the emperor, rather than being officially mandated. 6 Early Christian commentators on Revelation, reading J ohns presence on Patmos as exile (Rev.1:9 NRSV), in combination with the vision of the souls of martyrs under the altar (Rev.6:9-10) and the accounts of Roman historians, perpetuated the characterization of Domitian as persecutor of the church. Rereading of these sources by historians has concluded that there was no government-sanctioned persecution under Domitian, nor officially-imposed increases in the requirements for participation in the imperial cult. 7
This does not mean, however, that J ohn was without reason for viewing his situation as a time of crisis. Collins names several sites of conflict for the churches of Asia Minor that seem to have played a role in J ohns understanding of his situation. There was conflict within the church, as evidenced by the letters in to the communities in chapters 2-3. While the disagreement was literally over whether the people could eat meat sacrificed to idols (and fornication, an activity symbolically associated with idolatry), the larger question was what relationship Christians could have to their surrounding culture, to which J ohns answer seems to have been, as little as possible. 8
Irrespective of whether emperor worship was mandatory, it was popular in parts of Asia Minor that were vying for favor with the emperor, and J ohn viewed it as blasphemous. Polytheism was not the only fault Roman culture had in J ohns estimation. Throughout
6 Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 171.
7 Ibid., 175. See also Schssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation, 8-9, for an argument against this view.
8 Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of The Apocalypse, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 88.
7 Revelation, J ohn refers to Rome as Babylon, a title it earned by sharing with Babylon the distinction of having destroyed the J erusalem temple. 9 As we see from the portrayal of the wealthy prostitute in Revelation 18, Rome is also condemned for it its affluence. Many in the eastern part of the empire perceived Roman rule as exploitative. Revelation, like other J ewish documents of the time period, the Sibylline Oracles, holds explicit political attitudes and very definite political implications, namely, that the poor had been treated unjustly. 10 Revelation is critical of those Christian communities that are wealthy because it was possible to get and to maintain wealth only by accommodation to the polytheistic culture or the J ewish community, toward both of which Revelation was hostile. 11 Finally, although there was no official persecution of Christians, the threat of death for the faith was still very real. The Christians of Rome had been Neros scapegoat within living memory, and Antipas (Rev. 2:13) and J ohn (Rev. 1:9) had both suffered for their fidelity to the Christian sect. 12 The precedent seems to have been that any adult Christian, if accused, could be executed by the governor for adherence to the cult, although it was probably a rare occurrence. 13 J ohns vision condemns Rome precisely for setting itself up as ruler and judge of the world, roles which he believes only rightfully belong to God and the Lamb. The crisis J ohn confronts with his apocalyptic vision is not absolute persecution and oppression, as many have understood the origins of apocalyptic
9 Ibid., 76.
10 Ibid., 94.
11 Ibid., 133.
12 Ibid., 102.
13 Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 172; Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 100.
8 literature, but rather the tension between his expectations of the Kingdom of God and the social situation in which he found himself. 14
That J ohns writing has been preserved in the Christian canon testifies to the resonating power of his vision of the world, which surely had an effect on its readers. North Atlantic scholarship understands this influence as mostly internal. Revelation makes its readers aware of the cosmic scale of their struggle with the Roman empire through the use of mythic symbols and allusions to the Hebrew Bible. It recognizes, however, that the suffering of the Christians is not decisive. Rather, the communities can be assured of their victory and the coming judgment of God if they persevere; 15
Revelation encourages hope and perseverance. 16 It provides an emotional release by allowing the audience to experience the victorious future and aggression against their enemies in their communal readings. 17 This aggression may have also been turned inward to intensified community norms of poverty, celibacy, and exclusivity. 18
In conclusion, Revelation is a late first-century Christian document that uses mythic imagery of divine combat and judgment to reorient its readers to the cosmic significance and ultimate fate of their temporal struggle. J ohn casts Rome and its benefactor, Satan, as would-be usurpers of Gods rightful roles as king and judge. North- Atlantic historical-critical scholarship, which encompasses literary, rhetorical, and social-
14 Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 106.
15 Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 206.
16 Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 37.
17 Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 156.
18 Ibid., 161.
9 scientific methods concludes that Revelation encourages the Christian communities of Asia Minor to continue to testify to J esus and to resist accommodation to Roman culture, which is ultimately destined for destruction. Revelation is also cathartic: the emotions of fear and resentment toward those perceived as opponents are relieved through literary, rather than literal, violence. The authors to be discussed in the second half of this work are familiar with the North Atlantic rendering of the social situation and purpose of Revelation. But they are also profoundly influenced by the theology of liberation of Latin America, which merits introduction.
10
Chapter Two Latin American Liberation Theology
In this part of my paper, I will give my readers an introduction to Latin American liberation theologys history and major themes, hermeneutics, and critiques of liberation theology. This will allow the reader to join me in analyzing the works on Revelation that comprise the heart of this study. I will focus primarily on topics I have found most relevant to reading the Apocalypse.
Liberation TheologyHistory and Major Themes Liberation or contextual theologies share a concern for life experiences, which are often taken as the basis for reflection and for affirming that every person is created in the image of God and has dignity. Liberation theology today encompasses a variety of theologies which locate as their starting point class, race, culture, gender, sexuality and combinations of these factors. Although individual works of theology stressing these perspectives had been written before the 1960s (e.g., feminist theology), it is in Latin America, after the Second Vatican council that liberation theology as liberation theology begins to take shape. For simplicitys sake, when I refer to liberation theology in this paper, I will mean the liberation theology which specifically comes out of Latin America.
11 When I wish to refer to other liberation theologies, I will specify the location from which they come, e.g., U.S. Hispanic liberation theology. The Second Vatican Council began under Pope J ohn XXIII in 1962 and ended under Pope Paul VI in 1965. It produced a body of texts that were intended to reconnect the Catholic Church pastorally with the modern world. This included a recovery of the Bible for theological undertaking and an invitation for local and regional churches to articulate the task of evangelization from their own unique situations. 1 Although the Latin American representatives to Vatican II contributed little to the official sessions, they began to think creatively about the Latin American context and, with the approval of Pope Paul VI, convened a conference of the Latin American episcopate in 1968 at Medelln, Colombia. This conference marks the transition from a church dependent on Europe for its theology to Latin America as an originator of its own theological reflection. The key themes of this new theological reflection were poverty and the pursuit of justice, institutionalized violence and the pursuit of peace and love for neighbor, and a singular view of history that stressed the political dimension of faith. 2 A few years after Medelln, Gustavo Gutirrez published A Theology of Liberation, which set the tone for the following decades conversation about theology. In this work, Gutirrez establishes a method for liberation theology which will be discussed more fully below. Between Medelln and the 1979 meeting at Puebla, Mexico, many advances were made in the theology of liberation, including the articulation of liberation perspectives on
1 Roberto Oliveros, History of the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ignacio Ellacura and J on Sobrino, trans. Department of Books and Libraries of the Spanish Ministry of Culture (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), 12-14.
2 Ibid., 15.
12 the poor as interlocutor of theology in Latin America (in contrast to the atheist or skeptic as dialogue partner of North Atlantic theologies), hermeneutics, church history, Christology, ecclesiology, and spirituality. 3 Since the mid-1970s, Latin American liberation theologians had also been in contact with U.S. Latina/o theology. This dialogue was fruitful for both parties, and resulted, for the Latin American theologians, in a broader understanding of oppression that included not only class, but also race and gender, which were more significant loci of exclusion in the United States. 4 However, not all of the leadership in the Catholic Church in Latin America was pleased with the new theological perspectives, and many rejected them. Additionally, as liberation theologians worked alongside non-Christian liberation movements, many religious leaders were suspected of communism and attacked, removed from office, or even killed. The synod at Puebla was scheduled for October of 1978, but was postponed until early 1979 upon the death of Pope J ohn Paul I. J ohn Paul II opened the meeting, and approved its final documents. 5 Puebla was significant for liberation theology as an affirmation of its use of the tools of the social sciences for pastoral ends. It also affirmed the pursuit of a just society and solidarity with the poor, thus endorsing the direction established at Medelln. However, the response to liberation theology, both from within Roman Catholicism and without, has been mixed since that time. In the mid-1980s, for example, it was both censured by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and
3 Ibid., 20-21.
4 Gilbert T. Cadena, The Social Location of Liberation Theology: From Latin America to the United States, in Hispanic/Latino theology: Challenge and promise, ed. Ada Mara Isasi-Daz and Fernando F. Segovia, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 180.
5 Oliveros, History of the Theology of Liberation, 23.
13 commended as expedientuseful and necessary by Pope J ohn Paul II. 6 Since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the end of socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism, liberation theology has struggled to redefine itself. It has done so in three interrelated moves, as characterized by Ivan Petrella: reasserting core ideas, reformulating or revising basic categories, and critiquing idolatry. 7 What has been lost, Petrella argues, and needs to be regained to prevent liberation theology from becoming paralyzed and its vocabulary meaningless, is its commitment to a specific historical project. 8 Many of the clergy are turning from strictly class-related issues to other avenues, including ecological concerns, womens rights, race, and so on. 9 Protestant churches not aligned with liberation theology, especially charismatic churches, have grown immensely in Latin America. 10 Conservative bishops have been deliberately appointed in many Latin American dioceses and progressive bishops relocated to less populous areas. 11 Base communities are not experiencing the same growth as in previous decades. All of this together has led to diminished visibility and influence for liberation theology. On the other hand, liberation theology has left its mark on the other theologies which now fall
6 Ibid., 27.
7 Ivan Petrella,. The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto, (Burlingon, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 2.
8 Ibid., 11.
9 Christopher Rowland, Introduction: The Theology of Liberation, in The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 248.
10 Leif E. Vaage, Introduction, in Subversive Scriptures: Revolutionary Readings of the Christian Bible in Latin America, ed. and trans. Leif E. Vaage, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 17.
11 Christopher Rowland, Epilogue: The Future of Liberation Theology, in The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 249.
