path: root/chapter2.md

## Chapter 2

Thesis: anti-apocalyptic criticism of R mis-diagnoses the problem.

6. The effect on R's audience now is a spiralling cycle of despair
7. This has led some critics to blame apocalypticism for the failure of R
8. This is a traditional criticism of apocalypticism 'from above'
9. Apocalypse 'from below' has often worked very differently
10. This difference is due to the different interests of the readers -- a
    difference which does not apply in the case of green crises
11. In fact, apocalypse can meet the critic's concerns in principle
12. (In order to do so in practice, those with power need to attack the
    structures which drive the downward spiral)

Catastrophe is a prominent literary feature of contemporary green rhetoric. The
word 'catastrophe' first entered English through early modern translations of
Greek plays, meaning the denouement of a plot. Through association with
tragedies, it came to acquire connotations of disaster, and in the nineteenth
century, became closely associated with the (now antiquated) 'catastrophic'
theory of geological time, according to which distinct geological epochs were
divided by sudden cataclysmic events. [@oed-catastrophe]

Anti-nuclear campaigners used the word 'catastrophe' to describe the effects of
a nuclear war, echoing this model of geological time, suggesting that a nuclear
war would have such severe, irreversible consequences that it would represent
the next great cataclysm in geological time \[EVIDENCE\].

Whether or not green rhetors explicitly use the word 'catastrophe,' they often
imply a catastrophic model of the problems they present. When Extinction
Rebellion took to the streets of the UK in 2018, this was their message:

> The science is clear – we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will
> face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly. [@xr-declaration]

The phrase 'sixth mass extinction event' categorises the present green crisis
alongside the traditional 'big five' mass extinction events of geological
history [@eb-extinctions], remnants of the catastrophic theory of geological
time. Their 'Declaration of Rebellion' used the word 'catastrophe' twice,
alongside words such as 'cataclysmic,' 'destruction,' 'crises,' 'dying planet,'
and 'uninhabitable' to reinforce the image.

Similarly, Greta Thunberg favours an imminent, catastrophic model of climate
change:

> \[FIND QUOTE\]

Catastrophic models of ecological futures are so dominant, that it can be hard
to imagine any other kind of story. This is eloquently demonstrated by the
novelist, Charles Foster, who set himself the challenge to 'reignite' his
readers' imaginations:

> I don't believe in climate change. \[…\] 'Yes, it's very bad. Yes, we're all
> going to die. Pass the salt, please. How's your homework going, Rachel?' \[…\]
> This exhaustion of our intellect, our compassion and our capacity for alarm
> is desperately dangerous. Only imagination can reignite them. And only story
> \[…\] can do the necessary imaginative job. We're dying for want of a story.
> \[FIND PAGE NUMBERS\]

The result was _Cry of the Wild_, a short story collection. One of those stories
follows a fictional orca called Eeschin as she lives through the extinction of
her pod due to marine pollution. The denouement of the story sees Eeschin
swimming alone, the last of her clan, unable and unwilling to adopt a new clan,
facing with courage her grief and her own inevitable death. Even a talented
writer such as Foster, intentionally seeking to break new imaginative ground for
conceptualising green crises, seems unable to escape the motif of catastrophe.

Famously, the Apocalypse of St John prominently features cataclysmic events,
beginning with the opening of the first of the seven seals in chapter 6,
unleashing the notorious 'Four Horsemen.' Catastrophe can be considered an
apocalyptic literary feature. \[NEEDS MORE WORK\]

Recently, academics examining green rhetoric have raised concerns with this
catastrophism.

It has been claimed green catastrophism is fatalistic: that the catastrophe is
implicitly inevitable, thus encouraging despair over hope and therefore mere
ritual over action. To be sure, most green rhetors do not explicitly say this;
rather, they tend to say the very opposite, that it is not too late to avert the
catastrophe: that's why we have to act now! The problem is not that green
rhetors _assert_ that the catastrophe is inevitable, but that inevitability is
one of those symbols packaged together with the symbols of 'catastrophe,' and
indeed 'apocalypse.'

Part of this is due to the geological connotations of 'catastrophe.'
Paleontologists speculate about the causes of historic mass extinctions:
volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, cyclical climate fluctuations gone rogue?
One thing's for sure, there's nothing the dinosaurs could have done to stop it.

