Theology in the Raw - An Apocalyptic Christmas, part 3: Money and Consumerism, Dr. Michael Gorman

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Michael J. Gorman holds the Raymond E. Brown Chair in Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore. He has published 20 books and dozens of articles, including the highly acclaimed and, in my opinion, necessary book for interpreting the Book of Revelation called Reading Revelation Responsibly.  -- 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 next era of Logos is here. The world's most powerful Bible study platform is now more affordable than ever. I personally don't know where I would be without Logos. I literally use it almost every single day. It's become an essential part of my writing and research. So if you've always thought of Logos as out of reach, then you'll want to go to Logos.com forward slash theology to start your free trial and start digging deeper into the Bible today. Find out why millions use Logos to dig deeper into the Bible by going to logos.com forward slash theology. Welcome back to our third and final episode of An Apocalyptic Christmas, where we are exploring themes of empire, militarism, and money through the lens of the Book of Revelation.

There are many important themes in the Book of Revelation, themes of empire, power, violence, militarism, worship, sacrifice, judgment, and sexual immorality. And all of these are important. And yet, in one of the book's most climactic chapters, namely chapter 18, where we read about Babylon's judgment, the theme of economic injustice takes center stage. And since the modern celebration of Christmas is often plagued with mass consumerism, in fact, our current empire's economic success depends on it, I thought it would be important to explore this theme of economic injustice in our final episode. Dr. Michael Gorman is one of the world's top scholars on the Book of Revelation, so he

will serve as a trustworthy guide in our conversation. And I want to thank Evan Wickham again for allowing us to use songs from his latest album, Christmas Music Volume 2, throughout this series. So without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only, Dr. Michael Gorman, good to see you again. Welcome back to Theology in the Raw. Thanks so much, Preston. It's good to see you and good to be back. Yeah. I'm excited about this conversation. So why don't we start with a more like 30,000 foot lens? How should we approach the book of revelation? You know, I know a lot of people are just almost scared to read the book. Maybe they grew up with a, a more futuristic only

interpretation of the book. You have all these wild images. This is all future, but then most scholars take a more, no, this is more first century. This is more, you know, a lot more political than people might realize. So you literally wrote the book on how to read the book of revelation. So how should we approach this? This is what I was going to say. The short answer to that is responsibly. That's part of the title of that book. But no, I think that as many people do they grow up with a certain reading of revelation that either enthralls them or scares them or both perhaps and There's no doubt. There's a lot of imagery and revelation is confusing and even and

concerning but ultimately if we go back to What kind of literature this is, most scholars today would call it a kind of hybrid book, where you have a letter framework where John is clearly writing to specific churches, seven of them addressed in chapters two and three. So you have this kind of letter framework and introductory material that sounds like a Pauline letter, you know, John to the seven churches, but the language is very much the language of apocalyptic, and that's very symbolic language. And so if we don't start with the idea that this language is symbolic and that it's not

quote unquote literal, we're going to miss the boat in a very significant way. And apocalyptic literature tends to be literature for people who are facing oppression and are facing violence. And so it is by nature, as you just hinted, political or I like to call it, theopolitical symbolism, theopolitical language, God's politics, if you will. And at the same time, what should be familiar to most biblical readers is it is prophetic literature. I mean, the Book of Revelation is full of allusions to the prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah. He is speaking in prophetic mode, even if his language is cloaked in the symbolism of apocalyptic literature. So think of it as a letter, an apocalypse, and a prophecy in the biblical sense, not necessarily predicting the future, but addressing the present with the hope of future salvation

and the reality of future judgment. These things all come together to make it a complicated, but also, I think, understandable book if you pull those things together. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. You know, one thing that I, I feel like every few years I keep revisiting the book, often through a more political lens. And one thing I realized, this is not new news. This is not really that disputed, but it, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Like Jewish apocalyptic literature as a genre is almost by nature political. Like when you look at other Jewish books for Ezra, second Bar Baruch, Parts of Enoch, Daniel, these are pulling back the curtain of the political powers to be. It's almost like the genre itself is oriented towards politics. Is that fair to say? Exactly. Yeah, for sure. And I think the revelation is exactly in that mode. So if you don't begin with the understanding that we're looking at a critique, an expose of and a critique of political power that has gone awry, that has gone to the extreme, that has self-diminished even, that you're going to unfortunately miss the main point. And that's where a lot of people have gone wrong. And I often say to students, those who are without sin, exegetical sin, should cast the

first stone. We all make mistakes in our interpretation of Scripture, including the book of Revelation. But at the same time, let's, let's be honest with the situation and say we need to interpret it for what it is and not for what perhaps certain schools of interpretation might want us to think and what some political factions might want us to think. I mean, goodness, we've seen in the last decades of my life, at least, many instances of calling on the book of Revelation for political power or for political purposes that are, in my view, contrary to what the book of Revelation is all about. To use them for the wrong reasons, but to use them for political reasons, but not good political reasons.