14 under the classification liberation or contextual theology, and in seminaries around the world. And the gap between the wealthy and the poor of the Latin American nations, the context that gave birth to liberation theology, remains an unanswered problem. Many of the leading liberation theologians of the 1960s and 70s were trained in Europe and have developed their theology from the lives of the Latin American people with tools gained in their studies, including historical-critical exegesis, political theology, and the social analyses enabled by Marxs thought and other social sciences. The use of social sciences as partners in theological reflection (as opposed to the more traditional dialogue with philosophy) is one of the hallmarks of liberation theologys method. 12
Liberation theology chose to engage the social sciences because the wrenching poverty and institutional violence of Latin America called for new methods. The church in Latin America was faced with the task of evangelizing not the non-believer, as in the North Atlantic countries, but what Gutirrez calls the non-person: those who are not recognized by the existing social order: the poor, the exploited, those who are systematically and legal deprived of their status as human beings. 13 The need for the social sciences as an aid to a theological understanding of the political, economic and social conditions of the poor comes out of two prior commitments: a preferential option for the poor, and a theological method that calls for practice as a prerequisite to reflection.
12 Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 24; Enrique Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 86.
13 Gustavo Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, in The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, trans. Judith Condor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28.
15 The poor are central to liberation theology. J esus addressed his message of the Kingdom of God primarily to the poor and socially marginalized and began to enact it through the various miracles he performed on their behalf. 14 Therefore God and Gods reign are present in a unique way among the poor. A preferential option for the poor, then, is a commitment to solidarity with the poor as an expression of openness to the will of God. Solidarity involves concrete action on behalf of the political, economic, personal and spiritual liberation of the poor. 15 An option for the poor is the first act, and only after this can the second act, theological reflection, be performed adequately: What we mean to say by this is that the veneration of God and the doing of Gods will are the necessary conditions for reflection on Him [sic]. 16 For this reason, orthopraxycorrect living becomes at least as significant as orthodoxy. The liberationist movement of Latin America, convinced that active solidarity with the poor was a prerequisite to properly doing theology, engaged in political struggles on behalf of the rights of the poor. This engagement made adequate analytical categories necessary. Thus it came about that an infant Latin American theology began to make use of the tools of Marxist categories. 17 Liberation theologys engagement with Marxism has been a cause of criticism and misgiving from within the Catholic hierarchy. However, liberation theology asserts that it uses a certain Marxism in a certain way
14 J on Sobrino, Central Position of the Reign of God in Liberation Theology, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 368-69.
15 Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, 26.
16 Ibid., 28.
17 Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 86.
16 never in such a way as to be incompatible with the foundations of the faith. 18 The philosophical aspects of Marxism (dialectical materialism) are firmly rejected, while other aspects (ideological criticism, social criticism, economic criticism, etc.) are utilized to analyze social reality. 19
The foregrounding of the poor, or non-person, as the interlocutor of liberation theology has earned it the euphemism contextual theology. However, as liberation theologians argue, no theology is without context. By refusing to identify any particular historical project with the reign of God, as the political theologies of Europe advocated, the church becomes, by default, guardian of the status quo. 20 Liberation theology was not simply about granting religious authority to a revolution, either. In a variety of places, liberationist thinkers articulated definitions of liberation that both demanded real social change and prevented complete identification of the coming of the kingdom of God with any particular temporal revolution. Gustavo Gutirrezs definition of liberation will serve as a lucid example: (1) Political and social liberation, which points toward the elimination of the immediate causes of poverty and injustice, especially with regard to socio- economic structures (2) human liberation liberating human beings of all those thingsnot just in the social spherethat limit their capacity to develop themselves freely and in dignity (3) and crucially, liberation from selfishness and sin . 21
18 Ibid., 92.
19 Ibid.
20 Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 13.
21 Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, 26.
17 Liberation has an irreducibly political element. It cannot avoid addressing material oppression and poverty and offering concrete solutions. But neither can it advocate only shallow or immediate solutions that fail to address all aspects of human liberation. 22
Liberation theologys approach to the kingdom of God is different from that of traditional Catholicism. Traditional Catholic doctrine tends to elevate the transcendent dimension of the kingdom of God, speaking of true liberation as inner liberty , [which] refuses to accept power and worldly logic. 23 Liberation theology, by contrast, is committed to a concept of the Reign of God (kingdom of God) which unifies, without either separation or confusion, transcendence and history. 24 When the kingdom of God is both transcendent and historical, the utopian vision that the fullness of the kingdom of God provides does not become a mere comfort. 25 Instead, it serves as a rule against which present life and projects for the future can be measured. A utopia that is not in some way what animates and even effects historical realizations is not a Christian utopia. It is not even an ideal vision of the Kingdom; instead, it is an idealistic and ideologized vision of itself. 26 There is an intimate relationship, though not an identity, between
22 Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 16.
23 Pope Benedict XVI, quoted in Rohter, Larry, As Pope Heads to Brazil, Rival Theology Persists, The New York Times, May 7, 2007. Liberation theology would argue that it is in continuity with the church in proclaiming the historical character of the kingdom of God: If one reads, for example, Gaudium et Spes or the various papal encyclials on the churchs social teaching, one sees there the need to historicize, if not the Kingdom, at least the faith and the Christian message (Ellacura, Utopia and Prophecy, 291). What is at issue, then, is two differing interpretations of the trajectory of Catholic doctrine: one which is open to historicizing the kingdom of God, and one which views the kingdom and other aspects of Christianity as solely transcendent and/or internal.
24 Sobrino, Central Position of the Reign of God, 355.
25 Ignacio Ellacura, Utopia and Prophecy in Latin America, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 292.
26 Ibid., 293.
18 transcendence and history. The ability of history to be critiqued by the transcendent vision, and historys ability to respond to that critique, is at the heart of liberation theology. This challenge to the present order of things is offered in the manner of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, and of J esus. Prophecy denounces the specific unjust realities that it encounters. In much of Latin America dependency, the capitalist system, and the institutional church are structures which enable the poverty and oppression of the people, according to liberation theology. 27 This identification of capitalism as a sinful structure is part of what earns liberation theology its pejorative Marxist label. However, liberation theology would agree that socialism is equally capable of evil and is to be denounced by prophets who are living under those situations. 28
At the heart of all prophetic criticism is a call to reject idolatry. Idolatry gains a specific understanding in liberation theology, especially in the works of Hugo Assman, Enrique Dussel, Franz Hinkelammert, and Pablo Richard. Marxs concept of commodity fetishism and its relationship to idolatry in liberation theology is a good example of one of the ways that Marxs thought informs liberation theology. Dussel describes it as a complete, integral rereading of Marx himself from a Christian, theological perspective. 29 Liberation theologians find in both Marx and the prophets (though starting in different places, and for different ends) the idea that people worship their own work and let it control their lives. Because humans do not relate to one anotherbut to moneyas they exchange goods, Marx argues, they are alienated from each other and
27 Ibid., 300.
28 Ibid, 298.
29 Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 97; emphasis in original.
19 from their own work. Therefore, in place of real social interaction and real recognition of the labor required to produce an item, the people establish religionwhich is the abstraction of their social relationsand are controlled by moneywhich is the abstraction of their labor and the labor of others. These abstractions are likened, by Marx, to the fetishes (totems) of primitive religions. 30 Liberation theologians make use of both Marxs understanding of religion and of fetishism. For them, Marxs famous description of religion as an opiate of the masses does not necessarily need to be true. Religious misery is, on the one hand, the expression of real misery and, on the other, the protest against real misery. 31 Religious expressions that are merely an expression of misery, and not a protest against it, are in fact a valid target of critique. But, when religion is a protest against misery, when it seeks to alleviate misery, it is truly religion according to liberation theologians. The God proclaimed by the prophets, liberationist argue, is a God of justice. Whoever does not practice justice but claims to worship God is engaged in idolatry because s/he is, in fact, worshipping a different God than the God proclaimed in the biblical accounts. Likewise, anything other than God that controls ones life is an idol. Today we have an abundant idolatrous production. There are idolaters by perversion: those who pervert the meaning of God, who manipulate God, who deform the divine image, or who use the divine name in vain. There is also idolatry by substitution: the true God is replaced by false gods. This occurs when human beings absolutize or divinize realities that they themselves create. 32
30 Stewart Crehan, Commodity Fetishism, The Literary Encyclopedia, posted March 13 2006. http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1656 (Accessed April 15, 2008).
31 Karl Marx, quoted in Ellacura, Utopia and Prophecy, 292.
32 Pablo Richard, Theology in the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 156.
20 Marxs critique of religion and fetish serve liberation theology as a tool to distinguish between true religion and idolatry of various kinds. This can be seen in their critiques of capitalism and the institutional church. The capitalist system produces substitute idols of accumulation, security, and wealth, while the institutional church is guilty of perversion or distortion of the divine image by de-linking God from justice in the world. In the emphasis on the poor as the unique recipients of the good news of the kingdom, and the reading of the prophets above, one begins to detect that liberation theology is also engaged in a new reading of the Bible. The radical rereading of theology and new understanding of the Bible finds its authority in the reading of the biblical texts from the privileged place of the poor under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To this I will now turn.
Hermeneutics in Liberation Theology The impulse to urge the poor to read the Bible for themselves came out of the Catholic Action movement of the early-to-mid twentieth century. It had as its method and motto See, J udge, Act. See, in this context, meant to observe ones life and community and the problems in it. Then the people, in community, were to judge the life circumstances in light of the Bible, and finally to act to change the situation. J udging required the people to be familiar with the biblical texts and to be able to interpret their lives in light of them. 33 As this movement spread to Latin America, especially Brazil, it originated what are today known as base ecclesial communities (also known as base communities or CEB). These groups of laity gather to read the Bible for the purpose of
33 Robin Nagel, Claiming the Virgin: The Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil, (New York: Routledge, 1997), 41.
