path: root/chapter3.md

## Chapter 3

In the previous chapter, I explored how contemporary green rhetors use
catastrophic language, and three reasons why some commentators believe
that this is counter-productive. Given the close relationship between
catastrophe and apocalypse in the imaginations of many people in the West, this
begs the question of whether green rhetors ought also to avoid apocalyptic
language. Frances Flannery, Professor Emerita of Religion at James Madison
University, has argued just this.

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's critique would imply that green rhetors ought to avoid apocalyptic
language. This conclusion rests on two key premises: one, that apocalyptic
language is catastrophic in the same way which leads to fatalism, conservatism
and post-politics as described in the previous chapter; and two, that
catastrophe is the dominant effective symbol associated with apocalyptic
language.

In what remains of this chapter, I will argue that were these criticisms to be
levelled against the model of apocalyptic language in the West,
namely, the Apocalypse of St John, the Apocalypse would resist the force of
these criticisms. Reading from the perspective of John's original audiences,
the Apocalypse does not promote fatalism, conservatism or post-politics, but
works against these responses. Later in the chapter, I'll explore three
further key apocalyptic features of the Apocalypse which John uses towards
his rhetorical ends, demonstrating how apocalyptic rhetoric may have worked
effectively in probably the most influential representative of the genre.
Then, in chapter 4, I'll extend this argument to the case of contemporary
green rhetoric, and show how these features of John's ancient rhetoric could
be reproduced effectively in a contemporary context.

So, what of the criticisms enumerated in the previous chapter, namely, that
catastrophic language promotes fatalism, conservatism and post-politics? The
first thing to observe here is that, whereas green rhetors typically position
the catastrophe as an impending event over which the audience has some measure
of control, St John, in contrast, discusses tribulations which have already
begun, and are largely in the hands of cosmic forces far bigger than his
audience. While John's tribulation discourse surely is catastrophic in some
respects -- involving a definite period in time where cosmic-scale destruction
renders former ways of life permanently unsustainable -- his exhortation is not
to avert the catastrophe, but to endure it. As a result of this very different
dialectic, John's catastrophism can be against fatalism and promote radical
politics grounded in an analysis of power relations.

John's alternative catastrophic dialectic is visible from the opening chapters
of the Apocalypse, which makes explicit John's exhortation to endure. 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 [@revelation-vision-of-a-just-world, p. 56]. 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 [@revelation-vision-of-a-just-world, pp. 54-55]. 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 a symbolic reference to idol worship [@hemer-letters, p. 91], echoing
prophets such as Ezekiel (Ezek 16).

So it seems that John is taking a hardline stance on the issue of eating food
sacrificed to idols. 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 the trade guilds and other civic institutions and private dinners
where meat sacrificed to idols might be offered to them
[@revelation-vision-of-a-just-world, p. 56]. In this context, it makes sense
that Jesus, as seen in John's vision, 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 [@revelation-vision-of-a-just-world, p.
57].

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
[@rowland-rev, p. 114], 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 [@roloff-rev, pp. 164-165].

From this, it seems that the visions John relates are not, or at least not
merely, about an impending catastrophe which he wants his audience to work to
avoid, but about a catastrophe -- perhaps, as Leonard Thompson \[CITE\]
suggests, a catastrophe only visible as a catastrophe from John's apocalyptic
perspective -- which is already unfolding, which he wants his audience to
endure. Given this rhetorical drive, 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, helping to motivate his audience to participate in John's self-sacrificial
ethic \[CITE Thompson again\]. 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.

St John's rhetoric therefore is against fatalism: he motivates and calls his
audience to political action. It is against conservatism: he asks his audience
to subvert dominant power structures and build a radical alternative society
and value system. It is ardently political: his rhetoric is rooted in a
analysis of power structures within Greek society, and particularly between the
rich and poor among Asian Christian churches.

Andrew Chester [@chaos-new-creation] has explored John's radical subversion of
the dominant Greek value-system in detail, beginning with the observation 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? Post-political? 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].

So if the catastrophism of John's Apocalypse works not for, but against
fatalism, conservatism, and post-politics, how else 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; @boxall-rev, pp. 3-5], this would still not explain why he chose to
publish an account of his experience using the apocalyptic genre. If a typical
Western middle-class person were to have a visionary experience today, they
might choose to find a more scientifically respectable framing before sharing
their insights with others. One reason that John used the apocalyptic genre 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. The catastrophic aspects of his vision work against, not for,
fatalism, conservatism, and post-politics. 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

- Explore and give examples of apocalypticism in resistance movements
- Cite Leonard Thompson
- Rework argument including introduction and conclusion