Craig R. Koester offers both a theologically vibrant and pastorally applicable presentation of Revelation in his book Revelation and the End of All Things.  Koester is professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.

I was trained in what has become a theologically obnoxious and pastorally irrelevant view of the enigmatic apocalypse of John–the Book of Revelation.  I was baptized into the dispensational apocalyptic visions of Revelation as a new, Junior High School believer.  U Thant of the U.N. was then promoted to be the anti-Christ, and so was Martin Luther King, Jr. and so was J.F.K. and lately so was Saddam Hussein.  I was led into the insider knowledge about “the secret rapture” and scared by visions of “the beast” and the dreaded “mark of the beast.” The Great Tribulation would be a ghastly time on earth, but Jesus would beam the insiders up before it happened, thus saving us not only from horses of death, bowls and trumpets of wrath, but from the Great White Throne judgment.

I was taught that when John wrote the Book of Revelation he was clueless about its meaning. It had nothing to do with him or with events in his day. Imagine this:  Someone asks John, “John, what are you writing about?” John replies, “I absolutely have no idea.” For example, if John saw locusts, we insiders saw military helicopters. Revelation was a coded message and John Nelson Darby helped break the code.  (Darby was influenced by a young woman who went into an ecstatic trance.)  We were always on the look out for “the ashes of a red heifer” so that Israel (the nation) could rebuild and dedicate a Temple on the Temple Mount. Oops! The Mosque of Omar/ the Dome of the Rock  is there. The Arabs are going to get really, really mad. After years of this ouija board approach, I became allergic to the Book of Revelation.  Eschatology was sadly reduced to an “end times” chart.

Koester gives the Book of Revelation back to me. I enjoyed the way Koester unfolds the inner logic of the Book of Revelation.  From the opening “revelation” to the final “Amen,” Koester presents the brilliant tapestry and interlocking pattern of Revelation. With insights into the conditions and challenges of churches of Asia Minor, Koester unfolds how chapters 4 – 22 address those current realities in John’s day (and those realities as they reoccur in the history of the church until today). It was so refreshing to drink the truth that Revelation was very meaningful to John and to the seven churches of Asia Minor, and thus, with an enduring message to churches all through church history.  The wild speculations I was subjected to within 1950s to 1990s dispensationalism give way to a “way of seeing” Revelation as pastorally- intensive, historically-conditioned, enduringly-applicable for all the church through all time.  John the author was sharp, creative and pastorally-driven to keep the church loyal to Jesus as Lord in times of compromise and oppression no matter when in history those times occur.

Revelation is not an “end times” book; it is an “all times” book. Amen!

Popularity: 3% [?]

One Pastor’s Eye on The Book of Eli

By John W. Frye

[This review was posted on Jesus Creed hosted by Dr. Scot McKnight.]

Who would have imagined a 21^st century movie made about The King James Version of the Bible? Denzel Washington’s The Book of Eli puts the 1611 Bible dead center in the story. The tag line of the film: “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.” This is a “battle for the Bible” like I have never seen. Having seen the film [spoiler alert], I am trying to find a way to synchronize its message with anything in the Bible.

Should we be glad a man named Eli (means “my God”) risks his life and slaughters many people in order to get the only surviving Bible to a printing press so that others can have access to it? The story opens 30 years after a global, nuclear holocaust; a holocaust sparked by warring religions. Survivors are living in the grim, chaotic and violent remains of civilization. Values are altered so that KFC wet wipes are exchanged as currency and water is extremely scarce. Eli (played by Denzel Washington) is “a walker” who is commissioned by “a voice” to head west to deliver the literary treasure in his possession. In the story, Eli is the good, yet stunningly violent guy. The Christian Science Monitor review labels Eli “a pacifist warrior” meaning that Eli is a peaceful man unless provoked. Eli’s nemesis is Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman) who is collecting books in his desperate search of copy of the Bible. Carnegie, the bad guy, wants the Bible because he believes he can use it to keep ignorant, bewildered people in sheep-like submission to his power. Carnegie seeks to capture the Bible faithfully carried and zealously protected by Eli. With Carnegie and Eli, we are presented with a post-apocalyptic Satan and a very uncharacteristic, gun-slinging, knife-wielding Messiah. Is The Book of Eli a postmodern, cinematic Pilgrim’s Progress? I don’t think so.

As a viewer I got caught in the story, eager for Eli to fulfill his quest with “the book” and fearful that Carnegie would succeed in his evil pursuit to seize “the book.” Because this film is about the Bible, it is not like Frodo trying to get the (one) ring to the Cracks of Doom. Eli and Carnegie are human beings who, for different reasons, are obsessed with the Bible. If Eli is a metaphor for a committed person who is willing to die for the Bible, then I would rest easy. But Eli convincingly demonstrates that “he will kill to protect it.”