'Apocalypse' is also a fatalistic concept. This fatalism is obvious whenever
someone counts the days til doomsday. This begins with the prophet Daniel, who
reports that 'seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and thy holy city, to
finish the transgression' (Dan 9:24) and that 'from the time that the daily
sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.' \[MORE DEMONSTRATION OF
FATALIST MILLENIALISM\]

\[EXAMPLE OF SCHOLAR SAYING THAT APOCALYPSE/CATASTROPHE IS FATALIST\]

A fatalistic outlook may, at best, lead to what Kvandal & Levy call
'ritualistic' behaviours: 'behaviours characterized by rigidity, compulsion, and
goal demotion.' [@kvandal-2025] That is, people feel compelled to act in rigidly
specific ways, even though they don't have a clear grasp on the practical
outcomes of their behaviour. Calling on the cognitive science of religion, the
authors assert that 'there is a general consensus that human beings tend to
ritualize more of their behavior when they lose agency under conditions of
stress, uncertainty, or hazards more generally.' They note the example of Greta
Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic in a zero-carbon vessel to speak at the
United Nations. The huge effort involved in that act seems disproportionate to
the small impact had on greenhouse gas emissions. The authors also raise
examples of civil disobedience motivated by climate pessimism. Fatalism might
lead to politically productive behaviours. But the fact that ritualistic
behaviours are severed from practical outcomes makes it a pretty bad bet:

> By not allowing for hope that the world can be salvaged, this form of social
> activism provides outlets in which activists alleviate anxiety by obtaining a
> (simulated) sense of agency in the face of an uncontrollable threat.
> [@kvandal-2025, p. 701]

Action directed at making you feel better might lead to change in your own life,
but it is not necessarily going to solve the problem that made you feel anxious
in the first place. Juli Gittinger has shown that fatalistic climate narratives
have driven some people in the US to join the 'prepper' movement, accumulating
stockpiles of essential goods, building emergency shelters, learning 'survival
skills,' and collecting weapons to defend your family's patch from desperate
outsiders. [@american-apocalyptic, see esp. chp. 3, 4] 'Prepper' culture (which
owes its existence to Cold War fears of all-out nuclear war
[@american-apocalyptic, pp. 48-56]) might be a minority pursuit, but it is a
response to the same apocalyptic storytelling which is a widespread phenomenon
in mainstream American media:

> The theme of _impending catastrophe_ \[…\] frames the news story
> as more apocalyptic and therefore often becomes more sensationalized or highly
> panic-driven. Add social media to this mix – where experts are often ignored
> in favor of more polemic non-experts – and risk perception increases. Oddly
> enough, impending catastrophe is less likely to alter behavior, instead
> inspiring feelings of futility: we’re doomed, so why bother. Repeated exposure
> to doomsday predictions can prevent us from taking action because ultimately
> the effect of apocalyptic thinking generates a fear of existential threats
> that are beyond our control – and thus unpreventable. [@american-apocalyptic, p. 60]

If fatalistic narratives don't cause their audiences to resign themselves to the
impending catastrophe, then they may also inspire resistance against those
narratives and the people who tell them. If what someone is telling you is
threatening to destroy the world as you know it, one way of coping with that
violent threat is to find a way to dismiss the speaker's credibility.

For example, Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit document how some people in Britain
respond to fatalistic narratives about the climate with what they call
'settlerdom discourse.' [@warm-words pp. 7-8, cf. @warm-words-2 p. 21] By this,
they mean a discourse implying that whatever isn't 'common sense' isn't
credible. Using such a discourse, it is easy to dismiss alarmist climate
rhetoric as 'doom-mongering.' Closely related is the discourse of 'British comic
nihilism,' or, as they put it, the discourse of 'bugger it and open another
bottle!'

Green catastrophism may have political implications, too. It has been argued
that implicit in the catastrophist narrative is the assumption that everything
was going well until the catastrophe loomed its ugly head. This suggests that
'business as usual' is alright, and therefore obscures the need for a radical
critique of the business-as-usual political get-up which produces massive
destruction.

Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac provided one demonstration of this
mindset in _The Future We Choose_, which begins with an imaginative description
of two possible futures, one optimistic, one pessimistic. The optimistic vision
described an anthropocene paradise, a vision of how the human project to
transcend materiality might be finally accomplished by continuing technological
progress. To take the comments on energy, for example:

> In some ways, breaking up grids and decentralising power proved easy. We no
> longer burn fossil fuels. There is some nuclear energy in those countries that
> can afford the expensive technology, but most of our energy now comes from
> renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro. \[…\] Because there
> is no combustion cost, energy is basically free. It is also more abundant and
> more efficiently used than ever. Smart tech prevents unnecessary energy
> consumption, as artificial inteligence units switch off appliances and
> machines when not in use. The efficiency of the system means that, with a few
> exceptions, our quality of life has not suffered. In many respects, it has
> improved. [@future-we-choose, chp. 3]

This vision of the good life promotes the idea of technological progress driving
increasing living standards, a rising tide lifting all boats. This narrative
perpetuates the idea that more efficient technology can deliver a free lunch,
while ignoring the fact that modern technological progress led to increased
exploitation of workers and of nature. It accepts that the Earth has been
domesticated, and advocates for the Earth to be domesticated even more. As
Eileen Crist, discussing Anthropocene discourse, puts it:

> The very concept of the Anthropocene crystallizes human dominion, corralling
> the already-pliable-in-that-direction human mind into viewing our master
> identity as manifestly destined, quasi-natural, and sort of awesome. The
> Anthropocene accepts the humanization of Earth as reality, even though this is
> still contestable, partially reversible, and worthy of resistance and of
> inspiring a different vision. [@poverty-nomenclature, p. 25]

It gets worse for the catastrophist. Perhaps the most vicious criticism of green
catastrophism is that by leaning on 'Anthropocene' discourses, green rhetors
flatten out social relationships. This, say the critics, is the death of all
genuine politics. \[EXAMPLES\]

For Frances Flannery, Professor Emerita of Religion at James Madison University,
the upshot of all this is that 'We Must Stop Saying "Climate Apocalypse"'
[@flannery-2024].

Flannery emphasises that in popular imagination, 'apocalypse' signifies nothing
more than the end of the world, ignoring the world-creating aspects of biblical
apocalypses [@flannery-2024, p. 209]. This may be a legacy of Cold-War era
nuclear rhetoric and science fiction, which re-purposed the symbol 'apocalypse'
to describe the consequences of a nuclear war, while deliberately stripping the
disaster of any redemptive afterward [@wojcik-end-of-the-world, p. 1]. Thus, she
argues, the result of raising the threat of a 'climate apocalypse' is to 'create
passivity rather than spur on quick and cooperative climate action' and to inspire
mass climate anxiety. Such a fatalist narrative can also imply that human action
is irrelevant, or encourage audiences to put their hope in 'savior figures such
as inventors, scientists, or governments who might rescue humanity in the nick
of time.' [@flannery-2024, p. 210]

Flannery also adds a couple further reasons why apocalypse in particular, apart
from its connotations of catastrophe, might be an unhelpful symbol to apply to
climate change. For one, if millenialist Christians, who are politically
influential in places such as the United States and the Congo which are
significant for the global climate, are persuaded that climate change is a 'sign
of the times,' there's a risk that they will welcome climate change instead of
fighting it.

For another, she notes that in the Apocalypse of St John, the wicked are
punished and the righteous vindicated. Meanwhile, in the climate case, it is
people living in the Global South who are expected to suffer the most from
climate change. Thus, telling a narrative of 'climate apocalypse' from the
Global North suggests that people living in the Global North are the suffering
righteous who will be vindicated, and those in the Global South the wicked who
will be punished. But, in Flannery's view, this flips the script on the
historical facts, which show that climate change is if anything a result of the
'wickedness' of those living in the Global North.

We are now beginning to expose five major criticisms of the use of apocalyptic
language in green rhetoric:

1. Apocalyptic language is catastrophic and thus fatalistic.
2. Apocalyptic language is catastrophic and thus obstructs radical criticism of
   business as usual.
3. Apocalyptic language is catastrophic and thus flattens out power
   relationships.
4. Apocalyptic language is millenarian and thus promotes destruction.
5. Apocalyptic language is violent and vindictive.

