The Message of Revelation in Seven Points - Michael Gorman

The Message of Revelation (in 7 points, naturally) by Michael Gorman:M

1. God the creator reigns! Jesus the redeemer, the slaughtered Lamb, is Lord! The reign of God is not merely future or past but present. God in Christ both demands all and offers all.

2. Evil is real. Empire is now—not merely future or past but present. Empire, by nature, makes seductive blasphemous and immoral claims and engages in corollary practices that bring disorder to both vertical (people-God) and horizontal (people-people) human relations, promising life but delivering death—both physical and spiritual.

3. The Christian church is easily seduced by Empire’s idolatry and immorality because these claims and practices are often invested with religious meaning and authority.

4. In the midst of Empire, the church is called to resistance as the inevitable corollary of faithfulness to God, a call that requires prophetic spiritual discernment and may result in various kinds of suffering.

5. The spiritual discernment required of the church, in turn, requires an alternative vision of God and of reality that unveils and challenges Empire, a vision in need of the Spirit’s wisdom to see and apply.

6. Christian resistance to Empire conforms to the pattern of Jesus Christ and of his apostles and saints: faithful, true, courageous, just, and nonviolent. It is not passive but active, consisting of the formation of communities and individuals who pledge allegiance to God alone, who live in nonviolent love toward friends and enemies alike, who leave vengeance to God, and who, by God’s Spirit, create mini-cultures of life as alternatives to Empire’s culture of death.

7. God the creator and Christ the redeemer take evil and injustice seriously and are about both to judge humanity and to renew the cosmos. The will of God is for all to follow the Lamb and participate in the life of God-with-us forever.

Michael wrote this on 7/4/2007. He is also the author of the excellent Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness, Following the Lamb into the New Creation. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Life in Baseball

MY LIFE IN BASEBALL My earliest memories of baseball haunt the side yard of the "farm" I grew up on in Troy, Michigan. Most of our 12-acre property was a corn field or lay fallow, but about two acres was laid out like the diagram below. On this field we played softball . . . carefully. Breaking windows in the house in shallow center field could result in the neighborhood season being canceled, at least until the window was fixed and paid for out of our meager allowance. So, we all, including we right-handed hitters, learned to hit to right field (a skill that came in handy later in church league softball!). You could also pull the ball to left field, but not too deep, so you wouldn't get a muck ball from the leaky sewage drain field. (How did we not get hepatitis, dysentery, hoof and mouth disease, or some other noxious crud? But we didn't.) The barn made a decent backstop, though you had to stay out of Mom's rhubarb that grew along the barn near home plate. ...
Read more

Eleven Beliefs That Cause Problems

From Albert Ellis , edited by Kathie Keeler and Tom Johnson Our behavior is determined by what we believe, whether we are aware of it or not. Anxiety, depression, sadness are all caused by what we believe. Below are listed eleven common beliefs that cause problems. The list is adapted from the work of Albert Ellis , one of the originators of cognitive-behavioral therapy. His pioneering research brought a significant paradigm shift to the world of psychology. 1. I must be loved by everyone. Actually, everyone doesn’t have to love me, or even like me. I don’t necessarily like everyone I know, so why should everyone else have to like me? I enjoy being liked and loved, but if someone doesn’t like me, that’s OK. I will still feel loved and am OK. I can’t make someone like me anymore than someone can get me to like them. I don’t need everyone’s approval all the time or anyone’s approval all the time. They don’t approve of me: that’s OK. I don’t approve of everyone else either. 2. I mu...
Read more

Instead of T.U.L.I.P.

In a recent Koinonia blog ( http://www.koinoniablog.net/2014/05/tulip-is-so-20th-century-proof-is-a-modern-framework-of-dort-and-gods-irresistible-grace.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FpQHu+%28Koinonia%29 ), Pastor Jeremy Bouwma, cited, but did not recommend, a revision of the traditional Calvinist T.U.L.I.P called P.R.O.O.F. If this stuff interests you, check out the link above. Let me offer my alternative to both of these, a version that emphasizes God's grace: Instead of Total Depravity      1. Sin - it affects all aspects of our humanity. We cannot turn to God without God’s saving GRACE. Instead of Unconditional Election      2. Salvation - it is entirely by God’s GRACE that we are saved and come to know God. We do not merit or earn salvation. Instead of Limited Atonement      3. Sacrifice - God in GRACE and mercy accepts the the death of Christ as a perfect and suff...
Read more