Let's start again. I want to get to economics, money, consumerism, because the book actually speaks to that. But what does the book of Revelation say about empire? It's addressing the Roman Empire specifically. But as I think you, you both, you and Bakam and many others talk about, you know, the, the description of Babylon as being a bit elastic, you know, you know, John's thinking of the Roman empire, but as I think Baca even says, you know, any empire, if the shoe fits, the empire must wear it. Like if any kind of nation or empire is acting like Babylon, then it is Babylon. Can you unpack that a bit more for us? Yeah. I mean, I think David Alany in his commentary says it quite similarly,

three volume historical critical commentary. It's either in the commentary or maybe in his Harper Collins study Bible mini commentary, he says something like Babylon is Rome but more than Rome. And it's the same idea that Babylon is symbolic of the kind of power that, as I mentioned a minute ago, is kind of self-divinizing. It sees itself as a God figure and thereby calls out for people to pledge allegiance to it, to worship it, both, if you will, figuratively and perhaps even literally, to make it the priority of one's life, not just individually, but corporately. And so, Revelation is, to go back to what we said earlier, a kind of expose of Rome as the antithesis of God and not deity, as the antithesis of real power, which is the power of the Lamb. And so, it's an expose of that entity that we call Babylon slash Rome slash,

if the shoe fits, wear it. It's an expose, it's a critique, and it's a call to the faithful of the Church to identify and react appropriately to this reality. So you have to first see it before you can react in the appropriate way to it. Okay. All right, let's just speak freely. One other thing, interestingly, we tend to want to identify empire

with actual political bodies. Okay. Yeah. I think it's just as much the case that certain clusters of isms and constitute empire. And with that, Thor, I'm indebted to Walter Bruggemann. Bruggemann has said on a number of occasions, if you put militarism and capitalism and maybe a couple of other isms together, you get empire that's more than just a particular nation state or a political figure. It's more of a kind of world system that's bigger than and in the sense more powerful than any nation or any ruler as maybe as central as

they might be to empire. There's something more nefarious going on and revolution makes it pretty clear that it's satanic. There's something behind these political realities that in Pauline language would be the power of sin and death. That actually is a good segue to what the question I was wanting to get to. Um, but it made me think like, yeah, the beast of the sea, beast of the land and revelation 12 and 13, which are, which you're talking about is almost the, the, the, the marriage

of that beast of the sea seems to be, you know, the more political entity, the Roman empire, but beast of the land, if I'm getting those right, is kind of the energy, the propaganda, that system you're talking about. Will that be- I think they're both part of the system, but yeah, the beast of the land is sort of the acolytes of the succotense to this larger entity. So yeah, there's a distinction there, but they're not unrelated to be sure. And as I'm not the first person, I don't think to say this, but I think it's fair to call that the kind of unholy trinity where you have this Satan figure in Chapter 12

who's behind the beast from the sea in the beginning of 13 who is supported by, propped up by the propagandists in the second half of Chapter 13. So you have, well, you really have kind of an anti-Father, anti-Son, anti-spirit reality going on there, which is pretty scary. It's very scary. Yeah. I wish people were more scared of that. Yeah.

So just take the curtain off here. Is America Babylon? A kind of Babylon? And how would you, if the answer is, well, I'll have you answer that first and then we'll go from there. I think if you had asked me that question 15 or 20 years ago, I would have said a definitive yes. I tend to be a little bit more nuanced now, I think, in my senior year, so to speak. And that's to go back to what I was just saying, kind of going along with Bruggemann, I think there's something bigger and worse than a specific political entity, whether it's the United States or Britain in its heyday or the Soviet Union in

its heyday or whatever. And again, to kind of connect Revelation with Pauline theology, I'm thinking of a conversation or almost a debate between John Barclay and N.T. Wright some years ago, a pretty famous conversation, where Wright's talking about how Paul is critical of Rome, and Barclay says, no, Rome doesn't really figure for Paul as much as something behind Rome. That there's, Paul's more concerned about bigger things. And obviously in Revelation, it's very political. It's very specific about Rome. And yet chapters 12 and 13 make me think that we should be careful about identifying a specific

entity and look to this greater power. Having said that, I don't want to dismiss the fact that whether you call it an empire or a superpower, at the moment, and I'll emphasize for the moment because we don't know what's going to happen next, but at the moment, the United States does constitute, as many would say, the world's sole superpower. And in that sense, with the militarism and the consumerism and the other isms that are part of the United States reality, I think it's fair to say that if there's a Babylon in the world today, and I think there is, the United States is in some measure part of that reality without making a

wholesale identification or a simplistic narrowing of empire and Babylon to one country. That makes a lot of sense. So it's almost like America as the world's superpower, especially with its militarism, consumerism is participating in maybe a primary exemplar of Babylon, but we don't want to make just necessarily a one-to-one correlation. Babylon is the larger thing that it is participating in and manifesting. Would that be...? That's what I think. And at the same time, it's not an either or, it's a both and.