In the rest of this chapter, I will aim to show that these criticisms would, if
they were applied to the Apocalypse of St John as it was addressed to its
original audience, fail to reflect the radical possibilities of that work. Then,
in chapter 3, I will aim to show that green rhetors even now must make use of
those radical possibilities of apocalyptic language in order to be politically
effective, and suggest some ways how they might do that.

The first thing to notice is that, while the first three criticisms enumerated
above all assume that apocalyptic language is catastrophic, the Apocalypse
itself is not catastrophic. For St John, there is no impending catastrophe. The
tribulations have already begun, and are largely in the hands of cosmic forces
far bigger than his audience. The exhortation is not to avert the bad thing, but
to endure it.

Rev 2-3 opens John's vision with Jesus' address to seven churches in Asia.
He exhorts them all to be faithful. For example, to the church in Ephesus, he
implores:

> I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not
> bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are
> apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne, and hast
> patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
> Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first
> love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
> first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy
> candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (Rev 2:2-5)

What are those trials which the churches might be patiently enduring? John
doesn't give us the full picture, but there are windows, such as this complaint
against the church in Pergamum:

> But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold
> the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the
> children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit
> fornication. (Rev 2:14)

In contemporary Greek society, temple sacrifices were important civic events,
and upstanding citizens were expected to show face and take the meat which had
been sacrificed. \[CITE SCHOLAR]\ Jews were exempted from eating the meat, but
as early Christian communities sometimes had difficult relationships with local
Jewish leaders, they may have struggled to benefit from the Jewish exemption,
and therefore had to face a serious dilemma in whether or not to eat the meat.
\[CITE SCHOLAR\] John is not the only New Testament author to grapple with this
issue. Paul seems to have taken an irenic approach in 1 Cor 8 and Rom 14, while the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests a stricter approach in Heb
13:8-16. The reference to 'fornication' in Rev 2:14 may be a literal reference
to fornication, but it may also be symbolic, echoing prophets such as Ezekiel
who used fornication as an image for idol worship. \[CITE SCHOLAR\]

So it seems that John is taking a hardline stance on the issue of eating food
sacrificed to idols. As Schüssler Fiorenza points out \[CITE\], failing to fully
participate in the imperial cult could be costly, particularly for rich
Christians who had the most to benefit from fitting in to mainstream Greek
society. In this context, it makes sense that John's Jesus has the most praise
for the poorest churches, such as Smyrna and Philadelphia, and the harshest
condemnation for the richest, such as Pergamum and Thyatira \[CITE\].

John's stance on food sacrificed to idols also makes sense of the vision of two
beasts in Rev 13. The second beast instructs people to worship an image of the
first, and to receive a mark of the beast on their right hand or forehead. If
they refuse to take the mark, they aren't able to buy or sell. The number of the
beast is 666. The number 666 is most likely a reference to the emperor Nero
\[CITE\], and the references to buying and selling suggest the difficulties a
rich Christian might have had doing business unless they participated fully in
the imperial cult \[CITE\].

From this, it seems that the visions John relates are not, or at least not
merely, about an impending catastrophe, but about events which are already
unfolding. John's mythological language, among other things, may have functioned
to situate the local, present contexts of John's audiences within a larger
cosmic context, covering the whole of both space and time. Thus, as Ben
Witherington III puts it:

> This material is not _just_ about the future, nor should we have expected it
> to be since it is narrative forensic rhetoric meant to prepare and exhort
> John's audience. \[…\] It is hard to escape the impression that John believed
> he was living in the midst of the inauguration of these judgments or put
> another way in the age when the seals were being unsealed. [@ncbc-rev, p. 131]

What then, of the criticisms of apocalyptic language which followed on the basis
of its supposed catastrophism, that it is fatalistic, neutralises radicalism,
and flattens out power relationships?

It is true that most of the events of John's vision unfold without much input
from the saints. The saints aren't able to stop the seven seals from being
unsealed, or the seven trumpets from being blown, or the seven goldens bowls of
God's wrath from being poured out. The saints have no part in the fall of
Babylon, and when Satan besieges them, they do not fight him in battle, but
Satan and his army is overthrown by fire from heaven.