21 understanding its meaning for their lives. The foundations of the liberationist hermeneutic, then, were in place before the Vatican II council. Another motivation for developing a liberationist hermeneutic was the growing presence of charismatic churches, J ehovahs Witnesses and other protestant groups. Their biblical literacy and unique interpretive paradigms challenged the Catholic laity to understand better the biblical foundations of their own positions. 34 To this was added liberation theologys preferential option for the poor, which demands a reading of the Bible for the poor and from the perspective of the poor. 35 Matthew 11:25 is often cited in defense of this: J esus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Although in reality it is more often educated clergy who are interpreting the Bible for the people and/or leading the base communities, a reading of the Bible from the perspective of the poor is the ideal of liberation theology. Carlos Mesters is one of the most-cited proponents of biblical interpretation by the people. He argues that the biblical texts are written from the perspective of the poor, out of their memory of suffering and the liberating acts of God in history, and therefore the poor today are in the best position to interpret it. 36 Like objectivity in theology, objectivity in hermeneutics is impossible, and the readings produced from a position of dominance will be different than readings from a perspective of oppression. The poor view the biblical texts as mirrors of their own lives; as a new or living text which can aid
34 Carlos Mesters, Defenseless Flower: A New Reading of the Bible, trans. Francis McDonagh (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), 159.
35 Ibid., 165.
36 Ibid., 19.
22 them in reflection on their own circumstances. Popular reading of the Bible is almost always done in the context of communities. Some are formalized around methods similar to that of the Catholic Action movement. Others are guided by booklets produced to explain some of the insights of exegesis. Some have no formal methods. Regardless, the communities expect the Holy Spirit to guide them as they read, and are open to new and unexpected interpretations. Explicit openness to the Spirit lends authority to their readings, but unlike charismatic churches, liberationist communities are interested in the political implications of their readings. Mesters identifies three key components for the task of hermeneuticsthe text itself, with the aid of the insights of exegesis; the community of faith; and an awareness of the lives of the people. When any of these are out of proportion, or missing, the reading produced becomes myopic. 37 The objective of studying the Bible is to discover not just its meaning, but its meaning for life. This hermeneutic approach, Mesters argues, is similar to the reading strategy of the Church Fathers, who searched for the spiritual significance of the text and not just its literal sense. 38 The Pauline epistles and gospels often evidence this kind of interpretive method (e.g., Gal 4:21-31, Mt 2:15). Exegesis and popular interpretation, then, should ideally invigorate and strengthen each other. Since the task of interpretation belongs to the entire community, the rle of the exegete is more modest, but nonetheless important. The exegete first of all engages in study that is at the service of the community of faith and the struggle of the poor, and not
37 Ibid., 107-09.
38 Ibid., 26.
23 the academic guild. 39 It uncovers the literary and historical meanings of the Bible so that these meanings may be brought to the community of faith to aid their search for the spiritual meaning. 40 Exegesis also involves a critical study of the biblical texts which unmask[s] the ideological uses of the gospel 41 and discern[s] the witness of those believers, our forebears in faith, who found in their history the God of life. 42 In other words, the task of exegetes who are committed to the struggle for liberation is threefold: to make the historical-literal meaning of the Bible available to the community of faith; to highlight the liberative aspects of the Bible; and to denounce those who use the name of God to justify oppression, whether in the biblical texts or in contemporary life.
Criticisms of Liberation Theology Since its beginning, liberation theology has faced criticism for its approach to theology. Much of the criticism has come from within Roman Catholicism, both from European and Latin American leaders, regarding the methods of liberation theology. Because the Roman church is hierarchal in its structure, the misgivings or hostility of a local leader toward liberation theology can make its practice very difficult. On the other hand, the criticism from outside of the Roman Catholic hierarchy questions the results of liberation theology: Does it work?
39 Vaage, Introduction, 13.
40 Richard, Theology in the Theology of Liberation, 166.
41 George V. Pixley, Gods Kingdom: A Guide for Biblical Study, trans. Donald D. Walsh, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1981), 104.
42 Gilberto da Silva Gorgulho, Biblical Hermeneutics, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 126.
24 The criticisms of liberation theology from within the hierarchy of Roman Catholicism largely concern liberation theologys method. The questions arise over what place, if any, Marxism should have in theology and exegesis. Liberation theology has also been accused, at a number of points, of not being serious theology. It is too subjective and does not deal adequately with questions of systematic theology, metaphysics or epistemology. Liberation theology frames its engagement with the thought of Marx as another in a long line of dialogues of theology with the tools of its day, including Aquinass appropriation of Aristotle and the incorporation of history into theology, both of which were initially viewed with alarm and have since become commonplace. Liberation theology, then, is simply making use of the best available tools of its time, as theology has always done, to meet the needs of the situation in which the church finds itself. 43 However, those critical of liberation theology within the Catholic hierarchy see it as a dangerous deviation of the Christian faith. In their judgment, the faith is placed in the service of a revolutionary politics and a Marxist ideology [which is] reducing the Christian faith to a purely earthly projectevacuating it of its transcendent dimension. 44 The theology of liberation theology in this view is a cloak for political and ideological commitments, one which distorts the faith and will not lead to true, transcendent liberation. Between these two positions lies a disagreement about the appropriateness of the church being engaged in changing the political realm. But even those who agree with or are sympathetic to a view of the sacred that engages with the political may find something to be desired in liberation theology. Liberation theology
43 Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 85-86.
44 J uan Jos Tamayo, Reception of the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 40.
25 depends upon the experience of the poor. While in some ways this reincorporation of the perspective of the poor is laudable, it can also lapse into subjective hermeneutics. Reading the Bible in base communities, for example, often ignores the findings of exegesis and the historical circumstances of the text, leaving the people to read their own circumstances intoand out ofthe text. Even liberation theologians have been accused of nave readings of the Bible. 45 Liberation theology relies upon the experience of God and the hope of the people as its implicit justification of the existence of God, assuming that metaphysical questions had little relevance for the people of Latin America. This might be acceptable if liberation theology wished to address itself only to the narrow concrete circumstances of Latin America in the late twentieth century. Since in no moment has it ever renounced its will to universality, 46 and seeks rather a full reorganization of the traditional categories of theology under the head of the liberating reign of God, liberation theology is lacking in its engagement with the questions of modern philosophy. Liberation theology has tried to rectify its lack of systematization and of attention to philosophical categories in the volume Mysterium Liberationis. Theological method is not the only aspect of liberation theology that has been critiqued. From graduate schools to the streets of Brazil, the results of liberation theology are being questioned. Some claim that it simply does not work: it fails to liberate people. Also, despite its desire to listen to the voice of the people, liberation theology may actually be telling the people of their need for liberation while ignoring their expressed
45 Ibid., 47.
46 Ibid., 34.
26 desires for the older church habits of giving comfort, sustenance and guidance. 47 The failure of liberation theology to actually liberate people is due to a number of related aspects: liberation theology is not clear about its own social and political objectives, it does not adequately understand capitalism and so does not fully grasp the economic situation of Latin America; it has abandoned the historical projects that were the concrete expressions of liberating theology. 48 Additionally, protracted struggles within Roman Catholicism about the appropriateness of liberation theology have drawn energy away from external struggles. The end of the Soviet Union, which many viewed as the end of socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism, leaves liberation theology to continue to flounder in its articulation of concrete objectives. It cannot be said that liberation theology has accomplished nothing, however. Many small-scale victories, from running water to non-governmental organizations and successful political campaigns have their roots in base communities and liberation theology. 49 However, in the pursuit of conscientization and various community development activities, some leaders in the liberationist movement have neglected the spiritual needs that drew the people to the church in the first place. Nagels assessment is that, for Catholic laity both within and outside of the liberation movement much of the practice of liberation theology stumbled because it did not allow room for vital and deeply held beliefs about how God, J esus, Mary and the church were understood to work in peoples lives. Many who believed in and followed
47 Nagel, Claiming the Virgin, 160.
48 Tamayo, Reception of the Theology of Liberation, 48; Michael Novak, Will it liberate? Questions About Liberation Theology, (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 9; Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 11.
49 Nagel, Claiming the Virgin, 161.
27 the teachings of liberation theology felt that the movement focused too much on political activism at the expense of religious expression. 50
In the rejection of an old, Eurocentric elitism, liberation theology faces the new challenge of avoiding an elitism of the politically active that is insensitive to the needs of the mass of people it hopes to represent. 51
Liberation theology is born out of the desperation and hope of the Latin American people and the conviction that the God professed by Christianity is a God of life. It seeks to aid and engage the poor in their struggle for liberation, a liberation which is tangible and historical, but not reducible to any particular political or social revolution. Theologically, it seeks to unmask the structures of oppression and to announce the kingdom of God, a utopia free from oppression and death, as a reality that can be built in the present. Hermeneutics is likewise an activity committed to serving the poor by engaging in exegesis that is relevant to their needs and by making the historical-literal meaning of the Bible available to those who search for its liberative meaning today. The remainder of this paper will observe and analyze four specific instances of liberationist exegesis of the book of Revelation.
50 Ibid., 158-59.
51 Ignacio Ellacura, The Church of the Poor, Historical Sacrament of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 561.
28
Chapter Three Pablo Richards Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation.
