Theology in the Raw - An Apocalyptic Christmas, part 1: Resisting the Empire, Dr. Cynthia Westfall

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

An Apocalyptic Christmas, part 1: Resisting the Empire, Dr. Cynthia Westfall This is the first of a 3-part series on An Apocalptic Christmas, where we look at the Christmas story through the lens of the book of Revelation. We will be exploring themes of empire, power, militarism, violence, economics, and consumerisam. This first episode is with Dr. Cynthia Wetsfall, who is Associate Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College. Dr. Westfall has a broad range of research interests including Hebrews, Revelation, biblical social justice and Paul's theology on men and women. The music you will hear throughout this series is from Evan Wickham's latest album: Christmas Music Vol. 2.  -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The exiles and Babylon conferences happening again, April 3rd to April 5th, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I cannot wait for this conference. We're talking about the gospel and race after George Floyd. We're talking about transgender people in the church, social justice and the gospel, two perspectives, and a dialogical debate about whether the evangelical church is good for this country. Featuring my new friend, Adam Davidson. He's an atheist journalist and Sean McDowell, my other good friend, they're going to banter around about that topic. We also have Latasha Morrison, Ephraim Smith, Mark Yarhouse, Malcolm Foley, and many other awesome speakers. We're also adding some breakouts

this year, and we're going to have a killer after party. I can't wait for that one. Actually, if you want to attend a conference, you can do so by going to theology, raw.com. You want to register early. We do have an early birth, a fairly aggressive early bird special. It ends December 31st. So if you are planning on attending the conference, you want to sign up before then you could also attend virtually. If you can't make it out to Minneapolis again, April 3rd to 5th, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Exiles of Babylon, go to theologyandtheRoute.com. And I hope to see you there. Jesus was born to a poor family living in a poor land occupied by the Roman Empire. Our modern themes of pine trees, presence, and excessive consumerism are a reflection more of our Western middle-class imagination than they are of

life in first-century Palestine. For John, the author of Revelation, who was exiled to the island of Patmos for resisting the empire, Christmas invoked images of a cosmic war between Satan and his army of demons and the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who would establish his kingdom on earth through sacrifice, enemy love, and subverting the empire. Then rejoice, for the King of Heaven comes to you Are you hungry for the peace of the nations? Then rejoice, for the Spirit is making this world new. Do you need bread and water from the Father? Then rejoice.

Oh, rejoice. Welcome to An Apocalyptic Christmas Part 1. This is the first of three episodes leading up to Christmas where we look at the Christmas story through the lens of the book of Revelation, and we will also look at other theopolitical themes in the same book. Revelation chapter 12 retells the Christmas story from an apocalyptic perspective. Apocalyptic simply means an unveiling or revelation. It means to peel back the curtain of history, so to speak, and to see the powers at work behind the scenes. We learn from Revelation chapter 12 that Satan and his demons were seeking to devour King Jesus at his birth, which probably is an unveiling of the incident

when the Roman puppet King Herod sought to kill Jesus by slaughtering babies born in Bethlehem, a small village located in what is today called the West Bank, an occupied territory in modern-day Palestine. In this three-part series, I've invited three scholars who are experts in the book of Revelation to help us explore several important themes in the book of Revelation, themes of empire and power, militarism and violence and money and consumerism. I also want to thank Evan Wickham for giving us permission to integrate several songs from his latest album, Christmas Music Volume 2.

I invite you to check out this incredible album. All right, without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall. So, Cindy, can you describe to us what life was like living under Roman occupation in the first century of Palestine? Well, I want to say that when I first started teaching New Testament, I kind of bought into a description of Roman rule as being very, very positive, that it brought many, many benefits that actually promoted Christianity and caused the spread of Christianity.

And so, it was kind of presented as, you know, that at the right time Christ came for us, you know. And here's how this was just the right time. The Roman Empire was the apex of civilization. And the Roman Empire established the Pax Romana, 200 years of Roman peace within its borders. And people were able to enjoy prosperity. Sea lanes were established across the Mediterranean and protected from pirates.

Roads were protected and the problem of bandits were way decreased. And as you know, the Romans built roads everywhere they went, so access all through the Roman Empire. So what an ideal situation for the spread of Christianity. Furthermore, the whole of the Mediterranean world spoke Greek, and here the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the Septuagint, and the New Testament was written in Greek, and the whole of the Mediterranean could read that. And there was a common language through which evangelists, and not just Paul, but the Jewish mission as well, could spread the gospel.

And so, I had something like 13 points of Roman rule that made this an amazing time to say, you know, that just at the right time, Jesus sent His Son. But I've come to rethink what that meant by the right time, because in Palestine, they really didn't experience Roman rule the way virtually everyone else did. Palestine was constantly in tension with Rome, and Rome was heavy-handed in Palestine. Palestine was an occupied area. If you think about the New Testament, you know, there are always some Roman soldiers hanging around.