However, it would be wrong to accuse St John of fatalism, and worse still to
accuse him of neutralising radicalism and flattening out power relationships. At
the core of his message is an exhortation to endure. John's promise is that
those who endure will participate in God's final fulfilment of the creation. But
what must be endured is a result of human powers distorting God's creation. This
evil requires a radical subversion of actual power relationships, and John
conceives of just such a subversion, and calls his audience to participate in
that event.

Andrew Chester [@chaos-new-creation] has explored this idea in detail, noting,
for example, that in Rev 6:12-17, God's life-sustaining creative acts of Gen 1
are threatened with total annihilation:

> And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great
> earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became
> as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree
> casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven
> departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island
> were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men,
> and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every
> bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of
> the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us
> from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the
> Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

The sun and moon blocked out, the stars plucked from their place, the heavens
erased, the land disfigured: the key symbols of God's creation in Gen 1 are
being robbed of their ability to support life. Chester also notes that in
ancient cultures, all these events would have been interpreted as portentous
omens, explaining why the people of the earth all hide, knowing that the day of
the Lamb's wrath is come.

But, as Chester shows, this disfigurement of the creation is not random. Rev 6
(and a similar vision in Rev 8) shows that the astral powers which were
worshipped by mainstream Greek society are 'under divine control, and not at the
service of emperors.' Rev 9:1-11 suggests that the supposedly great god of
healing, Apollo, is a master only of tormenting locusts, and is anyway a mere
servant of God's angel. The woman in Rev 12 is presented as having dominion over
the sun, moon, and stars, and thus being superior to Artemis and Isis. Jesus
himself appears with the brightness of the sun and the stars in his hand in Rev
1, suggesting that he is in control of all the gods worshipped by Greeks.
[@chaos-new-creation, p. 344] The big idea: Jesus, the Son of Yahweh, the
creator-God, is Lord, and when people reject him and his life-giving creative
power, they tragically bring death and destruction on themselves and the world.

> The whole earth, and the seas, already corrupted, polluted, and distorted by
> human wickedness and exploitation, now have divine destruction, desolation
> and despoliation brought on them in a dreadful manner. The scenario thus
> created, repeatedly, is one of utter chaos, with the earth torn apart and made
> into a twisted and terrible mess. It is a dystopian vision of the world as it
> might become – as indeed it inevitably will be if the consequences of human
> wickedness simply take their course. Hence if life is to continue, and be
> sustainable, there has to be radical newness. So also the heavens, corrupted
> in order to serve the ruthless and idolatrous ambitions of the great and
> powerful, now hover on the edge of losing completely what distinguishes
> them – the great lights and source of all life. [@chaos-new-creation, p. 346]

Fatalistic? Conservative? Far from it. The destructive events of John's vision
are the result of human powers distorting God's creation for their own ends. We
can be complicit and accept the mark of the beast, or we can resist. Those who
resist will conquer, but not in the way of God's enemies, who raise up armies to
fight battles: the saints will conquer through the blood of the Lamb, and win
pride of place in God's new creation, while the nations of the earth flood in to
worship and to receive life and healing. 'It is an ethic for martyrdom,' as John
J. Collins, a leading scholar on biblical apocalyptic, puts it
[@apocalyptic-imagination, chp. 9].

What about the accusations that apocalyptic language is destructive, violent,
and vindictive? From the above discussion, it should hopefully be clear that
although John's visions are certainly extremely violent, it is not the case that
John encourages wanton destruction and violence. It is the evil, idolatrous
powers of the world which have disfigured God's good creation, and so long as
they refuse to repent of their destruction and violence, they justly bring
destruction and violence upon themselves.