As a pastor, I have questions. Can a Christian person be a pacifist until provoked and then become a killing machine? Does walking by faith and not by sight have room to use keen hearing to kill the enemies of “the book”? Eli is blind. There is a telling line in the movie when Eli confesses that he spent his life protecting the Bible only to realize that he must live its message: to treat others as he wants to be treated. This confession comes after massive bloodshed from his killing expertise.

The Golden Rule? That’s it? Eli is protecting the Golden Rule? This is where I felt the let down. The passion for the story evaporated.  That, and the ending when the newly printed Alcatraz edition of the King James Version is placed next to the Koran. I wonder if Denzel, a professing committed Christian, really wanted this ending or was it the Hollywood, politically-correct thing to include? Or, is The Book of Eli sending a contemporary message to those who terrorize others in the name of Allah that they, too, will be terrorized by those who love the God of the KJV? I don’t know and I hope not.

The Bible is not about the Golden Rule. The Bible presents not a rule, but a Person—the Prince of Peace. The Bible does offer a love like no human love and that love has a name: Jesus the Christ. The closest the movie comes to any relationality about the God of the Christian faith is when Eli recites the opening verses from Psalm 23 to Solara, a young female devotee of Eli’s.

I wrote a novella titled Out of Print: A Novel. In this story, there are no Bibles except for what has been memorized by people. Scot McKnight wrote the Afterword for the book. Out of Print and The Book of Eli have a similar aim: to give the Bible its rightful place in the world. But the two stories are poles apart. For whatever reason if you like The Book of Eli, I invite you to read Out of Print. Eli’s line fits my story and the evangelical church’s story. Have we been so zealous to protect the Bible that we have failed to live its God-incarnate, God-inspired message? Out of Print suggests that the church not only has a Bible, the church is the Bible to a watching world one button away from the apocalypse.

Popularity: 4% [?]

AIRPORT THEOLOGY

I wrote the following reflections on my way to Ukraine. This was on Tuesday morning, September 22, 2009.

I am sitting at a table for two by the railing on the second floor in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, eating my McDonald’s breakfast (typical American that I am). I look down and I see a pretty little girl, maybe four years old, walking in the light of a spotlighted advertisement for the perfume/cosmetic shop close by. The store proudly beamed their name and specialties onto the floor with a moving spotlight mounted in the ceiling of the airport’s wide walk-way. The little girl would walk into the light that was moving around on the floor. She would be in the light and then out of the light. Her fun-filled task was to chase the light and stay in the middle of it as it moved.

Chewing on a tasty bite of egg mcmuffin, I thought, “The little girl is walking in the light.” Now for us more theologically- and pastorally-minded, my thought had a familiar Johannine ring to it. (Johannine simply means things written by the Apostle of Love: John).  “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” is in John’s first letter. I have known this phrase—“walk in the light”—for many years; I even translated it from the Greek as a student at Moody Bible Institute. For some odd reason I have always considered the light to be static, stationary. It never crossed my mind that the light might be moving. But watching that little girl in the Amsterdam airport, it hit me in a startling way–-the light moves! Even in the rest of 1 John 1, we are immediately introduced to Jesus–the Light–and believe me, he moved! Jesus was a walking-around kind of teacher. The disciples were invited, “Follow me!” Jesus was (and is) on the move. For the disciples to walk in the light, they had to tag along with Jesus in Galilee, Perea, Samaria and Judea, and even over into Decapolis if they wanted to stay in the light.

An older Deliriou5 song states, “We can see God that you’re moving…” God moves, and God is light. How many of us just want to stand still or lie on the couch or sit in the pew and pretend we are walking in the light? God is not like a street lamp riveted in one spot. God is more like a comet, a shooting star, on the move. One of the favorite New Testament words for the Christian life is “walk.” It implies movement, energy, travel to a destination. “Those who claim to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).

As I continue to watch, the mother finally calls the little girl. It was time for them to move on, so she skips away from her play with the moving light. I sip my coffee pondering how an advertisement for a perfume and cosmetics shop can be transformed into sacred text blowing out the edges of my thinking. In the hymn “This is My Father’s World” we sing, “In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere…” I found it to be true in Schiphol airport in a McDonald’s.

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Like many holidays, Valentine’s Day is arrayed with a myriad of stories and legends.*  Several St. Valentines did live in the early centuries of the church. One set of stories tells of Valentine’s arrest under the Roman Emperor Claudius who tried to persuade Valentine to renounce Christianity and take up Roman pagan religion. Valentine did not obey and, in fact, tried to convince the Emperor to become a Christian. Claudius was upset by Valentine’s refusal to retract his faith in Jesus and had Valentine jailed and killed.