What are they doing there? Hey, they're crucifying people on the road. You know, they're there to put down rebels, to put down unrest, to keep the peace. But you know, we saw how they kept the peace with Jesus. I like to say at the time Jesus came, Palestine, you know, I used that word from a song, they were sitting on a powder keg giving off sparks. The thing was going to blow. And you can see that language in the New Testament. And so, there was a lot of unrest. And it wasn't just unrest around the area of Jerusalem. There was unrest

in Galilee as well. And so, you think about the reasons that Jesus was crucified, a lot of them being political, because he seemed to be stirring the masses up and they were an occupied territory, occupied by the Roman army. It was a scary situation. And now when I look at that passage in Galatians saying, at the right time, God sent his son, and I'm thinking the right time was before it blew. And do you remember Jesus said, you know, you didn't know the time of your visitation and cried over Jerusalem because I would say Jesus offered another way in a volatile political situation. And it was taken by some, but it wasn't taken by the nation. And the nation experienced a genocide roughly 40 years later. So at the right time, what is more of a historical political situation? You have a melting unrest and the powder keg is sparking.

It's about to blow, which it did blow in 70 AD, well, 66 to 70 AD. So he came at the right time just before the whole thing blew up. He came at the right time and he did provide the way forward. And there were people who took it. There were thousands and thousands of Jewish Christians, as we see in Acts, that they were keeping the law right up there, right up to where the temple went down. And so, for those Jews, he provided a way forward. And so, as the tradition goes, and as the prophecy that Jesus gave

goes, Jesus said, when you see the army surrounding Jerusalem, leave. Run. And, you know, don't even stop. In nursing mothers, it's going to be tough, you know, and that kind of thing. And so, the story is, that is what the Christians did. The Jewish Christians, when Jerusalem came to be under siege, and that was something like a seven, no, I think it was a nine-month siege before they finally conquered Jerusalem and tore everything down. The Jerusalem Christians had fled. But you understand that the Roman army had been going through, starting in Galilee, which is where the Roman revolt started, and just taken out every single city and settlement

that had any rebel presence. They absolutely destroyed. So there's no hesitation in calling this a genocide. They absolutely took the nation apart. They swept through Galilee, then came down and swept through. They even took out the essence. Why would they take out the essence, you know? Well, just to be sure, I guess.

And then before, that would have been right before they hit on the way to Jerusalem. So, and then after they took out Jerusalem, they took out the outlying areas of Judea and the whole thing ended in Masada. All this took about seven years. And so, yeah, all this was, you know, and the unrest, the conditions that led to the revolt were there during Jesus' lifetime. He was dealing with them. And they're a backdrop, and of course, you can get books that go over, you know, the tensions that are, you know, that if you look for them, you can find them in the Gospels.

Yeah, so then, so we fast forward to when Revelation was written, just think so, Revelation was written, and, well, maybe 90 AD, that's been a favorite, a time to say it could have been written about that time, that's only 20 years after Jerusalem went down, and less than that after Masada went down. Now, you understand what happened to the vast majority of the Jews in Galilee and Judea. They were either killed, and millions were killed in the siege of Jerusalem, millions. Or they were enslaved or they ran. Forced migration, where did they go?

Well, some of them would have gone to Alexandria, a lot of them would have gone north all the way up to Asia Minor. And then the slaves were taken to Rome. Again, I can't remember what the estimation is, but a million sticking in my mind. There were a lot of, and all those numbers are, you know, approximates. You can't be sure they're accurate, but say it was a large amount of people were enslaved. But you know there was a forced migration out, and so you know that they would have

gone to the other diaspora communities. And so, what I'm suggesting is that Revelation was written by a Jew, and it was written to a Jewish Christian believer. That was the community, the communities of Jewish Christian believers. I'm not saying Gentiles couldn't be a part of the community, but it was a Jewish culture. Unlike the Pauline churches where he made it clear that Jewish culture would not predominate, this would be a culture where Jewish culture did predominate and they were still in relationship with the synagogues and there was some tension building between them. Do you think, I mean, he's writing to the seven churches. Do you take that to be the literal location of his initial audience, believers, Jewish Christians in these seven churches?

Well, it makes a lot of sense that it is a historic reality because those churches are located in a loop. I should go since it's this way, located in a loop that a mail carrier would have followed in taking the letters from one church to another. So it actually does match what one would expect in terms of naming the churches and naming the churches in the order of their reception of the letter. The letters to the seven churches do reflect certain characteristics of the cities to whom they're written. And so, yeah, if you're asking me whether I thought that this was some kind of a symbol of the eras

of church history or something like that, no, I would take this as letters or a letter that contains seven letters written to a real community, real recipients in a real community who were experiencing life in the Roman Empire. Even though Asia Minor as a whole, they were good with Rome. Asia Minor had almost no military presence and compared to Palestine, there were very, very few soldiers. They were happy, happy with the Roman peace, happy with the prosperity, happy with the economic growth that Rome afforded them.

But John's communities, well, some of them were happy and some of them weren't. And I would say that these are communities that in which, and even if they didn't come from Palestine and or Galilee, they were traumatized by the fall of Jerusalem. The whole Jewish diaspora was traumatized by the destruction of the temple. And the Jewish Christians would have been equally traumatized. This was a terrible thing and a terrible time. And so, if you feel that there's some, at points, almost a hysteria against the Roman Empire, I think it came from an honest place.