Author and Audience Pablo Richard, originally from Chile, is a Professor at the National University of Costa Rica who has worked with religious community leaders from many parts of Latin America. His work, Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation was originally published in Spanish in 1994 (Editorial DEI), but I am reading the 1995 English translation (Orbis Books). I am not aware of any changes to the text for publication in English. Richard writes with two audiences in mind: first, those he calls pastoral agents. 1 These are the leaders and educators (both male and female) of the churches of Latin America, and second, for scholars and exegetes (2-3). The book demonstrates its commitment to scholarly audiences with its detailed exposition of fetish and idolatry in relation to Revelation 13. The section The Meaning of Revelation for Our Time, presumably directed toward his pastoral audience, is less than two pages long. However, although Richard does not directly address the contemporary situation of his audience in the rest of the book, he does dwell on pastoral concerns, such as the place of violence in Revelation (31-32, 123-24), or the need for a utopian vision (156-58). In addition,
1 Pablo Richard, Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 2.
29 Richard uses present in such a way that it means both the historical situation of J ohn, and also all of history between the resurrection of J esus and his thousand-year reign with the saints, including the present moment of Richards audience. Richards work is a commentary on Revelation. He suggests as the thesis of Revelation: The risen Christ leads the community in the present time in his confrontation with the monster, the beast, and the false prophet (170). The book begins with an introduction to Revelation. He introduces not only the literary genre, but first the apocalyptic strand of early Christianity and its function as an important corrective or counterpart to both Montanism and Hellenism. Richard also holds to the position (via Ksemann) that apocalyptic is the mother of Christian theology, in particular a theology that is historical, political, popular, eschatological, and opposed to an excessively Hellenized Greco-Latin theology (16-17, emphasis added). For Richard, the Apocalypse, and apocalyptic theology in general, is a theology that comes from the people, as opposed to the theology that is created by the elite minority who wished both to embrace Christianity and the political/social/economic benefits of participating in the Roman empire. The recovery of the popular, apocalyptic traditions of early Christianity is important to him as a corrective to overly rational, hierarchical, authoritarian elements of contemporary theologies. The overview of apocalypticism and apocalyptic literature is followed by seven chapters that correspond to the major divisions Richard finds in the apocalypse. Each begins with an outline of the structure of that portion of Revelation, and Keys for Interpretation which are comments on the sub-sections of the text Richard identifies.
30 Revelation is not primarily about the future coming of Christ, but about the resurrected Christ liberating the people from the oppressive Roman empire. This is because Richard understands the structure of Revelation in such a way that the majority of Revelation is given to analysis of the present (Rev.4:1-19:10), and the center of the book (Rev.14:1-5) is framed by events which recall the Exodus. Revelation does not narrate particular historical events (natural disasters, wars, etc.) (84-86). Instead, it is an analysis of the political situation of the empire, through the medium of mythic language, which reveals the judgment of God in the present. For example, of Rev.14:9-11 Richard writes, It is not the horrors of hell that are being described here (nowhere in Revelation is there such a description) but the horrors that one who adores the beast and his image and who accepts its mark has to undergo now in this life. the worshippers lose their subject quality, their identity, their spirituality. This is an internal suffering in Gods presence. (123-24)
Because J esus is alive, the reign of God and the new Exodus of the people have already begun. Therefore, the judgments of God on the oppressors have begun as well. Identifying the judgment of God with particular historical events (whether in the past, such as natural disasters, or in the future, such as torment in hell) leads to bizarre conclusions and textual manipulation (86). If, instead, the visions are understood as tools and criteria for a prophetic discernment of history, (4) they help the people to see Gods liberating activity throughout history. However, not all of Revelation is mythic in Richards interpretation. The first resurrection (Rev.20:4-6), which in Richards understanding is the event that inaugurates the reign of God on earth is a literal resurrection, just as J esuss resurrection is literal.
31 This reign of God with the faithful witnesses is an end to idolatry and oppression, but it is also a utopia, since it cannot be brought about by human means alone: The utopia of the thousand-year reign is a transcendent utopia: it is beyond all human possibility and feasibility and assumes that the parousia of J esus and bodily resurrection of the martyrs have taken place. The fact that this utopia is transcendent does not make it un-historical: the thousand-year reign is beyond the destruction of Babylon and the beasts and the defeat of Satan, but it is not beyond history; it takes place in history and is part of our history. (157)
Richard is explicitly rejecting both fundamentalist and spiritualizing interpretations of the thousand-year reign and instead claims his reading is closer to the J ewish apocalyptic understanding of the text. Fundamentalist readings misuse the logic of eschatology as a scientific instrument for predicting the end of the world, while spiritualizing interpretations deny the reality of the resurrection and reign of the martyrs. Richards reading, on the other hand, offers a realalthough humanly unattainablereign of Christ that provides hope and inspiration for the faithful and oppressed communities and all who struggle for justice.
Significant Pericopes and Characters Richard identifies the structure of Revelation as a chiasm which finds its center in 14:1-5. This episode, in which the Lamb and the 144,000 confront the beast, is also the center of the present time. In other words, the primary activity of the community in the present is to stand with the Lamb, undefiled (by idolatry, as Richards reads this passage), and engaged in worship, singing a hymn that is learned through resistance and through faith in the transcendent dimension of history (119).
32 Two other passages especially mark the present moment of the community. The present is the time between the sixth and seventh trumpet and the sixth and seventh bowls. (The trumpets and the bowls are parallel passages). Richard identifies the texts that fall between the sixth and seventh as the prophetic and anti-prophetic movements. In the first, Rev.10:1-11:13, J ohn is re-commissioned as a prophet, and the two witnesses, whom Richard describes as the prophetic church, offer their testimony and perform signs until their time is up. In the anti-prophetic movement (Rev.16:13-16), spirits from the mouths of the dragon, beast and false prophet perform equally miraculous signs and gather the kings of the earth against the people of God. In other words, the present moment is characterized by the conflict between the prophetic witness of the church and the foul spirits of the empire (94). The idolatry that Revelation condemns (also described by J ohn as fornication) is probably eating meat sacrificed to idols, usually through associations and guilds (53). But in a larger sense, this idolatry is linked to a pre-Gnostic tendency [prompted by] the need on the part of some Christians to modify Christianity so that they could participate in the economic, political, and social life of the empire (53). Idolatry is the greatest sin. It is not simply participation in cult rituals but glorification and fetishization of the empire, or anything else that rules at the expense of human dignity and personhood. Fetishization is a significant concept for Richard. He defines it several times throughout the book: Power, which is an object or tool in the hands of responsible human subjects, becomes subject; and the human subjects become objects, with no name, no power, no authority. Fetishizing power likewise means absolutizing it and turning it into an idol, and in the end turning it into an oppressive and criminal power (power becomes beast, Molech, Baal). (132)
33
Richards analysis of the worship of the beast is drawn indirectly from Marxs concept of commodity fetishism. For him, it is at the heart of all that Revelation warns its readers against. The character(s) in Revelation with which Richard wishes his audience to identify are variously called the holy ones, the people of God, the communities, the martyrs. They are the people who are faithful to Christ in standing against the idolatrous, oppressive empire. They are also those who are poor and oppressed by the empire. The holy ones should be poor because of their refusal to be implicated in the idolatry of the empire. It is for their wealth and complacency that the church of Laodicea is rebuked (Rev.3:14-22), and for their complicity with the empire that J ezebel (Rev.2:20-24), Balam (Rev.2:14), the Nicolatians (Rev.2:6, 15) and the synagogues of Satan (Rev.3:9) are to be avoided (53-54). Although the martyrs call out for justice for their own deaths, God punishes Rome for all of the deaths it has caused: Verse 24 is the most remarkable in all of chapter 18; it provides us with the ultimate proof that Rome has been found guilty: In her was found the blood of prophets [community leaders] and holy ones [the Christian community]; and all who have been slain on the earth. Revelation is concerned that justice be done not only for the blood of the members of the Christian community, but for all victims of the Roman empire. (137; brackets mine)
For this reason, it seems appropriate to name the holy ones with those others who have lost their lives on account of the oppression of the empire, regardless of whether oppression was directed at them because of their faith. This is because Richard describes the setting of Revelation not as a time of persecution of Christians, but a time of oppression for those Christians (and others) who were unwilling (or unable) to participate in the economic, political, or social life of the empire (23). Richard understands the good
34 news of the judgment of God not uniquely for the Christian community; rather, Revelation is wrath and punishment for the oppressors, but good news (gospel) for those excluded and oppressed by the empire of the beast (4).
Vision of the Future As mentioned above, the thousand-year reign of Christ is a utopian period within history, though it is outside the ability of humans to bring it about completely. This is not a second coming of Christ, since he is resurrected and present among the communities. The thousand-year reign is instead an end to suffering, oppression and sin within history. Richard articulates several movements of the future, of which the thousand-year reign is one. The first is the judgment against the beast and the false prophet, and the binding of Satan (Rev.19:19-20; 20:1-3). (It should be noted in this context that Satan is not an independent personality; rather, Satan is a mythic personification of the supernatural forces of evil, which are the historical accumulation of sin, personal as well as socialespecially the capacity of the human being to build idols (104). The imprisonment or destruction of Satan, then, is the removal of sin, oppression, idolatry, etc. from the world.) The judgment of Babylon (Rev.18:1-24) (the seventh bowl) and the rejoicing in heaven at the reign of God (the seventh trumpet, Rev.11:15-19) are also part of this first movement, the victory of God over sin and oppression, and the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ, which is the utopia of all those who struggle against the idolatry and oppression of empires in order to establish Gods reign on earth (156). Following the thousand-year reign is the judgment of Death and of the dead. The dead are judged not by their good ideas or intentions but rather by what they do; it is
35 orthopraxis that saves us, not orthodoxy (158). The Lambs book of life is also used at the judgment. It is a list of those who have made an option for life and for the God of life (159). Death, and the dead who are not found in the book of life are thrown into the pool of fire and sulfur. This is annihilation, and not eternal torment (123). Once Death has been destroyed, the new heaven and new earth, and the new J erusalem can arrive. This new cosmos is characterized by openness, equality, and life. Death, oppression and chaos are no more, and God makes freely available those things that sustain life. There is no temple in the new J erusalem, and all of the hierarchies the temple upheld are dissolved: Distinctions between holy and profane, priest and lay person, Christian and non- Christian likewise vanish. There are no hierarchies, no differentiations, no power elites, and no oppressed. That is why Gods glory can fill the whole city, and God can be all in all. (163, 166)
The city is immeasurably large, with gates which never close, and the tree of life is available for the healing of the nations. The new creation is not exclusively for Christians, but for all who have made an option for life. There is nothing outside of the reign of God and the Lamb: In short, heaven and earth are new and J erusalem is new, because life triumphs over death, order over chaos, and light over darkness within them; compassion is victorious over all wailing, crying and pain; and there is no longer any curse. What is transcended here is not matter or bodiliness, but death, chaos, darkness, suffering, the curse; heaven, earth and city remain; history continues, but now with death and the curse removed. (160)
This is the utopia of the poor. It is not a rejection of the corporeal world in favor of a transcendent liberation, but a rejection of death and oppression in favor of a world that makes life accessible for all.