Most Americans just take it for granted that the United States has military bases, for instance, in, I forget the exact number, but it's more than 100 countries. Of course, the retort to that is, well, they didn't, those countries, they didn't object or they didn't kick the United States military out. But just think about that for a moment. If that's not empire, I don't know what is. So I don't want to make it sound like I'm exonerating the United States from some of its major issues, militaristic, consumeristic,

and not racist and others, without limiting empire or Babylon to one place. Yeah. I was looking for, I had that stat, I quoted it many times. I thought it was 750 military bases in over 80 different countries. Okay. That net may be what, whether it's a hundred or 80 or it's a lot, it's a lot. It's a, it is a, I think a clear example that America is. And I like you, I try, I tried, I'm still a little younger than you. So I should probably learn from your wisdom to be a little more nuanced. But I, I, I say at the very least America is empire. Like it has Imperial qualities. This would be one manifestation to it. Whether

we want to say it is an empire on par with like the British empire. It's like, well, you know, our, our co-opting of other nations is a little more secret behind the scenes. You know, we've overthrown what 80 Oh here. I'm now mixing my numbers. I think maybe that's where I got my 80 from over 80 democratically elected leaders in the last hundred countries. Like that. So, you know, we don't rule over Guatemala, but we did overthrow their leader, which has led to lots of financial ruin and chaos. And now the refugee, you know, people are storming the border from Guatemala or whatever. It's like, well, yeah, we kind of caused that. Didn't we like 80 and others? It's a sad reality that many Americans don't want to face these kinds of facts and realities

in part because of misreadings of the Book of Revelation. And that is to say, if the United States is in large measure a kind of messianic figure in world politics, and because we're so Christian, and we are so supportive of the state of Israel, we can turn a blind eye to some of the really dark sides of American history and American contemporary politics. All right. Let's talk about economics, money, consumerism, because the book of Revelation actually discusses this pretty extensively.

What is a theology of economics according to the book of Revelation? Well, I think the place to start is obviously with the chapters where this comes to the fore, chapters 17 and 18, which of course are in large measure a depiction of the reality and the downfall of Babylon. So, Chapter 17 is very provocatively descriptive of the whore, the harlot of Babylon that is Babylon, who rules over the seas and who has lots of peoples and kings in bed with her and that very graphic sexual metaphor. But when we turn to the judgment of that reality in chapter 18, it's very much about economics. And so to be sure, there's more to the empire than economics, but there is always that very significant factor. So we get to chapter 18 of the book of Revelation.

Babylon is being judged and destroyed while people who have profited from Babylon are looking in shock and also in lament and disappointment and realizing that their fate is caught up in the the second dirge which is where the merchants of the earth are weeping and mourning for for Babylon and Here's why since no one buys their cargo anymore This is a chapter 18 verse 11 and then it lists their cargo

is chapter 18, verse 11. And then it lists their cargo, gold, silver, jewels, and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet, scented wool, articles of ivory. I mean, these are high-end products. All articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, marble, and the spices that are listed. And then finally, at the end of verse 13, after listing animals, slaves and human souls

or human lives. This is such a powerful description of economics gone awry, where the powerful, the most powerful and the subserviently powerful are kind of in bed together to use Revelation's imagery to promote an economy that oppresses everybody except the most elite, the ones who can afford the ivory and so forth. So the first place to start is, I think, with the critique, the critique of an oppressive economy that benefits only the rich, a critique of those who promote and participate in that economy for their own good, not for the good of the world, the good of nations, the good of people, but for their own profit, their own.

If we start with that kind of negative aspect of what economy should not look like, and for which it will be, for which those economies and those who participate in them will be judged, what is an economy that's the antithesis of that? What is a divine economy look like? It's an economy that treats slaves as people, and not people who were

enslaved as people rather than as property. It is an economy that cares for the, not for the powerful and the rich, but for the people who need basic goods, who now, as we see earlier in the book where there's in chapter six, this horrible situation where the necessities of life have become exorbitantly expensive, unaffordable for the average person. That's kind of tucked away, but it's part of the economic reality of the Book of Revelation. So there's this critique that implies things in obviously its opposite, in which the reality of commerce takes place, but it is a reality in which, as a friend of mine likes to say, no one is afraid, but everyone has what they need. That person is a biblical scholar, a friend of mine who's also written on biblical economics.

One way of looking at this is to go to chapter 21, 22. And even though money per se is not the issue there, we have streets of gold and we have the river of life. And so there's wealth, but it's wealth that produces life, not death. So the economy of the wealthy and the powerful is ultimately a death-dealing economy, and both intentionally and unintentionally. So an economy that, for instance, neglects the poor of its own country or the poor of the world is the economy of Babylon. The economy that's overflowing with gold but produces life for the nations, for the healing of the nations.