It's not too different than, say, Ezekiel writing to a Jewish exiled audience when the first temple was destroyed. I mean, a lot of parallels, right, between the political situation post first temple destruction and post second. We often dismiss the second temple because by then, well, they're Christians, they don't care about the temple, but you're helping us see that their Jewishness while they wouldn't view the temple the same exact way as a non-Christian Jew maybe would have. It's still a very traumatizing event. Is that correct? I think this is one of the great omissions in scholarship is that the destruction of the temple and the devastation is not weighed in. It's like the question is,

why is there no sympathy? I would suggest that again, when James and Paul met up before Paul's arrest, James said, look at how many thousands of Jews you see. This is interesting because I must have been, how many thousands of Jews you see and they're all zealous for the law. And what does he do? He sends Paul to the temple to actually participate in the sacrifice, the communities were still involved in the cult. And this affects my take on Hebrews, too. I don't think Hebrews was saying, get away from the cult. I think when Hebrews was written, he was saying, the

cult is going down or it's gone. In view of that, where's the way forward? And this is one of the things I think when Christ came at the right time, all of a sudden, it became apparent, especially with the writing of Hebrews, what Christ had actually provided as a way forward out of this horrible destruction. Because it was, and of course, Jerusalem was the center of Christianity. That was the core of the church everywhere. Everybody went back and forth from Jerusalem and all that was over in such a short amount of time. So it was devastating for Jewish Christians and everybody.

Are you suggesting or maybe assuming that at least some, if not many of the Jewish Christians who made up the seven churches, they were originally in Jerusalem that had to flee, like they have witnessed or maybe they fled before Jerusalem was destroyed. Do we have any evidence that- You know, I have a friend who lives in Jordan. I talked to her some time ago and things have just gotten worse, but she was beside herself, beside herself about what was going on in Gaza. And she said there was nobody in Jordan that she knew that didn't have someone who'd been killed.

And so think on that, right? And so those connections were so strong. Well, you know, people made pilgrimages to Jerusalem regularly. The connections between the diaspora and Jerusalem were incredibly strong. And so, of course, those connections would have served them when they went. So, I'm saying, yes, I think that I don't say everybody was, because actually there were, you know, there are populations there beforehand. But I think that each community would have contained people who actually experienced this trauma. And all of them probably had experienced personal loss of some kind or

another. In Acts 2, right, we have a list of all these Jews visiting Jerusalem and many of them are from places in Asia Minor. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Asia Minor, where the seven churches were, were a particularly enthusiastic group. Like, this region was very enthusiastic about the imperial cult. Is that right? Though the worship of the empire's divine was really popular at this region of the world. When empire, which might actually provide a segue to the book of Revelation. Well, yes. I think one of the things that people sometimes get wrong is they see Domitian

or Augustus as promoting emperor worship. And Augustus did set himself as the patron of, he didn't set it up, he was the patron of the whole empire. But the worship, the deification was something that seemed to be maybe peculiar to Asia Minor and not just particularly there that they liked to deify their heroes. So they did it with Alexander and they continued to want to do that. So they would petition the Roman Empire and say, hey, we would like to, you know, set up a statue and worship you. Would that be good? And so they would petition and be either granted or refused that right.

But that was not really how Rome rolled. Rome was not in that same kind of mode. But Asia Minor, that was kind of how they did it. Yeah, so you can imagine among the Jews that on top of everything else, and I think I've built the case that the Jews in Asia Minor would not be great friends of Rome. Oh, another thing that happened is that, of course, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Rome put in all kinds of punitive measures against the Jews, but the worst one was every Jew in the empire was levied a tax, an ongoing tax, to pay for the cost of the destruction of the genocide.

Yes, and so I think this is another thing I find very ironic where everyone says, oh, you know, for the Christians, being considered Jews was great. And I was like, no, being considered a Jew was not so great right now. Jews were kind of considered fair game. I mean, they were not thought well of. They might have been allowed to be monotheistic, but it was not easy to be a Jew. And furthermore, think about, so then you're a Jewish Christian and you're caught between the hostility of the empire towards Jews and the hostility of your own people towards you

as a Christ follower. And that kind of got worse, at least so the story goes, because they deserted them during the Jerusalem siege. Wow. Okay. That kind of started a certain breakdown that maybe hadn't been there before. Why was John exiled? He was exiled to Patmos, right? I don't think there's a lot of... He says, for the testimony of the Word of God, which Rome allowed for... I mean, people realize the Roman Empire had a lot of religious freedom. You can go worship whatever tree or dog or whatever, who cares? As long as you give your allegiance to the empire, like it really was any kind of political

subversion that was suspected from any kind of religious group. That's when he started getting into hot water, right? So if he's exiled for the witness of the Word of God, for the testimony, I can't think of the exact phrase, maybe help us, what can we learn from that? Yeah, it's hard to actually recover this one. We used to say this was part of the Domitian persecution, but now that's been said, no, you know what? That persecution wasn't as

big a thing. It didn't mean it didn't happen, though. It didn't mean individuals would not have gotten arrested in certain times in certain places. But the persecution seemed to have been localized rather than empire, certainly not empire-wide or even regionally-wide. And so, it's not inconceivable though in John's locality that he was singled out by the authorities. And while they were, while Rome loved religions and they were all for promoting worship. They were not particularly in favor of promoting a monotheistic worship or evangelism. They didn't particularly like Jews evangelizing, and they weren't particularly fond of Christians doing it either. So that might have been what got them in trouble with local authorities.