Many critics insist that it is impossible to apologise for the violence of
John's Apocalypse. Lorenzo DiTommaso argues that 'apocalypticism is an unhealthy
worldview, particularly in its biblical form. It is inimical to a mature vision
of human destiny, or any social order founded on humanistic ideals. It is
hostile to life on Earth, especially in light of the nature and needs of
contemporary society' [@apocalyptic-other, p. 236; quoted in
@apocalyptic-imagination, Epilogue]. David Frankfurter dismisses attempts to
apologise for the violence of John's Apocalypse as 'canonical special pleading
for a very problematic text' [@sectarian-rage; quoted in
@apocalyptic-imagination, Epilogue]. In his review of scholarship on violence in
the Apocalypse, David Barr admits that 'the Apocalypse shows little concern
about employing images that are both violent and ethically offensive,' which is
'especially problematic in a time when many Christians and Muslims regard each
other as wholly evil, and violent apocalyptic groups have emerged in both
traditions' [@violence-in-apocalypse].

On the other hand, it is important to read the violence of John's vision in
the context of the author's social location. As Alan Breck puts it in _Kidnapped_:

> 'Opinion here or opinion there,' said I, 'it's a kennt thing that Christianity
> forbids revenge.'
>
> 'Ay,' said he, 'it's well seen it was a Campbell taught ye! It would be a
> convenient world for them and their sort, if there was no such a thing as a
> lad and a gun behind a heather bush!' [@kidnapped, chp. 12]

John wrote from the perspective of the poor and oppressed \[QUOTE FIORENZA\],
exhorting them not to vindictive violence but to resist violent powers and trust
God to deliver justice. So, while apocalypticism can be used to inspire
violence, it can also be used, as John uses it, to inspire resistance to
oppressive regimes.

\[EXAMPLES OF APOCALYPTICISM IN RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS\]

So if John's Apocalypse is not catastrophic, and cannot be reduced to the
violence and destruction which it features, how does John use apocalyptic
language to achieve his rhetorical goals? I will focus on three key features:
revealed knowledge, tribulations, and the end times, as well as the use of
mythological language throughout each of these.

One is the use of revealed knowledge. For biblical scholars, this, along with a
concern with the end times, is a key feature of ancient apocalyptic literature
[@semeia-14-intro]. The book is framed as an epistle – likely a traditional form
for Christians by the time John was writing, following the Pauline models – and
is also presented as prophecy, which was a common feature of early Christian
life [see e.g. @apocalyptic-imagination, chp. 9]. But within those framings,
John recounts a vision. At first, he sees Jesus, who dictates an address to the
seven churches in Asia, and after this, an angel shows him a series of visions
of 'things which must be hereafter' (Rev 4:1). Visions are not a necessary
component of early Christian prophecy, but they do follow the model of works
such as 1 Enoch, Daniel, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and numerous other ancient Jewish and
Christian works, which likewise contain fantastic visions related via a heavenly
intermediary, and is thus regarded by scholars as a marker of the genre,
'apocalypse.' [@apocalyptic-imagination, chp. 1].

Why might John have used this genre? While it is perfectly plausible that John
had a genuine visionary experience [@visions-in-apocalyptic-handbook, pp.
115-116], this would still not explain why he chose to publish an account of his
experience using the apocalyptic genre. One reason may be that John inhabited,
as Leonard Thompson described it, a 'cognitive minority' [@thompson-revelation].

Early Christian communities led distinctive lives on the basis of exclusive
sources of knowledge: apostolic authority, prophecy, eyewitness testimony,
interpretation of tongues, innovative interpretations of ancient Hebrew
Scriptures. Meanwhile, mainstream Greek society had its own authorities. When
the two came into conflict, Christians would have found themselves wedged
between the pull of their community and the overwhelming weight of majority
epistemic norms. As a result, early Christians would have needed to develop
defensive strategies if their minority cognition were to survive.

By adopting the form of an apocalyptic prophecy, and, no less, an apocalypse of
Jesus Christ, John claims authority beyond any mainstream Greek
authority. In the course of his apocalypse, he also subtly undermines majority
epistemology. As already explored, he mocks top Greek gods such as Apollo and
Artemis. He also highlights the material benefits on offer for the rich to
collude with Babylon (Rev 18), and highlights the power of Satan to 'deceive'
the nations (Rev 20:7). The cognitive majority might want to dismiss John as a
crackpot. But John can defend himself: they have an interest in lies, their gods
are lies, and they listen to the Devil's lies.

Thus, the apocalyptic motif of revealed knowledge helps John's rhetoric to
convince his audience.