This wonderful image and that phrase in the end of the book of Revelation is such a wonderful metaphor for what good economics can look like. Do you ever feel like you're running on empty? I wonder how many hands went up. My hands up. I feel like that all the time. It could be that your mitochondria is telling you

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you have militarism in 17 and 18 as well, but economics seems to be really, I mean, John just goes on and on and on about how this is the heart of what it means to be Babylon. Yeah. And even the description of the harlot of Babylon is so wrapped literally in the language of luxury and of power. I mean, a woman sitting on a 17th street, a woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names, clothed in purple and scarlet adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, the very things that are part of the cargo that is being now wiped out and destroyed. Here we have a vision of Babylon as something that is like,

I don't know, maybe too coarse here, but like a high-end prostitute. Some people have called her a wealthy courtesan to use more polite language. So we can't escape this centrality, as you were saying, of the economy to the description and the critique of Babylon. Yeah, that's helpful. Real quick, who or what is the harlot, the whore of Babylon?

Is that the spirit that empowers the economic side? How would you, in one sentence, how would you read it? Maybe it can't be captured in one sentence, but... Yeah. Well, it's interesting. John comes pretty close to telling us here, just again, to read again. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. They are also seven kings. The waters that you saw where the whore is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages, and the beasts will hate the whore. And then the last verse of chapter 17, the woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.

So this is one of the great things about chapter 17. John finally tells us what some of this symbolism means. For 16 chapters, you almost have to guess, apocalyptically guess. But now John says, here it is. Well, on one level, then it's kind of obvious that this is Rome, seven hills, all this symbolism. But to go back to what we were saying earlier and what you're just implying with your question, if so much of Revelation's imagery is meant to be Rome but more than Rome, Babylon but more than Babylon, if we think analogously

to the next century and to the 12th century and to the eventually to the 21st century, where does this power or kind of power reappear? And in my view, the Holy Spirit would not have allowed the Book of Revelation to be in the canon if it was simply to be read as a first century critique of Rome. It is that. But if it's not more than that, why canonize it? Humanly speaking, even if you don't wanna bring the Holy Spirit into the formation of the canon, just humanly speaking and certainly spiritually speaking,

it doesn't make any sense to have a book that is not primarily, I would say, not just secondarily, but primarily meant to stimulate our imagination, to think again, how do we identify, how do we describe Babylon, and then how do we both find it in our contemporary context, and as the book says, come out of it. And that's the tricky part. I want to come back to that. That's really an interesting phrase come out of her. I'm curious. So when we think about economic corruption, the wealthy and the elite gobbling up resources, and this is a thinking out loud question here. In the book of, that the counter to that seems to be the kingdom of God, not

necessarily reforming Babylon to make it a better economy. Now, now that even as I say that, I'm hearing my, my other self say, well, let's not make it a false dichotomy here too. But in the book itself, yeah. And this is the, you know, the battle between more of a reformed political theology versus Anabaptist like is our job as citizens of Babylon is our job to reform and make more moral the economic system of the nation we're living in? Or is it to emulate and embody a better economy in the kingdom of God? Or is it a both-and? I know it's a big question, and I'm not sure Revelation alone gives us the full answer, but...

The way I approach that is, I mean, over the years, I've become more Anabaptist in my theology. I've been there for a long time, but I have reformed roots and that surprises people because I've been part of the Wesleyan tradition. So I'm kind of a formerly reformed Anabapt, Wesleyan, something like that. But so I think the starting point is where you started and where the book of Revelation starts and that is the kingdom of God has a different economy. And yet we can't, it's almost impossible to withdraw from the economy that exists. So what's the value of, or what's the function, I guess, of the Christian community that tries to live, and it's hard, tries to live by a different

set of economic priorities and standards. So my good friend Stephen Fowle says the primary word for, in his view, the primary word for Christian action in New Testament perspective is witness. So the way that we live as the church, and that includes the way we interact with the culture and its economy, that witnesses the primary activity. So that, as opposed to maybe a more reformed view that would say, let's work to improve, change the world that we're in, the kind of, I always laugh that we still have a magazine called The Christian Century that was supposed to be the 20th century and now we're a quarter of the way through the 21st century, still has the same name, still hasn't happened and never will create this kind of ideal Christian allegedly democratic reality.

But anyhow, I digress. That said, it seems to me that in the grand scheme of God's hopes for the world, a better economy for the world is certainly a more divine economy, if you will, kingdom economy is certainly a good thing for the world. It's a way of loving our neighbor. And I think, again, not to quote, but to allude to my friend Steve Fowle, Steve also says with Augustine, and we could argue with Jesus, that when we interpret scripture, we interpret it for the love of God and neighbor. So, if our witness, if our kingdom living is going to have any function of loving our neighbor, it needs to make sure that we do what we can, not only personally to love our neighbor,

but to create structures and policies and principles that support the widow and the orphan, that support the needs of the poor, that support the needs of the poor, that support the needs of everyone. So I don't think that's necessarily going the reformed route as much as it is expressing the idea that, I hate to keep quoting Paul because we're talking about revelation, but as you know, and your listeners may know, my primary specialty is the apostle Paul.