But like I said, we can't say like it was said for so long, there was a big persecution going on and that's the backdrop of this book. I don't think we need a big persecution as a backdrop to say that there was antagonism between these communities in Rome, though. It could be similar to First Peter, right? I mean, it's hard to work on First Peter too, where it was more social ostracism, not necessarily widespread systematic government sanction persecution. I read somewhere passing a while back, and gosh, I want you to add the quote or reference, but that there's little, actually surprisingly little extra biblical evidence of a Domitian

persecution. Is that correct? Am I? Yes. So where does it come from? Is it just because we assume this is the context of Revelation, there's persecution and revelation, therefore it must be... That seems kind of circular if that's... I think I'm right on this. I think there was a tradition that John was arrested and exiled under Domitian.

And so maybe the traditions kind of evolved around that. And they took things as evidence of widespread persecution. Maybe they over blew the evidence to support their presuppositions perhaps. But anyway, yes, for the longest time, everyone thought that there was a widespread persecution that John was a part of, and now that's generally not believed. But I would say, though, if we go through the seven churches, we do have evidence that there is persecution. There was one martyrdom recorded, and some concern that there would be more. There was slander. There was abuse. There was grinding poverty, and there was marginalization. But not all the churches, right? A couple of the churches

were in Clover. Laodicea being one of them. Laodicea was pretty happy. I'm not sure about Sardis, but Laodicea seemed to be thriving as a church, but some of the other churches were experiencing poverty. And let's see, which one? Smyrna. Smyrna seemed to be down under everything. And so, as I said, so the conditions could be localized from, you be localized and differ from community to community. And it's interesting that that's being depicted in the letter, because I think maybe if it

was a fictitious letter, it would create more of a common condition, but it doesn't. Each church is treated differently as having different issues. Take us forward a bit to the Christmas story, as we told through the Book of Revelation. It does have, you know, we have more than two Christmas stories, namely Luke and Matthew are the two famous ones. Revelation 12 and even 12 and 13,

really a central piece of the book. I mean, it's a significant part. I mean, there's lots of stuff in parts of the book, but a really significant part of the book retells the Christmas story, but through what we might call an apocalyptic lens. And maybe what I've described actually can say why the Christmas story has this antagonism where Christ is born and the dragon's about to devour him. Let's say, the moment he was born, she gave birth to a son, male child, who ruled the

nations. But then his child was snatched up to God on his throne. But the thing is, the dragon was waiting for the child and about to devour it. That's probably this whole, like I said, this whole situation of a governmental hostility, but Herod as well for that, you know, is being part of that. But so, yes, it depicts Jesus' birth in an interesting way, and it depicts part of the, you know, the unholy trinity as antagonistic and threatening Jesus as He was born. When it says He snatched up, I'm thinking that's His ascension. It's pretty brief.

He's born and then ascends. Yeah, then He's gone. Yeah. So, the focus really ends up being the dragon's pursuit of his followers. That seems to be what is lingered on for a while. I don't want to over claiming, but that does sound a little bit like the Jewish Christians that fled Jerusalem, ran to Asia Minor and the dragons pursuing them. Why not? Why not? I just came up with that. Set the story I've been weaving. I'm not going to die on that, though, but it works. Now, in chapter 13, it's really fascinating.

And the implications here are, I mean, pretty widespread. It says that there's a beast out of the sea that has 10 hordes, seven heads, which later is identified as Rome, right? It is the prostitute that's sitting on the seven hills. And so, in Revelation 17, unlike some apocalyptic texts that leave us wondering a little bit, I feel like John just can't help himself. He's like, all right, just let me be clear. This is this, this is this, this is this. And it really identifies what he's talking about here. That's what's interesting about apocalyptic literature. Usually, it's using symbolism. And sometimes, you know, it's apocalyptic literature, incidentally, is always pretty much a genre that's about political, well, dealing with oppressive political situations.

And it's using symbolism and those kinds of things in kind of like a hidden code. And you do get the feeling sometimes they're like trying to hide the message. So if it falls into the wrong hands, they won't be accused of subversion. But yes, in Revelation, Rome would not miss itself. It's really clearly an attack on Rome, a demonization of Rome.

Yeah. That's where I was going, a demonization of Rome. It says that the dragon, which is clearly identified with Satan, gave the beast its power. And then they worship the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they worship the beast, saying. And then they worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast and they worshiped the beast, saying, who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with it? And praising the military strength of the empire, which is... That's exactly what they said, though. Who can fight Rome? Rome is the great, Grom is the conqueror. Who can stand against it? Might as well join them. And so, part

of the problems, some of the churches were compromising. So, while some of them were absolutely an antagonistic hostility to Rome, some of them were benefiting and entangling alliances with Rome and benefiting from it. That's the thing that really worried John. Can you tease that out a little bit? What exactly did that look like? How were they? Obviously a clear example would have been if a Christian was like burning incense to Caesar as an act of worship. That would be a clear instance. What are some other ways, though, where they were being entangled with the empire, ways that John felt were unholy?