36 Human Activity Revelation is neither passive nor violent, but advocates active non-violent resistance on the model of J esus. J esus is described in the opening benediction as the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev.1:5). Those who are also faithful witnesses will take part in the first resurrection and reign with J esus over the earth, so the activity encouraged for the community is to be faithful in their testimony, just as J esus was faithful. Richard explains that the Greek word witness also means martyr. To be a faithful martyr, one must be willing to uphold ones testimony even to the point of death, though being a martyr or witness does not necessarily imply a violent death (151). The community is to be faithful by continuing to resist and expose the idolatry of the empire (106-07). God is the one who brings about the judgments and liberation of the people in history, but, as Richard highlights, in parallel passages the community also brings about this judgment through its prophetic/martyrological activity. The two witnesses of Rev.11:3-13 represent the community of the faithful, and they call down the same kinds of plagues that accompany the seven trumpets and bowls (91). They are also responsible for the spiritual defeat of Satan (Rev.12:11): Revelation makes this spiritual power of the martyrs very clear. They are capable of casting the devil out of heaven, of stripping him of all his transcendent and spiritual power; they are capable of destroying the supernatural forces of evil, of destroying all idolatry and religious falsehood. (106)
However, witness is not the only activity expected of the communities. They are also called to anticipate the utopia of the thousand-year reign and the new creation. The purpose of apocalyptic literature, according to Richard, is to give courage and vision to
37 the communities so that they can create a new world in their situations of exclusion, oppression and/or persecution. Both the utopian vision of the thousand-year reign of the martyrs with Christ (life without idolatry and oppression) and the utopian vision of the new creation (life without death) are meant to guide human action and thinking in a particular direction in the present (157).
Method Richard draws on both the tools of historical-critical interpretation of the Bible and Marxs concept of commodity fetishism (through other liberationist authors) to write a commentary on Revelation. He is aware of the ways that understanding genre and allusion are necessary for understanding the text, but he also brings the parallels between idolatry and fetishism to bear on understanding how the Roman empire becomes beast. His exposition of chapter 13 is an unmasking of the power of the fetish of empire. Richard is sensitive to issues of class in his opening chapter on early Christian traditions, and also in his description of the crisis in Asia Minor that precipitated the writing of Revelation. He frequently draws parallels between the social situation of the communities of Revelation and the people of the Third World, without emphasis on their differences. Apocalyptic literature is, for him, primarily a liberating genre, concerned with destroying the dominant oppressive mythos through the introduction of an alternative mythos. These visions reorient the people to their social situation and encourage them to orthopraxis. This means not only endurance or hope for the coming end of the world, but also the building of the future [which] is what gives meaning to the present moment and to all of history. Moreover, this future can be advanced in the
38 community, which is the first fruit of that future (29). The idea that the future can be built or advanced in the present disagrees with the conclusions of many North Atlantic scholars that the rhetorical function of Revelation is internally-oriented. Richard argues that because J esus is present among the communities, in other words, because the resurrection has already begun in J esus, the eschatology of Revelation therefore is realized in the present time. it is possible to build the reign of God in history (171).
39
Chapter Four Carlos Mesterss The Hope of the People who Struggle: A Key to Reading the Apocalypse of St. John.
Author and Audience Carlos Mesters is a Dutch Carmelite priest who currently resides in Brazil. His work with Base Communities is well known. J ust before he published his work on Revelation, he was the author of a compilation of essays entitled Defenseless Flower: A New Reading of the Bible, which is a theory of hermeneutics for the base communities. His work on Revelation, The Hope of the People Who Struggle was first published in Portuguese in 1983. It was republished in 1994 in South Africa in an English translation, which the translator acknowledges is not literal, but rather tries to be faithful to the original while also maintaining the originals plain-spoken tone. The English edition is about the shape and size of a childrens book and makes use of formatting (bold or italicized fonts, headings, lists) to organize and present the information clearly. The writing style is simple and makes use of illustrations from everyday life to help the reader understand the function of some of the conventions of apocalyptic. In a brief 70 pages, Mesters offers to his readers not an entire commentary of the Apocalypse, but an introduction that will guide them in further study. This is in line with Mesterss overall perspective on the relationship of exegetes and clergy to the peoples reading of
40 the biblical texts: the destiny of the scientists, the exegetes, is not to impose an understanding of the Bible on the little ones or to shape or alter their vision of the biblical texts. Rather the exegetes are to be at the service of the poor and their vision of the Bible. 1 For this reason, Mesters spends less than half of the book commenting on Revelation itself, and much more time describing the historical setting and conventions of apocalyptic literature, and offering suggestions for study (16, 32-33). As the translator notes, the intended audience for this English edition is post- Apartheid South Africans. They continued to struggle against racism and other forms of oppression that still existed even though official Apartheid had ended (ix). Mesterss original Portuguese edition was likewise intended for communities in situations of oppression, and those in solidarity with the oppressed: Those who remain on the side of those who oppress and persecute the people will not be able to understand anything of J ohns message for us today (34).
Significant Pericopes and Characters Mesters describes the structure of Revelation as three movements, each of which repeat, with different emphasis, the same basic message (good news): The time is close! (9). These three sections are: the opening letters (Rev.1:1-3:22), God the Liberator (Rev.4:1-11:19), and the judgment of God against the oppressors (Rev.12:1- 22:21). For Mesters, the present is marked in the second section by the fifth seal, when the souls cry out from under the altar, and again in the third section by the description of
1 Carlos Mesters, The Hope of the People who Struggle: A Key to Reading the Apocalypse of St. John, trans. St. Dominics Solidarity Group ([Athlone, SA?]: Theology Exchange Programme in association with Cluster Publications, 1994), 19.
41 the beasts and the army of the lamb (Rev.13:1-14:5)in other words, the time just before the justice of God comes about (58-61). Mesters thinks that the core of Revelation, 4:1- 10:7 was written by J ohn for the Christians at the time of the persecution of Nero. A second persecution 2 under Domitian required further reflection, and the first and third sections were added by J ohn to produce a final form around 95. Throughout the book, Mesters continually points to themes of the Exodus in this work. For example, the title He who is, and was, and is to come, (Rev.1:4) repeated several times in Revelation itself, recalls the name Yahweh of the Exodus account, which Mesters describes as God-with-us. God the liberatorThe commitment which God made to remain with His people to the end in order to liberate them, is expressed in the name Yahweh (44; emphasis in original). The sealing of the 144,000 (Rev.7:1-17) is also understood as a parallel to the census in the desert after the Exodus (Num. 1:20-43) (48). Unlike North Atlantic scholarship, which often compares Revelation to its apocalyptic cousin in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel, and other apocalyptic texts, Mesters draws far more parallels between Revelation and the Exodus accounts in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Wisdom (Daniel is referenced 3 times, while the Exodus accounts are referenced 19 times). Most of these references to the Exodus occur in chapter six, in which the author comments on section two of his outline (God the Liberator, Revelation 4:1-11:19). However, Mesters references not only the Exodus, but other parts of the New Testament and Hebrew Bible as well, to explain allusions and lend support to his arguments. In fact, except for the second chapter, where Mesters gives an overview of the genre and structure of Revelation, he is in the habit of citing every
2 In 1983, when this book was originally published, official persecution under Domitian was the scholarly consensus concerning the setting of Revelation.
42 allusion to the text, so that you could check for yourself in the Apocalypse to see what I was saying (13). Mesters describes the setting of Revelation as a time when the churches of Asia Minor were facing active oppression under the reign of Domitian. The communities are marked by fear, weariness, doubt, despair, and persecution. Most of the communities are poor; the wealthier ones are complacent (6-7, 12). Mesters asks his audience to identify with the persecuted churches of Revelation 1-4 and with those who are persecuted by the law today (34), specifically when the persecutors are part of a regime whose organization is contrary to the Gospel (25).
Vision of the Future Unlike Richards emphasis on a literal first resurrection, Mesters thinks of it as a figurative resurrection: Their witness left a seed which resurrected in the Church and which now grows and spreads all over the world. This will last for a thousand years (Rev.20:4). The other dead do not participate in this first resurrection (Rev.20:5) because their lives were worth nothing and left no seed in the ground of the life of the people. (65)
The thousand years is also a figurative amount of time, the time between the end of the persecution of the empire until the end of the world (65). Although Mesters usually collapses the time between the biblical text and the situation of his audience, in this case he identifies the present time of the audience as the thousand-year reign. However, he moves through the final judgments of Babylon, the beast, the dead, Death and Satan and the thousand-year reign very quickly in favor of meditation on the vision of the new heaven and new earth.
43 Once Mesters gets to Rev.21:1, the pace of his comments slows down dramatically. A full four pages is devoted to this chapter of Revelation, more than any other chapter of Revelation in Mesterss book. The final eschatological visions of the new heaven and new earth are described as J ohns guesses about what the future will be like based on the peoples past with Goda new creation, a new covenant, a new organization of the people, etc. J ust as the allusions to the Hebrew Bible reveal that the God who was at work in the history of the people is at work today, so too, the final visions demonstrate that we can guess what the future will be like by looking at what God has done in the past (16, 20, 46, 48, 67). Mesters is careful to remind his readers that no-one knows anything about the end of time, except the Father (47, 65, 67). He describes the ideal social organization as fraternal and egalitarian (48, 68). This is characteristic of the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus, the early churches, the 144,000 virgins, and the new creation. The new creation is also a perfect balance of community and individuality, free from darkness, chaos, pain, death and persecution, with life available for everyone in the presence of God.