Paul likes to say at the end of his letters, be at peace with one another and with all, or do good to one another and to all, or do good to all, especially to the household of faith. I mean, there's always this inclusivity in his vision. And I think if we take Revelation's critique of injustice and its implied vision of justice, part of witness, which is a key theme in the book of Revelation, the church is identified, I think, in chapter 11 in terms of those two witnesses.

Many scholars would say that. If witness is a key aspect, faithful witness is who Jesus is, the faithful witness, we are called to be faithful witnesses to and of the faithful witness. That certainly includes witness to the divine economy. And so by example and by speech, we do have, I think, a responsibility to work for structures that benefit those in need. Yeah. And I would, can I add something to you? Sure, please.

I think you would agree with this, that those in need includes, we're part of a global kingdom. So we should always, always, always think globally. For instance, if we work towards economic reform for the country we are living in and it helps that country we're living in, but it ends up hurting other countries and other people around the world as a globally minded Christian. We don't celebrate that. This is one thing I think is a huge blind spot for Christians that, you know, are politically thinking like, well, this candidate, that candidate's going to be better for the economy in America. And then our inflation will go down and, and

we'll be making more money. And we'll we'll, you know, we, the United States of America will be flourishing economically. Even if that happened, even if it was pretty evenly distributed in America, if that was hurting other people around the globe, we don't celebrate that, right? Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree more.

As a matter of fact, when I was saying what I was saying, I wasn't even thinking of specifically of policies or whatever that are only local or only national, but for sure, policies and actions of any powerful country like the United States, they're going to have a huge effect on the world's economy. And those actions can be trade decisions, they can be military decisions, and Christians need to be, I think, aware of these and to do what they can to challenge them

when they are inappropriate from the point of view of caring for the least. So for instance, if, I mean, just take an extreme example, this is where militarism and economy come together. Why is it that so many Americans, including many American Christians, cannot see how the war on Gaza, whether you call it genocide or not, no matter what you believe about Israel's right to exist or Israel's right to self-defense

or Israel's having a right to something called the promised land, no matter what you think about that, the promised land, no matter what you think about that. When you see the economic slash military role of the United States to supply so many arms to a country that's bombing the Gazans and their infrastructure to smithereens, I do not understand how a Christian can support that. And that's where Babylon comes into play because it's not only about finances, it's this is finances that are killing people, literally killing people. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's peek behind that door a little bit because I 100% agree with you. And I, I've been fairly outspoken with my view on, let's just call it what the ICJ calls it a plausible genocide. It meets enough criteria, um, that could very much be a genocide upon further investigation. That's a, you know, genocide is a legal term. That's the legal evaluation from the best, the, you know, the legal body that we have available, the ICJ. So, um, what, and I get, I know this is hot, it's debated, it's complex, whatever. Why are so many Christians not even, why are they so, how come they don't see it?

It's a genuine question. I know there's thousands of people listening right now and they might be freaking out because they're like, yeah, but what about this? What about that? And you know, we need to get rid of Hamas. But you know, all the arguments, Israel has the right to defend itself, but thousands and thousands of thousands of women and children and innocent civilians are being bombed by billions of dollars sent from the US to Israel, which is committing at the very... This isn't even

disputed, man. I mean, just piles of, let's just say, war crimes. I just don't... I don't have a category for how Christians can just look at that and say, no, this is something moral that I want to support. Would you say what you did? Do you face opposition? Do you have Christians that push back on that? Why are so many Christians in America? The global church or the globe sees it very much the way we are seeing it. So it really is American Christians, almost exclusively. Why is that? Well, yeah. So, I don't know that this is the right answer, or I hope it's a plausible answer. And I think it goes back to what we've been talking about, about power. Unfortunately, in my opinion, many, many American Christians identify political,

military, and economic power as divine blessing, as divine gift even, more than divine, more than right, but actually from the hand of God. And the book of Revelation's understanding of power is just the opposite of that. It's cruciform power. It's the power of the Lamb. And I've said this on many, many occasions in many contexts from South Africa to South Africa to other parts of the world where power remains an important issue, and certainly in this country.

In my opinion, the fate of the world, from a Christian point of view, depends on whether Christians can understand that the power of God is the power of the cross and not the power of power. So to be more specific, many Christians believe that what America, what Israel does and what America does with its gifts, divinely given military, economic, political center of power, that that is in fact a gift from God to be used and to be used, I won't say without restraint, but to

be used to further the political ends of that country, of that particular gifted country. And especially because Israel is allegedly the chosen people, chosen state, and America is its greatest ally and vice versa. And so that American power becomes almost synonymous with divine power. I would say that's exactly what the book of Revelation is saying it is not.