Well, you know, there are lots and lots of ways that you would get entangled in basically the different kinds of worship that were going on within the Greco-Roman culture. Let's call it the Greco-Roman culture because this isn't just a Roman culture. This is quite a, this is a mixture of people, actually a great mixture of many, many people from many, many places with many, many languages in this area. And so you got a lot of gods coming together. And there was no separation between the secular and the sacred. And so just basic acts of life involved worship sometimes. I remember there was a series called Rome that was popular a number of years back. And I thought what

was really helpful about that is it showed how even walking through a door was a form of worship. There would be a devotional act with which you walk through a door. Common things of life had religious rituals connected with them. But the worst ones would have been if you were in, well, with your social contacts and with your say, with guilds that do business, is that if they had banquets and invited you to come, that would involve religious practices. It was a religious occasion. It would have rituals. The meat could well have been sacrificed to a god, but there's definitely going to be rituals involved. And then there was just the general feast days where – of the city, you know, where

they would bring in a cow or something and they'd parade it down the street, you know, and flowers and everything and then they'd kill it. And then the benefactor, you know, would sacrifice it to the god and then you got meat, you know. You go, woo, free meat, free steaks. And so there's lots of discussion of what Paul thinks on this. And I'm on the end that, no, Paul is not in favor of eating meat sacrificed to idols. I'll tell you for sure, John criticizes getting involved in these practices, that people are getting involved in these practices.

They are getting sucked in. They are involved in some kind of ritual compromise, religious compromise, and he'll have none of it. The other thing, of course, is the sexual immorality of the empire, and that several of the churches, at least two, seem to be caught up in sexual immorality. And some of it even sounds like it's gotten into their congregation in some way. And so, those things concerning the culture and the sexual immorality, of course, can also be religious. I think as you know, there is sacred prostitution and all those kinds of things going on. So, there are just many, many ways that the congregations could be religiously compromised and find it difficult

to keep themselves set apart from idolatry. And that's you saying that's kind of woven, the religious idolatries woven into the fabric of their day-to-day civic participation. It's the life. It's being a good citizen. Yeah, it's carrying out your citizenship. That's one of the things that Christians really continue to run aground with is, were they good citizens?

Because to be a good citizen, you better keep the gods happy. Got to participate in these public ceremonies for the peace of Rome and for the good of the city. To be a benefactor of the city, you've got to do your part. And I think we're getting kind of a fix on Asia Minor. Asia Minor is going to be particularly like this. Yes, and so those kinds of things created a lot of tension and hostility between Christians and non-Christians. Is it, to just to make some, explore some potential modern day parallels. And I'm honestly not trying to be overly provocative.

I want to be tastefully and rightfully provocative if need be. But you know, as you're talking, it just made me think like when I go to a sporting event and sing the national anthem or another event, a rodeo where you pledge the allegiance. It's like, you know, I go to the rodeo to watch people ride bowls. And actually, I think it's a fascinating sport. It's Idaho. And so if you're Idaho and you go to rodeos, it's just what you do. But it is a profoundly religious event, profoundly religious, or even sporting events where you have a liturgical practice of the entire 50,000 person stadium singing their allegiance to the country. I'm not saying it's exact. I'm not saying it's the exact same as burning incense,

disease, or whatever, but it does feel like it is this merger between politics and liturgy and religious type practices. Is that a, I mean, not an exact parallel, but it seems to be an interesting one for no modern day Christians to explore. Well, what's interesting about, this is a difficult topic. I want to tell you that I was, I supported Colin, I'm going to get his name, Kaepernick. I supported him taking a knee. I thought that was right. I thought the way people were acting did sound like they were being idolatrous about it.

It's like, oh, listen, the reasons are good reasons. I think that this is a justifiable action. But yeah, I don't know. See, the Pledge of Allegiance, well, so here's where we're going to start things out. The Pledge of Allegiance, I think, was constructed to be a part of a Christian confession, one nation under God, and it was constructed supposedly with the Christian worldview. I think the thing that we're all asking ourselves more and more is, was it really? Was this the Christian worldview?

We thought was Christian, maybe many of us are starting to say that maybe it never really was, maybe it was a hybrid, And it's born some poison fruit. And so I think this is a conversation to be had. I've seen a lot of people online actually discussing this one and saying they don't. I do think that group belonging and singing the song of group belonging doesn't bother me per se, but yeah, what does it mean? And so to do these things without paying attention to the meaning

and considering them is probably a mistake. Probably we should do these things with, at least we should know what we mean when we do them. It's just like when I'm in a football game, maybe baseball, I go to baseball games, I don't go to football games, but when I'm at a football game, maybe baseball, I go to baseball games, I don't go to football games. But when I'm at a baseball game, I'm going to watch a sport. Like what, why, why make 50,000 people pledge or celebrate, you know, bombs bursting in the air? You know, like I don't, you know, I wonder how to, how to Native Americans, are they,

you know, in our age of inclusion, like how do they feel when they are in these, you know, wonder how do Native Americans, are they, you know, in our age of inclusion, like how do they feel when they are in these, or somebody whose grandfather was a slave, you know, like. Hey, Preston, that was the war of 1812. That was against Canadians. So I like, incidentally, I like the Canadian national anthem better. Okay, okay. So I could, you know, singing the seventh inning stretch I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to sing the original anthem better. Okay. Okay.