Human Activity The only characteristic of the new creation that begins in the present with human involvement, rather than awaiting Gods work at the new creation, is the fraternal and egalitarian social order. The communities of Revelation should focus on creating this fraternal, egalitarian society in the present, so that when God does judge the empire, the perfect society will be ready to be revealed. Their role is not to overthrow the empire,
44 but to remain faithful and undefiled by worship of false gods (that is, virgins). 3 Instead of wasting energy by directly fighting that power, they should put their efforts into preparing for the future, imitating the people of the Exodus of long ago (48). Mesters does not explicitly suggest that this is the course of action the present communities should take. It is, however, what characterizes the people of God at critical moments in their history. Mesters confronts the perception that Revelation encourages passivity early on in book: It is true that many people lean on the Apocalypse in order not to become involved. But this did not apply to the people of the communities in Asia. They had already been struggling for many years. Their problem was not how not to get involved but to find a way not to become discouraged in the struggle! (21). J ohn assumes that his audience is already involved in activity. The communities are faithfully resisting persecution under Domitian, and most of them are praised in the opening letters. The fact, then, that much of the activity in Revelation comes from heaven is encouragement to persevere: God is at work to end their suffering and has not forgotten about them. In addition to describing the activity of the communities of Revelation, Mesters also make suggestions for his audience in particular. These recommendations are meant to aid his audience in further study of Revelation, to discover for themselves its meaning
3 The 144,000 followers of the lamb are described as virgins, which Mesters interprets, they never followed the false gods of the Roman Empire (27). This equation of sexual activity with idolatry, which is found also in Richards work, is drawn from the opening letters of the Apocalypse, where meat sacrificed to idols and fornication are linked as the sins of Jezebel, and from the common use of fornication as a metaphor for idolatry in the writings of the Hebrew prophets. However, understanding sexual activity as idolatry is difficult in this particular passage because of its wording, It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins, (Rev 14:4). Idolatry as fornication usually involves a female character who is being unfaithful to the (male) Yahweh through liaisons with other deities (e.g., Hosea). The fact that these characters are male, and warriors, suggests celibacy as a community ideal, ritual purity of the military during war, misogyny, or some combination of these (Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 129; Thompson The Book of Revelation, 70).
45 for today. The people are encouraged to read the Bible and understand it on their own, instead of relying on clergy or scholars to explain it. Consulting a commentary, study Bible notes or other experts is one suggestion among many for understanding Revelation. Reading with others, in prayer, and with an openness to the work of the Holy Spirit (33) are important. The text of Revelation should be read as a whole before trying to interpret the details. The communities should interact not just with the text of Revelation, but try to understand how its visions draw on the Hebrew Bible and the life and religion of the churches of Asia Minor. Practice is also significant to understanding Revelation: the present-day communities should be in solidarity with the oppressed and put into practice whatever they learn from their study. Finally, no interpretation which produces fear or discouragement should be considered valid, since the purpose of the apocalyptic genre is to produce hope. While some of the interpretive guidelines Mesters sets out are particular to Revelation, for the most part what he establishes is a method for the base communities to use in any study of the Bible.
Method Mesters draws the readers attention to the tools of historical-critical study of the Bible. In his brief work, he devotes an entire chapter to the historical setting and genre of Revelation, and another chapter to the conventions of apocalyptic literature. The middle chapter is an overview of the structure of Revelation and recommendations for reading it. The final three chapters of the book are brief commentary on the three major divisions Mesters marks out in the text. The Hope of People who Struggle is an attempt to bring scientific exegesis and the reading of the people into communication with one another.
46 Without mutual guidance, each is in danger of losing its way. Popular interpretation, for lack of help from scientific exegesis, is in danger of slipping into subjectivism. The interpretation of exegesis, for lack of contact with life, is in danger of seizing up completely and getting lost in the meanderings of its own speculations. 4
Rather than using the vocabulary of contemporary biblical scholarship, Mesters uses metaphors or illustrations from everyday life to get at the significance of these concepts. This strategy is in response to Mesterss own observations about the needs of base communities: It can never be forgotten that most people in study groups are people not used to reading. They have difficulty reading. Most of them have only elementary schooling. 5 For example, one of the characteristics of the apocalyptic genre that Mesters discusses is that a portion of past history is presented as though it were in the future. 6
Mesters uses the example of a person on a bus at night asking the driver where the bus is. The driver in this example responds by telling the passenger what route the bus had taken, where the bus was at present, and how close the bus was to its destination. The Apocalypse is like the driver who helps the people of the communities to situate themselves on the long journey of Gods plan which takes place in the darkness of persecution. 7
Finally, Mesters seems to view his work as a facilitator. He is committed to popular interpretations of the Bible, although acknowledging the need for partnership with exegesis as a corrective to subjectivism. The Hope of People who Struggle, therefore, is not meant to be a comprehensive explication of the meaning of Revelation
4 Mesters, Defenseless Flower, 99.
5 Ibid., 84.
6 Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 18.
7 Mesters, The Hope of the People who Struggle, 29.
47 for the lives of his audience. Instead, he offers guidelines, introductory material, and direction for his audience toward avenues of further discovery within their communities.
48
Chapter Five J orge Pixleys Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American Perspective
Author and Audience J orge Pixley, who is a professor of Bible at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Nicaragua (he is himself an American Baptist), wrote his piece as a contribution to an edited volume on global perspectives on the Bible. For the volume, Return to Babel, the editors selected ten biblical texts and assigned three authors (one from Latin America, one from Africa, and one from Asia) to write essays on each text. Each author was asked to use a similar format in his or her essay: a discussion of those elements of his or her context which have the potential to provide fresh insight to the text, an engagement with the biblical text, and an engagement of the text and context. 1 No essay in the volume is longer than ten pages, and most average six or seven, so these essays are more suggestive than comprehensive. The organization and breadth of the book indicate that the audience is most likely students of contextual theology and biblical studies. Pixleys essay, therefore, is a meditation on the text selected for the volume, Rev. 21:1-22:5, following the parameters outlined above.
1 J ohn R. Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison, Introduction, in Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible, ed. J ohn. R Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison (Louisville: Westminster J ohn Knox Press, 1999), 3.
49 Although Pixley lives in Nicaragua, and has also taught in Puerto Rico and Mexico, the context he selects for his essay is Cuba, specifically the utopian vision that motivates the Cuban Revolution, which is the most important inspiration for the organization of popular movements in Latin America. 2 Pixley characterizes the utopian vision of the Cuban Revolution as one that strove to erase social differences and to reject imperialist domination. Cubas project was successful in working toward both of these goals until the end of the Soviet Union, which was Cubas primary trade partner. However, Cubas economic situation, as well as its utopian vision, is now in a state of crisis (201-2).
Significant Pericopes and Characters J ohns description of the city reveals as much about J ohns fears for the present as his hope for the future. Pixley focuses on a few key descriptions of the new heaven/new earth that are telling: first, unlike other utopian visions in the biblical texts (banquet, garden, pastoral landscape), J ohns utopia is urban (Rev.21:2). J ohn does not contrast the city of Babylon with a rural life, but with another city, one that has been purified. Anyone who might taint the purity of the city is excluded (Rev.21:8): both internal and external enemies, as well as women. Pixley understands J ohn to mean that celibacy is the preferred lifestyle for Christians when he says that the 144,000 are ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins (Rev.14:4); other authors in my study translate or interpret this passage to mean not defiled with idolatry of the empire,
2 J orge Pixley, Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American Perspective, in Return to Babel: Global perspectives on the Bible, ed. J ohn Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison, (Louisville, KY: Westminster J ohn Knox Press, 1999), 201.
50 pure of heart. This concern with purity/defilement is also reflected in the descriptions of the city, which is presented predominantly by geometric shapes and consists of minerals and precious stones (203). With the exception of the river of life and the tree of life, there is little that suggests the presence of living beings or the satisfaction of bodily needs (203). J ohns vision of the new heaven/new earth is also characterized by power: the eternal life consists in reign[ing] forever and ever (Rev. 22:5) with the Lamb, who has crushed the power of the beast, the prostitute, and Satan. Finally, Pixley characterizes J ohns utopia as alien. The city comes down to earth from God, which is notable because of the absence of any human participation in its arrival. Taken together, Pixley characterizes J ohns vision as a vision of a perfect society as dreamed by the prophet of a group that felt besieged from outside by the powers of the Roman Empire and betrayed from within by false brothers (and sisters, e.g., J ezebel) (203). J ohn is characterized as a prophet who found himself in exile, and in a political situation different than the one that had produced earlier visions for his communities (as found in the Synoptic Gospels). This new situation required a new vision of the future. Pixley urges his audience, like J ohn and those visionaries who inspired the shape of the Cuban revolution, to articulate a utopian vision that responds to their contemporary social situations in order to inspire action. However, the audience is also cautioned to avoid J ohns pitfalls and to think critically about the vision that he created, which Pixley criticizes for its defensive, impersonal, and passive character.
51 Vision of the Future In his reflection, Pixley compares the Cuban need to refashion their utopian vision in light of new historical situation with J ohns refashioning of the early Christian utopia for a new historical situation of conflict with the empire and within the community. Pixley does not identify a single vision of a new heaven and new earth that he would like his audience to adopt. Rather, he identifies a pattern of continual modification of utopian visions which are generated from particular contexts and require revision when new problems arise for the community. This is a necessary process for the survival and happiness of the community (204). He does suggest, however, some characteristics he hopes any new utopian vision for Cuba will possess: socialist, anti-imperial, adjusted to global economic realities, and possessing the human warmth that was lost to both J ohns vision and the older Cuban vision in their defensiveness (205).
Human Activity For Pixley, a groups utopian vision is an important motivator. Utopias are by definition models that exist nowhere and that cannot be literally realized. They are not historical projects that can guide historical and political action, but they are necessary to motivate and to inspire social action (203). In spite of the fact that utopias cannot exist, Pixley stresses the significance of utopian visions and the people who articulate them. Utopian visions are the ends which guide decision-making processes and the distribution of resources. New prophets are needed to advance new visions for the Cuban state and for other protest movements in Latin America, and they are needed each time a new social situation renders older visions nonviable. Implicit in Pixleys description of the
52 need for utopian visions is the idea that humans can or will engage in social action guided by the particular vision they hold.