Where does romantic love come in? Another slant on the Valentine-Claudius story is that Claudius wanted an army of single men, thinking that single men made better soldiers. The priest, Valentine, performed secret weddings for the young men who wanted to have wives. Claudius heard about these clandestine weddings and had Valentine arrested. While in jail, he healed the jailor’s daughter. As the story goes, on the eve of his execution Valentine wrote a “valentine” to his beloved, believed to be the young lady he healed. He wrote, “From your Valentine.”

As you can guess, stories like this snowball through history growing larger and more elaborate. Chaucer mentions Valentine’s Day as does Ophelia in Hamlet (Shakespeare).

In 1797 a British publisher began to publish verse for young men to give or read to their sweethearts. In the U.S.A., Esther Howland of Worchester, Massachusetts in 1847 began publishing lacey, decorated cards to be given on Valentine’s Day. Now only Christmas cards beat out the billions of Valentine’s Day cards bought and given sent each year.

If a kernel of truth is in the legend behind St. Valentine’s Day, we, as followers of Jesus, rejoice that St. Valentine did not surrender his faith as Emperor Claudius required. Instead, Valentine stayed courageously true, even trying to convince Claudius to become a Christian. For all its association with romantic love—with red roses and dark chocolates and sometimes profound, sometimes cheesy poetry—behind Valentine’s Day is a deep, committed love to Jesus Christ. God’s amazing love for us through his Son, Jesus Christ, gives meaning and endurance to any and all other loves in our lives.  This year in the flurry of over a billion Valentine’s Day cards, don’t forget the saint who refused to buckle to imperial power. At the cost of his life, he gave us St. Valentine’s Day. He laid down his life for Jesus. From the cross, Jesus asks, “Will you be my Valentine?”

*Note:  Some information collected from Wikipedia

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Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight posted a young doubter’s struggles. Scot invited Jesus Creeders to offer sensitive counsel and Scot, then, posted his own response to the young leader. In light of this, note the “Great Commission” text below:

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Some disciples worshipped. Some doubted. All were commissioned to make disciples.

Doubters have their place in announcing and practicing the unexpectedly loving reign of God. Old, stale thinking pitted doubt against faith (as Scot McKnight points out). More discerning thinking sees doubt as an ally to faith.

A skewed triumphalist Christianity erased doubt as a legitimate aspect of the Christian journey. In its heated sense of victory, it boiled doubt away as some sort of sin. As a matter of fact, a serious sin: unbelief. This only caused doubters to go underground and live with the agony in their souls. Who wants to be branded a pagan unbeliever in the tight-assed evangelical community? Those who live constipated Christian lives don’t want any uncertainty to be voiced at all…ever.  They don’t really trust in the Christ of the cross and resurrection; they trust a system of belief that keeps their tidy little self-centered worlds together.

This is the time for doubters to arise. Take your place in the Great Commission task of the church. Voice your doubts. Ask your questions. Carry your honest inquiries into the communities where you live.

For God’s sake, doubters, upset the apple cart!

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The following review of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue: An American Life is by Julie A. Frye, my fantastic wife. I am glad to have Julie join me at “Jesus the Radical Pastor.”

When Sarah Palin was introduced to the 2008 political scene, I was instantly curious to know more about her.  I followed the news stories on TV, the Internet and the press enjoying the fresh and vibrant woman presented to us.  When the campaign came to Michigan, my friends and I sat close in the town hall meeting as we listened to her ideas and plans for the future of our country.  She was a delight to watch and to hear.

We all know how the campaign “turned” and I was saddened that I wouldn’t see Sarah put into practice her America-loving ideas and plans.

When her book Going Rogue: An American Life came out and she announced that she would return to Michigan for her first book signing, I decided I needed to buy the book and hopefully get a signature and handshake from Sarah.  Unfortunately I didn’t get either, but I had fun waiting in line, chatting with others and quickly getting a glimpse of her as she left the building.

I just completed reading the book and she once again has ignited my curiosity and satisfied my questions about the campaign.  I love the initial chapters detailing her childhood and early years growing up in Alaska.  Moving on to her political life as mayor and governor, the chapters painted a story of endurance, ability and love of country.  I was apprehensive to read about the campaign, as reviewers were accusing her of being “whiny,” avenging the horrid treatment she received on the campaign tour.    Some who supported her were accusing her of tearing down those who put her in the spotlight.

Instead I read the account of a liberal community destroying a woman who carefully balanced her family and her politics.  With great detail, Sarah describes several of the “notorious” attacks upon her and family.  It is easy to see and difficult to understand the extent to which her so-called campaign team failed in presenting an accurate image of Sarah to America.  I didn’t see Sarah as whining but rather as setting the record straight. Never has any woman been subjected to such biased, political scrutiny.

Sarah’s anecdotal stories are charming especially relating to her children.  I also love her response to the divorce rumors.  “Divorce Todd?  Have you seen Todd?”

All this to say, “Read the book”.   It is instructive, engaging, humorous and factual.  Maybe next time she comes to Michigan I will get an autograph.

-Julie A. Frye

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