So I could, you know, sing in a seventh inning stretch. I'm all about. Yeah. Or if you go to Benway Park, he's saying Neil Diamond, which song you know, or, you know, really? Yeah. It's brilliant. Oh, it's brilliant.

But it has nothing to do. It's not like it's steering your, it's corporate participation celebration, but why 50,000 citizens in the thing, and you take this opportunity that has nothing to do with the sport, and you're making them recite a very liturgical practice of the nation that's highly disputed in many ways. To me, that just feels like an imperial way to just slowly slow cook people in steering their allegiance towards the empire at all costs.

Maybe I'm reading too much. Maybe I'm not reading nothing. But I don't want to take us too far away from the actual book of Revelation. No, it's interesting though. It makes you think about the actual book of Revelation. No, it's interesting though. It makes you think about the Colosseum and the role that it had with the spectacles and Rome and everything else. That was about the empire too. So that might be an even better parallel. That was a very, very patriotic, imperial legions garnering, whatever type of thing. Anyway, we digress. But interesting.

I want to say this one thing that I used to go every year to watch the fireworks in Boulder, and they used to play during the fireworks, people come to America today. I wonder if they're still playing that. I don't know if they're playing that today. I can imagine Republicans're still playing that. I don't want them to play that today. I can imagine Republicans would at least play that. No, they used to like it in those days.

That wasn't a knock on Republicans, by the way. It was just the immigration dispute within America where Republicans would be more... Oh, no. Let me clarify. They're more against illegal immigration or undocumented immigrants. I should have said that. That was a bad analogy. Let me clarify. They're more against illegal immigration or undocumented immigrants. So I shouldn't have said that. That was a bad analogy. Okay. So what is John's message to his audience that is getting slowly wrapped up in religious,

even civic, participations in the empire that he felt was unhealthy? Is the response become kind of first century Amish communities who are completely separate from society? How do we be in the world but not out of the world? John, tell us how to navigate that really complex line. Well, okay. So, I mean, now you're in Revelation 18, which is kind of my chapter. I actually wrote an article on this chapter in the background from Forsenic. This is a really great question. Now, this really isn't addressing per se the idolatry or the sexual immorality per se, and yet it is in a way because it's portrayed – at this point, Rome has become a parody of its own coin, right? Because the coin of

Rome had this majestic woman sitting on seven hills, and John turns her into a drunken prostitute or someone who's – I'm not even calling's a woman who's been prostituted because I think this one is kind of into it. So that's in 17 and it's a parody of the coin. And again, if Rome missed it earlier, Rome would get it at this point in 17 when the woman is sitting on the seven hills and now the seven hills are the beast, and the client kings and all that. And then, God calls the people out of Israel and says, you know, come out, come out, come out, where is this?

18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18? This is 18, 18-4? It's right here, yeah. Come out of her? Yeah. Yeah, come out of her. Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given. Pay her back double for what she has done. Pour her a double portion from her own cup. And, well, I'm going to, I won't go on, but the thing is, is that this is a hit against

the materialism of Rome and against the imperial, and really it's like a colonial arrangement where Rome, in this reciprocal relationships, but sometimes it's parasitic, where all the goods are pouring into Rome from the colonies. It's like that relationship. The Roman Empire is basically doing trade with Rome and all these goods are pouring into it. It's portraying it as evil. It's portraying the materialism as evil. And it's portraying the materialism as evil. And this kind of explains the frame

of why Laodicea, you know, what did Laodicea do so wrong? You know, Laodicea was involved in materialism. It was totally steeped in the empire's culture of materialism, and that was the church that he was going to spew out of his mouth. And now you get to this, and so you got this come out of her. Well, I think it's interpretive as to what that means. I mean, I don't think this does mean set up an Amish community, but it's certainly, it actually is telling you to take structural evil seriously and not participate in it. Whether we're talking about sexual immorality, we're talking about business practices. Unfair, actually, business practices. I mean, they really siphoned off Palestine. That was part of the problem. It wasn't a good deal for Palestine. You talking about today or back then?

Back then. The relationship between Rome and Palestine. Palestine was not prospering. It was experiencing a lot of famine and poverty. And Rome was, you know, Rome was actually siphoning off, you know, some of the resources from Palestine. Other things were happening too. There was a drain of people resources, which is all part of this system of trade. So, I mean, he really gets into the whole idea of trade and these groups of people that are benefiting from Rome, that are benefiting economically from Rome, sit there and they

have a lament as Rome is going down, you know. And so it's this crazy lament where this evil thing is, evil empire is going down and you're supposed to run out of it. But the people that are enmeshed in it are just sitting there and lamenting the loss of this lucrative system. So it seems to me that this is open to interpretation of what it means, but I think it means that you probably just what we just talked about is we think about our practices and the things we're involved in, and we consider whether we're entangled in alliances that are not honoring God. Yeah.