That's the blasphemy of notice in chapter 17, the description of Revelation is saying, it is not. That's the blasphemy of, notice in chapter 17, the description of the woman sitting on the Scarlet Beast, the Scarlet Beast is full of blasphemous names. I mean, this political slash economic slash military reality is blasphemous, it's not divine. And I don't think many Americans are willing to even consider that much less accept that. That's the message of the book of Revelation. Yeah. I just, so since, yeah, connecting the dots, I would love to see a good counterargument

to the argument that the marriage between the United States of America with its money and bombs and aircraft and everything with Israel and what Israel is the response over the last, now over what 14 not, that that does not fit very well the description of Babylon in the book of revelation. Like that seems to be a very clear wedding of power, militarism, death. As you said, I mean, that's again, I don't think any of that's disputed that that response is a manifestation of Babylon. I wouldn't even add, I mean, somebody might say, well, what about Hamas? I'm like, yeah of Babylon. I wouldn't even add, I mean, somebody might say, well, what about Hamas? I'm like, yeah, okay. I would say that's also a manifestation

of Babylon, especially if you, you know, I've heard that, you know, the top leaders of Hamas are multi billionaires and, and, you know, they're, let's just say they're gobbling up resources that are, you know, meant to help civilians and they spend all the money, the aid money on building tunnels and all the, you know, I'm like civilians and they spent all the money, the aid money on building tunnels and all the, you know, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can sign off on all that. So now you have a massive Babylon fighting a lesser Babylon. We shouldn't celebrate either. Like we're, we're celebrating Babylon's response to a lesser Babylon. It's like, it's all still Babylon.

Meanwhile, there's tens of thousands of dead people, many of whom are part of our family, our global family. Shouldn't that cause us to pause a little bit? Yeah. So a critique of the policies of Israel and its ally, the United States, or perhaps we should say the policies of the United States and its ally Israel, but any event, is not a defense of Hamas. I do think, however, that the media and many Americans, I'll include myself, are not as aware of, informed about Middle Eastern realities, politics as we should be. And until you've known some Palestinian Christians face to face, side by side, until you've met them, known them, and known their story over the last going on a century now, what, 80 years,

century now, what, 80 years, until you know some personally, it's pretty hard to not be sympathetic to a country that you believe is ordained by God to help another country that's been chosen by God. So some of it comes down to. So some of it comes down to relationships, some of it comes down to information, some of it comes down to theology for sure. They're all tied together. Yeah, I do think the propaganda piece, it's hard when you bring this up because the second I say, well I think some people are probably bought into a lot of propaganda, they'll just like, well so have you, you know? Like, well, all right. My propaganda is every single Palestinian Christian I talk to, 100%, has a very, very different

experience of what it's like living in Israel their whole life than what most Americans are being fed from media personalities that are, I mean, if I can say it, funded by pro-Israel lobbies and have a lot of financial incentive. And it's just, it becomes a really dark system once you peek behind the curtain. So it's like, okay, either every single Palestinian Christian is just wrong, even though they're living there. Like they actually are the ones that have had, you know, they're the ones going through checkpoints and they're the ones that see what's going on.

They're the ones who have experienced 17 years of imprisonment in Gaza. Like, but maybe they're totally But maybe they're all wrong. That just seems pretty bold for somebody to make that assumption. Like, no, our media outlets in America are totally right. And these Palestinian Christians are wrong in assessing their own living situation in the land. That's just so bold though. Or maybe people aren't even thinking of them, maybe they haven't even thought of those categories. They haven't talked to a Palestinian Christian. But even, you know, I think to go back to the simplest economic picture, if you will,

to look at the devastation of an apartment building or of a city block or a whole area of a city, just a whole area of a city, just to use one's imagination. Can you even imagine that happening to your own neighborhood? And just think about what that would, the inability to make a living, the inability to find food for your family,

where is the simple human empathy for that? That bothers me as much as the politics and the theology. But they were given warnings to leave. We're about to blow up your apartment building. You have one hour to leave and that's- And then go there. Oh, tomorrow, go back to where we just bombed because we're going to bomb where you've just gone to, which we happened to bond last month also. So, I mean, don't,

don't get me started. I do want to ask. Okay. So you did mention the term capitalism and I'm not assuming you're an economist or whatever, but like, do you think in your, but you are a well-versed in political theology. We'll love your, maybe just your opinion. Okay. Like what is there a modern economic system that you would find is more congruent with creational norms, theology, whatever you want to call it. Is there an economic system that's better than others? Is capitalism intrinsically evil and corrupt? Is there another better option? Do you have any thoughts on this? If you're like, this is my area, I'd rather pass. I'm fine with that too.

I don't think I should pretend to be something that I'm not. And so I would say that my, not only am I not an economist, I'm not, I don't want to call myself a political theologian. I'm a biblical theologian. That said, I want to go back to my comment about my friend Michael Barham, who wrote a book on biblical economics. And that phrase he uses where everyone has enough and no one is afraid. I don't think that's a sufficient description

of the goal of human life because it doesn't have, it doesn't say everything. It certainly doesn't say something specifically about our relationship with God. But we look at the prophets in the Old Testament and carry through through Jesus. And I would say through Paul, there's a sense in which the care of the neediest

and a sense of fair distribution slash equality is somewhere in the vicinity of a biblical vision. Now, immediately I'm gonna be accused by some people of being completely woke or a socialist or something like that, but I'm going to appeal to the prophets in Jesus in Poland and say, there's something perverse about building barns and storing up all that you possibly can for your own

benefit because you don't know when that's going to end, just on a very practical note. And on the more, if you will, agenda side of things, I think it's pretty clear that from Genesis to Revelation that the care of the neediest, the care of the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger is at the heart of biblical ethics. So I was recently challenged by a friend who said, I mean, I'm unashamedly pro-life, and I think in a womb to tomb kind of way.

