The book of Revelation continues to gain a great deal of attention–for better and for worse. Back in the 1980s I paid sustained attention to this amazing piece of literature and wrote a short commentary. Here is the commentary’s discussion of chapters six and seven, from Triumph of the Lamb
N. T. Wright. Evil And the Justice of God
N.T. Wright, the British New Testament theologian and Anglican bishop, has become a bit of an industry. We may note this simply in how this rather slight book (less than 170 pages of text with generous white space throughout) found release in hardback and remains unavailable in paperback. Wright has continued to crank out books of this size and scope in great numbers while presumably also readying the next massive volume in his Christian Origins and the Question of God series (supposedly on the writings of Paul).
In spite of (or is it because of?) his extraordinary productivity, Wright almost always has worthwhile things to say–he certainly does in Evil and the Justice of God. We may wonder how much more useful and insightful his contribution addressing the important issues he takes up in this book might be had he spent more time on it. But we can be thankful for what we have.
The core of this book, and Wright’s distinctive contribution to thought on the problem of evil, is his chapter on Jesus’ crucifixion and how that provides a framework for Christian understanding of evil and of God’s response. I greatly appreciate Wright’s summary of the core theme of the Bible (“the entire Old Testament…hangs like an enormous door on a small hinge, namely the calling of Abraham in Genesis 12,” p. 46)–that God’s is working in a long-suffering way consistent with God’s just love to bring healing in the face of human evil. Jesus’ life that led to his crucifixion and God’s vindication of this life by raising Jesus from the dead tells us what we need to know about God’s creative work in the face of evil and what God expects from people of faith as their role in this work.
I like Wright’s theology a great deal. I like that as a biblical scholar he is informed and bold concerning the big theological themes and perfectly willing to address them. And address them he does, doing so in a way that keeps the biblical message at the center. He expresses a strong commitment to the Bible’s message of shalom. If he’s not quite a full-blown pacifist and social and political radical, he’s generally close enough (despite some irritating brief seemingly pro forma digs at various expressions of “liberalism” in the early part of the book when he is setting out our current cultural setting for addressing the themes of the book).
I do have one significant concern, though. In reading much of what Wright has published and in listening to him speak several times, I am left with the impression that while working very hard (and largely successfully) at placing prophetic biblical concerns at the center of his theology, he still does remain a bit of a Constantinian. That is, for Wright, the church retains a sort of ontological privilege in his schema of salvation history. I would think that someone as immersed in the recovery of the prophetic message of the Bible would recognize how far Christendom departed from the agenda of biblical prophets (from Moses to John of Patmos). The community gathered around Torah in the Old Testament and the messianic assembly in the New Testament both stand in judgment of the church.
Certainly, Christians have the calling to work within their communities to recover and embody the biblical message of shalom and to fulfill the calling of Abraham’s descendants to bless all the families of the earth. However, the church as an institution has long ago forfeited its standing as the steward of this message. Wright’s sanguine assumptions about the church as the center of God’s work in the world weaken his arguments about the tasks followers of the biblical God face in embodying God’s justice in our present time.
Christopher D. Marshall. Crowned With Glory and Honor: Human Rights in the Biblical Tradition
This is a splendid little book. Marshall, a New Testament scholar who teaches in New Zealand, provides a concise but thorough account how the Bible and biblically-based theology may strongly affirm a commitment to human rights. In doing so, he shows conclusively that modern notions of human rights such as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are fully compatible with Christian thought.
Along the way, Marshall does critique Enlightenment-based notions of human rights, but his intent is to build bridges more than pit Christian theological language against human rights language as is lamentably done by some Christians. Marshall’s strengths include a thorough understanding of the biblical message that allows him to provide an outline for a general biblical theology (Old and New Testaments) that serves as the basis for his affirmation of human rights. He helpfully focuses on the big picture in the Bible rather than isolated proof-texts.
Marshall also does a fine job in introducing the general arena of human rights thought as it has emerged in moral philosophy and political realities. In doing so, he gives Christians an excellent primer on the intersection of their theology with the public policy world–and he gives those unfamiliar with theology a good sense of how the Bible can be seen as friendly to their human rights concerns.
Yet another strength is Marshall’s economy of expression. His main text runs slightly less than 100 pages, but he is quite thorough in his discussion (beyond the main text we have 13 pages of informative endnotes and a 9-page bibliography). Certainly he could have said much more (and we could use a large tome on this subject). But what he presents is quite adequate and persuasive–Christians have every business strongly advocating human rights and human rights advocates from outside Christianity have every business welcoming biblical thought as part of their rationale for their advocacy.
Michael Standaert. Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire
One major contribution this book makes is to look critically and thoroughly at the political context of the Left Behind phenomena. This examination is illuminating and alarming. Tim LaHaye has a long history of right wing political activism–fueled in part by his paranoid theology. Standaert makes an important contribution both in tracing LaHaye’s career and connections and in making clear the political impact of the content of the Left Behind books.
This is a readable book that points to many resources to help buttress Standaert’s argument. He clearly is completely negative about LaHaye’s perspective and influence. However, while his negative perspective comes through clearly throughout, he is reasoned and careful and documents most of his critiques.
It’s not a perfect book. Standaert is not a scholar. He writes well and has done significant research, but on many issues is clearly relying on others’ research–and not always the best research (for instance, he does not refer to Paul Boyer or George Marsden, probably the two most important historians who have written on American fundamentalism and premillennial dispensationalism).
Still, I would recommend this book as an important resource for anyone who wants to understand better why the Left Behind phenomenon is problematic. Beyond most of the critiques I have read, Standaert is especially helpful for his focus on the broader political and cultural issues at play.
Peace Theology 