A second apocalyptic motif in John's Apocalypse is the theme of tribulations.
Humans, and in particular the saints, experience suffering in John's visions,
but this suffering is not meaningless: it is a test of endurance. Those who
endure, triumph. A crucial part of how this works is what Thompson calls
'nesting contexts,' whereby John 'nests' his audiences' local contexts in Asian
churches inside a bigger, cosmic context \[CITE\]. Their suffering at the hands
of local elites is part of a wider resistance against an idolatrous imperial
cult, and that in turn is just the human face of an eschatological battle
between Jesus and Satan. John's call for his audience to persevere is made more
compelling if he can convince his audience that their struggles are part of a
much bigger fight, and one that, because they're on God's side, they cannot
lose, even if they suffer death.

Thirdly, like most ancient apocalypses, John's vision explores the end times,
and this feature also works to strengthen his rhetoric. If the tribulations are
to be worth enduring, his audience need to know what it's all for. Thus John
concludes his account of his vision with a utopia in Rev 21-22.

The New Jerusalem descends from heaven (21:2). It has twelve gates, one for each
tribe of Israel (21:12), signifying that it is a place for all God's people. The
sun and moon, those gods so cherished by the Greeks, are redundant, as are all
temples, and the gates will never be shut, because the city is filled with the
light of God's direct presence, and there is no more night and day (21:23-25).
The nations and their kings, instead of usurping God's place and distorting
God's world, bring their glory to God's city (21:24-26). The tree of life, from
which Adam and Eve were cut off, is open for all to receive healing (22:2).
Instead of the mark of the beast, God's servants will bear the name of God on
their foreheads (22:4). Standing in unresolved tension with this total
redemption, John warns that evildoers will remain outside the city (20:15,
21:7-8,27, 22:14-15).

Although John's vision is surely mythological, it is not merely fanciful. Given
John's case, made throughout the book, that God is sovereign but the world is
currently distorted by evil, it is natural to conclude that eventually, things
will be transformed, to remove evil and reveal God's perfect plan for his
creation, as he has promised. John's utopian vision, then, although it may not
be an accurate prediction of the future, does function as a way of
mythologically 'naming' the eschaton which God will surely bring about. Rather
than being left with an abstract theological definition, we have a
representative picture. Hope in this, John says, and your hope will not be
disappointed, even if things don't turn out exactly in this way.

Thus, the way John treats the end times gives his audience hope, a sure grasp of
what it is they are suffering for, and thus encourages them to endure their
tribulations.

In summary, the apocalyptic form is crucial to the rhetorical force of John's
Apocalypse. By adopting the form of an apocalyptic prophecy, he defends his
cognitive minority community from the overwhelming weight of the cognitive
majority which surrounds them. Through exploring the symbol of tribulations,
John steels his audience for suffering, and reassures those who are already
suffering that their troubles are part of a cosmic context. And with his
treatment of the end times, John inspires his audience with hope that their
sufferings will not be wasted.

\[TODO: see if next three paras are relevant.\]

John's apocalyptic imagination uses mythological language to reveal the world of
appearances for what it really is. The ideology of Empire is a pretender God,
and the suffering of the martyrs is in fact God's way of conquering evil. John
may have created a crisis for a people that didn't see one, a people that needed
'waking up'. So, while catastrophism imagines that all humanity approaches the
catastrophe more or less from the same perspective, and thus works to kill
politics, John's apocalyptic imagination imagines precisely the opposite: he
enlivens political criticism and active resistance to dominant structures by
identifying how people relate unequally to them.

So people today, when they equate apocalypticism with catastrophism, are cutting
out most of the apocalyptic imagination and distorting its message. This is now
new. This is a very traditional move which functions to shut down radical
dissent against dominant structures.

Meanwhile, those who have read the Apocalypse 'from below' tend to emphasise how
it has a visionary interpretation of the tribulations of this world, and a
visionary expectation of this world being transformed, and use this vision to
motivate movements for transformational social change.

The apocalyptic form is therefore not the reason that green rhetoric is failing.
As explored in chapter 1, green rhetoric is failing because it is failing to
diagnose the root causes of the problem, present a credible route to a credible
solution, and address an audience that could be persuaded to make a difference.
Were rhetors to solve these problems, they could use apocalyptic effectively.