A friend recently said it would be great when people who are pro-life became pro-people or something like that. Those who are pro-the unborn will become pro-the born. And I simply want to say to that, that's right. This kind of comprehensive ethic of valuing God's creation, both with respect to the stranger and the poor and the unborn and the non-human creation. This to me is all of a piece of Christian ethics

in a biblical vision. So I wanna see the church and Christians individually look more holistically at what it means to live the values of the kingdom of God. Yeah, that's good. I looked into biblical economics a while back, did a lot of research, and Chris Wright has done some fantastic work on it. Craig Blomberg wrote a great book, and there's a lot of really, really interesting stuff,

especially the Old Testament has a lot to say about, especially there when it's a nation state, you know, and how economics should be run. And I do, again, I am not an economist or the son of economists, but the tiny bit I know about socialism or democratic socialism or capitalism or some kind of qualified capitalism, it seems like there are some bits and pieces of each system that the Bible does endorse. For instance, I mean, there is a fundamental value, I think, throughout the Old Testament that if somebody can work, they should work. The idea of you have an able-bodied person not working when they have access to land, which is, you know, the Old Testament's major laws built into

ensuring that people have access to land. The thought that somebody living in an agrarian society is an able-bodied person and is not working 10 hours a day, six days a week. That's not like the Bible would say that's absurd. You know, the widow of the orphan, the elderly, the, the G I would say genuine poor here. I'm going to, you know, my conservative friends are probably a many and everything I'm saying right now. Yeah. Care for them because they, they don't either physically can't work. They don't have access to land. They are the genuine downtrodden and you know, marginalized at the same time, you have really aggressive concerns about runaway economic growth. The whole year of the Jubilee

was really designed to cap somebody who was just kind of gobbling up more and more land. I mean, it is that it, that is the most radical economic thing in the, I think in all of ancient economic systems and also keeping wealth out of the hands of just a bunch of elite people at the top, the land is distributed among the people, not the Kings and priests like every other system in that day. So anyway, I, I just, I don't, I do see some concerns on different economic systems at play in this beautiful marriage in, in the biblical narrative, but how to apply that to a secular nation or a Babylon. It's, it's, I don't know. That's where I get hung up. And I really don't know the answer, but I love what you said about

witness. Like if we are embodying gods, if we, as a global people of God are embodying kingdom ethics, kingdom economic ethics, and that, that that should spill over into our neighbors around us so that who's the famous, I don't know if he's an emperor, a pagan writer, something that, you know, these Christians they're carrying, they're carrying not only for their own poor, but for ours also. Like I just think that is such a great summary of, of kind of what we should shoot for. It's not just isolation, not just us, but we do focus on the global kingdom, but that should spill over into neighborly love wherever we are. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. All right. I have a question from one of our patrons here. Oh yeah. This is a really good one.

To participate in the corrupt economy, it was required and people had a choice. Maybe then, wait, I'm not sure I understand this one. Oh, so just general comments on the mark of the beast. Okay. That's the mark of the beast. You know, is that participating in a corrupt economy? And then how do we avoid that when that's just the economy where we live? Do you have any thoughts on that? All right. That gets back to the very difficult practical question. You can't extract yourself. At least most people can't extract themselves completely from an economy. There are people who are self-identified Christian homesteaders and trying to avoid as much as

possible the identified corrupt economy. What I think is, for most people at least, a more realistic way of approaching it. Just when John says, come out of Babylon, referring, quoting from Jeremiah and Isaiah, I think he's speaking at a level of praxis, not of geographical location. So, I mean, if you need food, you need to buy it, not steal it.

So then it comes down to questions of what kind of food are you going to buy and why. You need clothing. So what kind of clothing are you going to buy and wear? Where are you going to buy it from? How often are you going to buy it? You need to give gifts to people because gift giving is part of the human experience.

What kinds of gifts are you going to give to what purpose? So there's all kinds of questions that can be asked That don't involve physical relocation or going off the grid a hundred percent, but that involve the kinds of practices that we that we do so that we don't that we do so that we don't, instead of sympathizing with and collaborating with and supporting the beastly economy, we try to do something that at least in a small way bears witness to an alternative. And what we do with our money, there was a book years ago by Ron Sider called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Yeah.

Remember that book? So good, yeah. So- That's a bomb. One of the suggestions in that book was that people who earn more than they need should begin a graduated tithe. That hasn't taken off like fireworks in the Christian community, but I do know people and we have tried to practice not exactly that

but something where income that we're not expecting does something other than go our bank account or our retirement fund. So. There's another book written, it's older now, 10, 15 years old, called Everyday Justice. It's a really good practical book on just ways in which we can be more aware of how our economic decisions are either participating in injustices versus not.