Method Pixley approaches J ohns utopian vision with a hermeneutic of suspicion. Instead of beginning with the authority of the biblical texts and trying to understand what they mean for the community today, those who operate with a hermeneutic of suspicion begin with the community today. These interpreters read the Bible and question the authors motives and the influences of cultural, social and/or other factors on their writings, and then appropriate what is helpful for them in their contemporary struggles. They would argue that, rather than offering clever interpretive strategies so that the text really says something they wish it to say, they can reject those ideas they find in the Bible that are unhelpful or unethical. This is because inspiration resides not with the biblical authors, but among the community today. In another work on the kingdom of God, Pixley uses a similar approach, The Bible study we need must question our faith in the light of the strategic requirements of the struggle for life and freedom only the working people in their struggle for life will prove or disprove that the kingdom of God is good news for the poor. 3 The biblical texts bear the marks of the times and places in which they were written, and only insofar as the texts are used to provide aid in the struggle for liberation can faith in them be considered well placed. Pixley does not highlight any similarities between J ohns context and his own, other than that both Cubans and the Asian Churches are facing new situations in
3 Pixley, Gods Kingdom, 7.
53 confrontation with the empire of the day. The bridge that Pixley creates between the first audience and the contemporary audience is not a parallel social situation that allows the biblical author to speak with equal authority to both audiences (as it is for other authors in this study). Making use of the faith tradition without attention to differences in historical situations can lead to exegesis that justifies domination. 4 Pixley distinguishes J ohns theology from his activity. Although it is the subject of the Text section of his essay, the content of J ohns vision is not what Pixley commends to the contemporary audience. Instead, Pixley encourages imitation of J ohns actioncasting a new vision for a community in new circumstances. In this way, Revelation continues to stand as an example for the contemporary struggle for liberation even though its visions may not be particularly relevant.
4 Ibid., 47.
54
Chapter Six J usto L. Gonzlezs For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict
Author and Audience J usto Gonzlez, a Cuban-American Methodist, is a retired professor of church history. At the time of this books publication, he had written several other works on Revelation and lectured throughout the United States and Puerto Rico at theological schools and seminaries. Gonzlez has also published works on Hispanic Theology. The intended audience for this work seems to be pastoral workers and lay people in the United States, both non-Hispanic and Hispanic. It was originally published in English in 1999 (Maryknoll), and was subsequently published in a Spanish edition in 2005 (Editorial Mundo Hispano). In the first chapter, Garlic Wars? Culture and Conflict in the 21 st Century, Gonzlez has a dialogue with a friend about the smell of garlic in the friends church. The garlic smell is due to the English-speaking congregations recent accommodation of a Spanish-speaking congregation in the same building. The smell of garlic in the shared space, pleasant to Gonzlez but unpleasant to his friend, becomes a metaphor for the
55 conflicts that occur when people of many cultures come into contact. 1 Cultural conflict, both inside and outside of the Church, and what Revelation has to say to these situations of conflict, is the theme of the book. The book unpacks the various layers of cultural conflict that make up the context for reading Revelation: in our present world, in the Roman empire, in the early church, and for J ohn himself. Gonzlez then shows how Revelation responds to these conflicts by concentrating on the phrase every tribe and language and people and nation in its various contexts, both positive and negative, throughout Revelation (5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15).
Significant Pericopes and Characters This work is not a full commentary on the book of Revelation. Besides its focus on the phrase nation, tribe, language, and people, Gonzlez draws from Revelation and other New Testament documents (as well as other primary texts) to develop the background to Revelation. Chapter 6, vv. 34 (the second seal) and 13:1-10 (the beast from the sea) are examples of other passages from Revelation that Gonzlez uses to demonstrate the conflict inherent in J ohns cultural setting. The setting of Revelation is not just conflict with the Roman empire, however; there is also conflict within the early church. Hellenized J ews, more traditional J ews, and gentiles were all drawn to Christianity. Dispute over what and how much of J ewish culture to incorporate into the Christian movement, and how to allocate power and resources are recorded in the New Testament (1 Cor 9:20-23; Gal 2:14; Acts). And yet, Gonzlez concludes, rather than shying away from intercultural conflict, Christianity thrived precisely at those edges
1 J usto L. Gonzlez, For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 2.
56 where conflict was inevitable (53). Next, Gonzlez draws out the culture of J ohn himself: it is likely, from the myriad of references to the Hebrew Bible and the construction of his Greek, that J ohn is a Palestinian J ew. As such J ohn is part of the dominant culture of the church. But because J ohn is living in Asia Minor and writing in Greek, J ohn also has the experience of being an immigrant and a minority. After establishing the environment out of which Revelation was written, Gonzlez enters into a discussion of the every tribe, nation, language and people passages. The first he deals with is Rev.14:6-7. The angel announces the gospel to all people, showing that the many cultures are part of Gods plan and not just an accident. However, even the angel meets limited success, which puts into perspective the ministries of human evangelists. After this, Gonzlez discusses the passages in which tribes/ languages/ nations/ peoples relate to the empire (Rev.13:7; 17:15). Here he describes the dangers of romanticizing cultures and multiculturalism. These are: ignoring the sins of ones own culture, believing cultures are stable when in fact they are always changing, and overlooking the political and economic context of ones culture (78-80). Gonzlez concludes this chapter with a discussion of 10:11, the small scroll. Gonzlez compares Rev.10:11 to a similar episode in Ezekiel (Ezek. 2:8-3:3). In Ezekiel, however, the scroll eaten by the prophet does not turn his stomach sour. Gonzlez locates the difference in the command issued to J ohn after he eats the scroll: You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings (10:11). That is, the difficulty for J ohn is returning to his congregations and reminding them that they are but one among many cultures that God is forming into a kingdom (90). Gonzlez goes on in his final chapter to discuss the scenes (Rev. 5:9; 7:9) in which the
57 tribes, nations, peoples and languages are engaged in heavenly worship and how the church today should begin to participate in this future plan of God. Since this worship takes place in heaven, I will discuss it in my next section. The key to Gonzlezs argument, though, is the vision of the small scroll and the claim that multiculturalism in the church is both a sweet message of Gods mercy for all people and a bitter realization that ones own culture is not a superior recipient of that message. As may already be apparent, the character with which Gonzlez asks his readers to identify is J ohn. The communities to which J ohn writes are seldom mentioned in Gonzlezs book. J ohn is characterized as a member of the dominant culture within the church, and as an immigrant to Asia Minor. This twofold identification allows Gonzlez to use J ohn to speak to both the dominant culture and minority cultures in the churches today about each other. To the minority cultures, J ohn speaks from the dominant culture about love for ones culture and the difficulty of acknowledging that it is not superior (57, 91). To the dominant culture, J ohn speaks for minority groups and other outsiders about the churchs accommodation to its cultural surroundings and the underside of that culture (62-64). J ohn, therefore, makes an excellent protagonist for a book written to the churches of the United States, where cultural segregation in the churches is more common than oppression of Christians or the poverty of Latin America.
Vision of the Future Gonzlez writes about heaven or the future, rather than specifically about the new heavens and new earth of Rev.21:1-22:5. The portrait of the future heaven that he draws is from Rev. 5:6-14 and 7:7-19, both of which he quotes in full. Both passages are
58 scenes of worship before the throne of God in which people of many cultures in uncountable numbers are present as the kingdom and priests of God. He stresses that this future will be a multicultural future characterized by communal worship of God. It is for this reason that the church must begin to be multicultural now. This multiculturalism is not a blend of all cultures into one, or an assimilation of minority individuals into the dominant culture. Instead, multiculturalism exists when people are deeply rooted in their own cultures traditions, aware of both the positive and the negative, and can then appreciate the traditions of others. The future is also a city, the new J erusalem, in contrast to the city of Rome. Unlike Rome, where the nations, tribes, peoples and languages were subject to the empire for its benefit, the new J erusalem is a city open to all, where all are honored as priests and reign with the Lamb, and where death and pain are no more (112).
Human Activity The vision of the future toward which history is moving gives perspective on and meaning to present events. Gonzlez distinguishes between efficient cause and teleological cause. J ohns vision of the future is a teleological cause, an end or purpose toward which God is drawing history. It is revealed as a guide for the activity of the church in the present, in much the same way that I turn onto a particular street when driving because I know that street will take me to my desired destination (100). The church should therefore act in a manner consistent with the future vision of the reign of God both to provide a sound base for communicating the good news, and so that, when the reign of God does begin, the church will feel at home in this reign. In an
59 age of cultural conflict (as Gonzlez characterizes the present in his first chapter), if the church is a people that embraces and flourishes because of the meeting of cultures, it will be an example and source of hope to the rest of the conflict-ridden world. He suggests that this was the reality of the church in its first centuries, and an example which the church should follow today. Gonzlez urges two particular actions: first, humility, which is the recognition that ones own culture and cultural manifestation of Christianity are one among many. Secondly, worship, which is an act of justice, and of preparation for and proclamation of the reign of God. It is an act of justice because it requires that humans be in proper relationship to other humans and to God (109). The prophets declare that worship without justice to other humans is idolatry, because it is worship to a God other than the God of justice presented in the biblical accounts. Worship is also an act of proclamation and preparation because it anticipates the future in which every tribe, nation, language and people will worship God. Gonzlez warns that if the church does not anticipate the reign of God in the present through its worship (justice, proclamation, activity), it shall be rather uncomfortable when the Reign does come! (106).