That's just to say, it's so hard to fully live that out when so much of our economic system, the goods we buy, the stores we shop at, there's just so many layers of injustice and evil. Some of it might be less significant than others. I mean, it's not like every shirt I buy was produced by slave labor in Malaysia. Some of it could be. But then you have inhumane treatment of animals. If we want to go there, you've got various layers of corruption in at least the agricultural industry or the medical industry. It's just so hard to be completely separate from all forms of injustice.

On a very practical level, is it just we just do the best we can? I mean, just at least be aware of where you're shopping, where you're buying stuff, or be aware of your business practices. And if you do see something that's clearly unjust and don't want to spit in that, but at the end of the day, you're going to be somehow entangled in less than God, the economic structures. I think the first thing we've got to do is be able to identify the structure. I think we're in a funny time right now where repentance is out of style, whether we're talking about repentance from historical wrongs or even current repentance

that somehow repentance is thought to be in our culture a negative. Well, that's one place that we better draw the line. We better be a people who know how to repent, who can see clearly what's going on and know how to repent. And sometimes that repentance has got to be something, I mean, it's like, for instance, in the Bible, there's consciousness of generational sin and also the idea of your ancestors were

guilty of a wrong, and you're enmeshed in that. And there's the right way to act about that, the idea of repenting and placing yourself in Christ. I think that's the thing. But I think it starts with where your allegiance is. Where's your allegiance? Where are areas of compromise? One thing that Revelation is very clear about is that the deification of human power is wrong. I think that you were trying to kind of say that maybe the anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance

feels like the deification of human power to you. Well, that's not worrying me to the extent that it does you, but I'll think about it. But I do see the deification of human power in other areas. What areas? I would love to know. I think I will leave it to your imagination. Really? Why don't you tell me?

Where have you seen the deification of human power lately? In every four years of the election cycle or most military exploits. Well. But you might, I think you're thinking about something specific. I'm not reading this, but you're in the light. Okay. So just Google the best Christmas tree ornaments of 2024. Is it Donald Trump on a tree or something?

Donald Trump wearing a Superman cape, among other things. I mean, it seems like every other ornament is Donald Trump and I've never seen anything like it. And I'm quite, am I surprised? Well, no, I'm not totally surprised, but maybe I'm surprised at the volume. But since I've seen a lot of the memes on Facebook and stuff, maybe I'm not too surprised. But yeah, I think people have gone over the edge in this one, in the deification of Trump, because we think Christ is God, we think Christ is divine, and then I see him being portrayed with Christian Christ-like symbolism as if he is Jesus Christ. And so I think that's gone over the top. And I think that that needs to be recognized by everybody and taken quite seriously, that

there is something seriously wrong here. But it doesn't have to be as obvious as that. I do think that probably a lot of things that we have not examined closely together, being Americans and having the history of American empire and manifest destiny, some of the assumptions of what we did and why we did it are still with us. And I think it evolves crossing over the line. Yes, we just think what's good for America. We deify what's good for America. And I think that we need to look at things, we need to recognize what's going on, and we need to align ourselves, we need to place our allegiance in God alone. We need to know, you know, the message of Revelation is that God is sovereign and Jesus Christ is the conqueror. And that's all set

in opposition to the Imperial Roman ideology, or you could call it a theology, that's very much like American ideology, in many ways. In some ways, we did model ourselves on Rome, I think, from the beginning. And I think we went a long time without questioning some of the assumptions. I think we've come to a watershed where I think it's time for an accounting and it's time for God's people to realize what having allegiance in God alone really is and what it really looks like and have His sovereignty work out from the top down. weeks ago, where it showed through several, several images back then and today how America, the founding of America, deliberately, as you said, was trying to model itself after the Roman Empire and its architecture in, I think, even the way the seats are set

up in Congress. Right down to the eagle. Right down to the eagle. George Washington is the eagle. George Washington is the eagle. George Washington depicted in many images. I think that the Rotunda in the Capitol, where it's like this apotheosis, this deification of George Washington. It goes back to the very first point you made about, for many years, we thought the Roman

Empire was the kind of apex of civilization where the author of Revelation has a very different view. So, going back to Revelation 13, just the underlying assumption that the Roman Empire has some level of demonic empowerment. Like, John just says that straight out. Then the book of Revelation, I think you've said this in your writings, Bakum has said this, Michael Gorman, that Babylon in the Book of Revelation is kind of, it's the Roman Empire, but it's also any other empire. Any empire. If the shoe fits, the nation must wear. I think Bakum is famous, famous,

famous among this handful of scholars. Yeah, that's a good statement. In as much as the United States of America, the power, the militarism, the opulence, the arrogance, the civic religious practices, the on and on it goes, the imperial nature of America, which I don't find really disputable. Does that mean that there is some level of demonic power lying behind the imperial success, quote unquote, of the United States of America. This is an exegetical question to ask you.

Is that a fair question to raise or is there a reason why we should not make that leap, that application? What I think I would say is it's a question we can ask. The book of Revelation, I think, unlike it's often been handled, is not all about, okay, when's the end times? This is like, when is this fulfilled? And that's what it's all about. And everything else is irrelevant. And it's, you know, how Lindsay just died, and how Lindsay, you know, was, you know, said, it's our generation, you know? I didn't even think I was going to, I thought the rapture was going to come before I got married.