The clothes we buy, the places we shop, it's, and what I like about the book is it's really level headed. It's like, look, I don't expect everybody to spend all day, every day researching every single, like that's not realistic, but you can do some, you can be more aware of where things are coming from and not funding things that are clearly tied to, you know, unjust labor and so on. All right. I got one more question here that is actually tied specifically to one of your lectures. The question is this in your lecture, um, reading revelation or in your book, reading revelation responsibly, you outline the hybrid literary character of revelation as being

apocalypse, prophecy and letter. Can you outline what we gain from each of these literary genres? What insight, if any, is to be gained for the living of our contemporary daily lives when one considers the book of Revelation from within the framework of apocalyptic prophecy and apostolic genres? Sure. I mean, I talked a little bit about this at the very beginning, but I can recap a little bit and also elaborate briefly. Let's start with the letter aspect. I mean, this is a document written for and to real people in real situations. And those situations, when we read especially the seven messages in chapters two and three, are not exactly

the same. I mean, Ephesus is not Smyrna, is not Pergamum, and so forth. So I think that tells us that there are, if you will, general, I don't want to use the word principles, but general aspects of this book that apply to all believers, but there's also specific messages within this larger document that target specific kinds of congregations. A number of people have said, every congregation has its own DNA. The DNA of Ephesus is not the DNA of Community United Methodist Church in downtown Athens, Ohio or whatever. This is not just predicting the future. This is something addressed to real people in real specific context in the first century

and in the 21st century by analogy. So that I think the letter aspect helps, the epistolary aspect helps in that regard. With respect to prophecy, a couple of things can be said. First of all, prophecy is not primarily about prediction. It is primarily about, as a number of people have said, a word on target, a divine word on target for a specific context again. And biblical prophecy is two-dimensional. It's both the promise of salvation and the promise of judgment. So if we read Revelation as both challenge to make sure that we are aware of what God judges and how God judges and what God judges about about so that we avoid divine

judgment both now and future and that we understand what the promise of salvation is and that we are, as the church called, to be a kind of foretaste of that future reality. Tom Wright's language is the church is a microcosm of the eschatological reality. I think it's a lovely phrase, not attainable 100% or perfectly, it is hopeful rather than guaranteed, so to speak. But so I think it's helpful to think of prophecy in those ways as a word for the current situation, both first century and 21st century. And then when we think apocalyptically, especially in regard to our own context, that this is metaphorical symbolic language, it's not to be taken literally.

And I always make the point that no one, even a self-proclaimed literalist, no one interprets the book of Revelation literally. For instance, my favorite go-to on this is Hal Lindsey. And you get similar things in Tim LaHaye. When we read about the flying massive locusts, nobody interprets them as actual locusts. They get interpreted as some military helicopter or something like that. So everybody knows that there's symbolism in the book of Revelation. Symbolic language triggers the imagination and the book of Revelation wants to and needs to do that for us, to have our imaginations Christologically and Divinely shaped. But

metaphor and symbolism can do that in ways that literal language cannot. Pete Michael, final quick word encouraging or challenging our people in this Christmas season as it pertains to economics and consumerism. Michael I'll be perfectly honest this is the hardest part of the Christian year or of the year for me because I I despise the over consumerist mentality but it's very hard to escape. Yeah. And so my word the word I would offer to myself and to others to at least think about is an old phrase, giving simply so that others may simply live. Think about ways to use your holiday giving to benefit those who otherwise might not survive. So ways of supplementing or complementing your family and friend gift giving with the Salvation Army, with other charities that are in need this time of year, giving gifts

from World Vision or whatever that are not monetary, but that represent kindness to your family member and also actually benefit somebody who needs them. It's an argument. And since we talked about Gaza, I would highly recommend people looking up Bethlehem Bible College. That's a network of Christian theologians. And they have, I'm not sure where it is on the page, but if you want to give directly to Christians in, I mean, they're in the West bank,

but they are able to give aid to people in need around them. So that would be a great, because I know it's hard, people like, what do I trust? Especially, you know, at a place that I don't understand, I would highly recommend the, I mean, the integrity of Bethlehem Bible College, if you really felt led to. Great suggestion. suggestion, yeah.

So thank you so much, Michael, for the wonderful conversation. Many blessings on your life in ministry. Rejoices for yonder breaks A new and glorious morn Fall on your knees Oh hear the angel voices Oh night divine Oh night when Christ was born Truly He taught us to love one another His law, His love, and His gospel is peace.

Change shall he break for the slaves are brother. And in His name all oppression shall cease Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise We let all within us praise His holy name Christ is the Lord We'll praise His name forever Forever, His power and glory His right And I'm walking Through Ooh Fall on your knees Oh hear the angel voices

Oh night divine Oh night when Christ was born Oh night divine Night, oh night divine Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah Mmm, mmm This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hey, so I'm launching a new season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Amon, joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind and the brain of everything high performance.

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