Method Gonzlez describes his work as a multicultural reading of the book of Revelationor rather, a reading of our multicultural situation through the lens of the book of Revelation (95). There is an express desire to connect the text of Revelation to the contemporary social situation of the audience. Gonzlez accomplishes this by drawing parallels between J ohns setting and the setting of his audience in order to employ the authority of the early church and scripture to elicit a similar response from the
60 contemporary church. He wants his readers to understand not just the Bible itself, but understand how the biblical texts relate to their context in order to persuade his audience to relate to its context in a similar way. Indeed, the underlying premise of this entire book is that by looking at the cultural issues underlying the book of Revelation we may come to see its deep significance for our age" (21). In this work, Gonzlez does not interact with the book of Revelation as a whole. Although the author and setting of the work feature prominently in For the Healing of the Nations, many other questions that full expositions of Revelation usually deal with are mentioned only briefly, if at all, such as apocalyptic genre: e.g., the plagues and many of the eschatological judgments. Gonzlez has dealt with these issues in other works on Revelation (e.g., Gonzlez and Gonzlez 1997). This particular work features instead one aspect of J ohns visions that Gonzlez believes is relevant for the churches of the United States today. This allows Gonzlez to avoid some controversial questions that might alienate his pastoral audiences and which are of less concern to him (premillennialism might be an example) in order to deal with another controversial issue, multiculturalism.
61
Chapter Seven Analysis and Conclusions
As I have shown in my second chapter, the liberation of the poor and oppressed is of utmost concern to liberation theology. Theology and hermeneutics both reflect this priority. Springing from this concern for the poor is an attention to the ways in which context influences all theology and hermeneutics. From this concern also comes an emphasis on the practical outworking of the two disciplines: both theology and exegesis should be at the service of the poor in their struggle for liberation. My thesis is that liberation theologys orientation toward both praxis and the significance of the social situation of the reader lead exegetes toward the use of methods that emphasize the importance of understanding the (historical) social situation of the text (Revelation), and produce exegesis that articulates a vision of the ideal (liberated) future and suggests how the contemporary audience should go about attaining that vision. Liberationist readings of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way that they do not ignore the past or future, but rather find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present. Liberationist exegetes do not read Revelation looking for signs of the immanent end of the world that will bring an end to the suffering of the people. None of the works on Revelation by liberationists I read understood Revelation as an emotional experience
62 of the future world that denied responsibility for activity in the present. All of the liberationist readings sought interaction with the world in order to enact the Kingdom of God in the present, if only within their communities. The great battle of Revelation 19 and the repeated plagues that God unleashes upon the wicked, in combination with the dualistic distinction between the holy ones and the wicked did not lead to a justification for violent action against those perceived as the communitys enemies/the enemies of God. In fact, none of these authors advocates violence in his writing. Richard calls the violence of Revelation cathartic, following Collins, while Mesters notes the absence of any actual fighting in Revelation 19. Gonzlez is interested in cultural reconciliation, while Pixleys main concern is vision casting and he is hopeful for a softening of the defensiveness that anti-imperialism created in both J ohns and Cubas utopias. The struggle of the poor for their liberation is not an armed struggle, but neither is it a passive acceptance of the corrupt present until the just future is ushered in by God. It is instead a political and ideological struggle to understand the nature of their oppression and work together to overcome it. Significant to building the kingdom of God in the present is an understanding of the nature of oppressive structures. J ust as J ohn reoriented his audience to the meaning and importance of their social situation, liberationist exegetes of Revelation work with J ohn to understand the demonic powers behind their own contexts. What my selection of texts does not illustrate well is the prevalence of this theme of un-concealing the structures of oppression in liberationist exegesis of Revelation. As we have seen, Richards work is the only one that relies significantly on Marxist analysis of the text, which he uses in his discussion of fetish and idolatry in Revelation 13. Pixley has made
63 use of Marxist analysis in other works, but does not do so in his essay on Revelation. Mesters and Gonzlez do not seem to draw much on Marxism in their works. A brief examination of two further readings of the Apocalypse will illustrate how liberationist exegetes interpret Revelation to disclose the power structures of their own situations. In the article, Apocalyptic and the Economy: A Reading of Revelation 18 from the Experience of Economic Exclusion, Nstor Mguez makes use of an analysis of semiotic codes to demonstrate the antagonistic relationship between wealth and justice in Revelation 18. 1 Instrumental logic, which pursues profit at the expense of justice, destroys human life, and, in the end, itself. 2 This is true not just of Rome/Babylon, but whatever system enthrones the marketplace, elevating it to the status of a god and giving it the power to decide who lives and who dies. 3 Mguez concludes that only through an alternative logic, one that rests on the justice of God, can human dignity be achieved. 4
Dagoberto Ramrez Fernndez, in an interpretation of the same passage, reveals how the greatness and security of the empire are achieved through an all-encompassing, monopolizing economic and political project which gave other lesser states and colonies a share in this wealth but did so at the expense of poor peasants and slaves. 5
Third World countries, under the pressure of immense international debt, find their poor
1 Nstor Mguez, Apocalyptic and the Economy: A Reading of Revelation 18 from the Experience of Economic Exclusion, in Social location and biblical interpretation in global perspective. Vol. 2 of Reading from this place, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 257.
2 Ibid., 262.
3 Ibid., 261.
4 Ibid., 262.
5 Dagoberto Ramrez Fernndez, The J udgment of God on the Multinationals: Revelation 18, in Subversive Scriptures: Revolutionary Readings of the Christian Bible in Latin America ed. and trans. Leif E. Vaage (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 86.
64 as vulnerable as the poor of the states and colonies of the Roman empire. Participation in this system is considered idolatrous worship and merits the judgment of God. 6
Richards exposition of Revelation 13 is likewise an act of revealing the beastly and idolatrous character of empire, misused authority and money. 7
Another commonality among the liberationist readings of Revelation is an emphasis on the social setting of Revelation and its correspondence in some way to the social setting of the present. Schssler Fiorenza characterizes this as a typological approach to Revelation. 8 While an emphasis on the social setting of a text is a common feature in scholarly exegesis, explicit awareness of similarities to the social situation of the exegete is not. All of the liberationist works on Revelation placed it in its first century context as a writing of protest against the Roman empire. Gonzlez sees affinities between the cultural conflict of the first and twentieth centuries. Mesters writes of persecution, weariness, and fear, as commonalities between the churches of Revelation and the churches of today. For Pixley, both J ohn and the Cuban people stand at a moment when the old utopia no longer meets the needs of the situation in which they find themselves, and a new vision is needed. Richard identifies the social situation out of which Revelation arose as one of exclusion, which is also characteristic for many in the Third World today. Liberation theology is attentive to the ways in which theology grows out of the context of the author; neither liberation theology nor the Apocalypse of J ohn was written in a vacuum. Mesters also acknowledges the subjectivism into which the
6 Ibid., 95.
7 Richard, Apocalypse, 113ff.
8 Scussler Fiorenza, Revelation, 11.
65 peoples study of the Bible can fall if it is not informed by the findings of scientific exegesis. 9 However, reading the Bible is not, for liberation theology, an objective exercise. It is a reading committed to the liberation of the poor, one which views the Bible not as a text bound to the distant past, but one which can serve as an interpretive lens or mirror in which to view the present. 10 Therefore, reflection on both the past and the present are necessary for an adequate reading of the biblical texts. Committed readings are not new to hermeneutics, neither are readings which seek a meaning for today in the Bible. Pastors often draw parallels between the historical situation of the text and the lives of the congregation. What is distinctive about liberation theologys approach is that its reading is not in service of a vision of spiritual maturity or better Christians, but liberation of the oppressed. A conviction that the poor can and should be liberated, and that the Christian faith and the biblical texts offer a divine ally in [the] struggle, 11 are the underlying assumptions of liberationist hermeneutics. Finally, liberation theology places an emphasis on the future as a guide for action in the present. This theme is understated in some accounts and more prominent in others, but in the liberationist works on Revelation I have read each points in some way to the future or vision that J ohn writes to his communities as a resource for alternative ways of living in the present. In Richards work, the utopian vision of heaven occurs within history even though it cannot be brought about by human means alone. However, the presence of the resurrected J esus in the midst of the communities means that they can
9 Richard, Defenseless Flower, 102.
10 Gorgulho, Biblical Hermeneutics, 124.
11 Pixley, Gods Kingdom, 105.
66 begin to build the reign of God in the present. The present is also characterized by a sense of exodus. Gods judgment of oppressor is not an event that occurs at the end of time, but one that is happening in history, as God is continually at work on behalf of Gods people. For Mesters, the future, like many moments in the past history of the people of God, is characterized as fraternal and egalitarian. The people of the present are encouraged to live out those qualities in the present as they await the liberation that God will bring. Likewise, in Gonzlezs work, the fact that the future is characterized by multicultural worship is a reason to move toward appreciation of and openness to other cultures. Finally, for Pixley, the utopian vision is intimately bound up with the peoples action. This is why new visions that take into account changing circumstances must be brought forth to guide the social action of the present. Each author is fundamentally interested in the liberation of the people; that is, each author is not interested just in interpretation for its own sake, but in how that interpretation will be meaningful for the audience to which he writes. This is in response to the liberationist hermeneutic, which establishes as the final task of exegesis to use its knowledge, no longer as something which is an end in itself, but as a real service to the people. 12
This study is, by its nature, limited. It deals with the published works of learned exegetes. It can tell us much about how scholars think the Apocalypse should be interpreted in order to aid in the liberation of the people, but little about what the people actually find in Revelation that helps or hinders them in their struggle. It also reveals nothing of how or if the people interact with exegetes understandings of Revelation.
12 Mesters, Defenseless Flower, 103.
67 This study is also limited geographically. While Latin America may have been the progenitor of liberation theology as such, liberation theologies are now found around the world. The inclusion of J usto Gonzlezs work only begins to explore the variety of liberationist readings of Revelation that have been produced through the books encounters with other contexts. Further research could illuminate the likeness and diversity in methods used by other theologies of liberation in their approaches to the Bible. If the Bible in particular (and religion in general) can be a source of liberation and not just a tool of oppression, it is important to know what circumstances make these liberating perspectives possible.
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