It was going to happen so fast. Back in, we're talking 60s, aren't we? But yeah, so everyone's thinking it's about predicting the end and revelation is written to the people, to the last generation. And therefore we say, ho ho ho, ho ho ho, how Lindsay, he was wrong. But now I'm right. You know, it's now. But the thing is, the thing is, is that it's recursive. It's really, everybody was right to say, is it now? Is it this? Is it this great evil that I see? And I see things going on that seem to be patterns to concern myself. And I would say, yes, for you, that's where

it is in your generation. You know that you're going to have these powers in your generation. And it's for you to resist idolatry. It's for you to resist aligning yourself with the beast and to align yourself with God at every point. And so, it's not so very silly to see things lining up in a certain way. And yes, yes, Hal Lindsey pretty much scared us all to death. But, You grew up in that era, right? Yeah, I was a new Christian at the time. I wasn't raised as a Christian. That's probably one of the first Christian books I read. Yay. And, you know, saying the song, you've been

left behind. Life was filled with guns and war and everyone got trampled on the floor. I wish they'd all been ready. Wow. I never read those books. I grew up in the wake of it. Oh, no, this is before the books. The books, just when it was safe to come out as not being pre-melt, the books came out. Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, wow. Not pre-melt. Not pre-melt. Pre-trib? Pre-trib. Pre-trib. Pre-trib. Pre-trib. Pre-trib.

Pre-trib. Pre-trib was the... I am pre-mil. Okay. But I'm not pre-trib. You got to read Revelation. It's like you really read Revelation closely and you go, wait a minute, the numbers don't add up at all. Final word of challenge or encouragement during this Christmas season. In light of the things we've been reflecting on, how can Christians resist the empire during the Christmas season? Because I think the Christmas season is a time when the empire manifests itself pretty subtly sometimes, or something exhaustive subtly. Yeah. Well, and I really would suggest, I mean, I've painted some dark pictures here, and I noticed that I said what I think is the right thing to do is to look and evaluate is there something demonic going on and where would that be?

And then I think the idea of learning to repent, not just of our personal sins, but to repent of the patterns in which we're enmeshed. And within that, place our faith in God and, you know, hoping that God can save us from any perverse generation. Our hope is in that, and he can. And so what I would think we want to do is while we want to be eyes wide open, eyes wide open to where Babylon might be, but also eyes wide open to the mercies of God. So I do think that this is a time, rightfully a time to let the joy in.

And I would say to experience that right-timeness that I talked about where Christ, where God sent His Son at the right time. And God sent His Son at the right time in my life, too. And this is a time to celebrate Advent and to concentrate on the joy that has penetrated the darkness. The light and the joy has penetrated the darkness, as opposed to being overcome by evil. Because actually you're not supposed to read Revelation and not be overcome by evil. If you actually read Revelation, what's the best part of Revelation? It's the heavenly scenes. They're amazing. The heavenly scenes in the presence of God, you know what it is? It keeps shifting between things that threaten to overcome us, and then

we're up in heaven and we have this heavenly perspective and the worship's incredible. And so, I think this is a time to dwell in the incredible worship. It is, first and foremost, a book of worship. It is. It really is. And it's so sad that people have been scared away from it because of all the end-time stuff or weird images. It is a book that thrusts you into the heavenly throne room. Constantly.

And slams you on your knees to worship the king of kings. Yeah, it's a beautiful book. Cindy, thank you so much for leading us in this fascinating study. And thanks so much for your scholarship. I would highly recommend. Yeah, everything Cindy writes is just really, really incredible. And so highly recommend all of your work. Oh, thank you so much. Oh God of the humble, the King who washes feet You came as a servant to reign majesty He got an eye created from the Father before time Virgin born Messiah, both human and divine Crucified and risen, forever you will reign

We join with all the church from every age Singin' worthy is the Lamb who was slain To the Lamb who was slain Glory be to the Lamb who was slain We sing with all the church from every age To the Lamb who will slay To the Lamb who will slay Glory be To the Lamb who will slay

We join with all the church from every end All blessing and honor belong to Christ alone The Savior who suffered received your full reward Come dwell with your people And all you have redeemed We love you, King Jesus For all eternity We love you, King Jesus For all eternity We love you King Jesus for all eternity We love you King Jesus for all eternity Hey, so I'm launching a new season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Lehmann joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind and the brain of everything high performance.

I've been fascinated for years as I've worked with top athletes, high powered CEOs, Hollywood actors and all high performers and in all types of different fields of how they break through pressure, ignite drive, how they overcome distractions, how they put fear on the bench, how they tap into flow state and just dominate all these different areas

of high performance. So on this season, my good friend, Dr. Daniel Lehmann will break down what is actually going on in the brain in these different areas and I will give actionable tools to be able to use and apply in your life. So buckle up the doctor and the nurse on the David Nurse Show coming at you. Hi, I'm Haven and as long as I can remember I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore,

usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast. It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation. And we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself. And we don't have answers or solutions,

but I think the power is actually in the questions. So I'd love for you to join me, Haven, the podcast.