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. 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, pp. 209-210]

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 in the case of the Apocalypse
of St John, by far the dominant model of apocalyptic literature in the
post-Christendom West, these criticisms do not cut. For John and his historical
audience, John's visions of catastrophe were essential to his critique of the
Roman Empire. In contrast to the accusations of fatalism, conservatism and
death-of-politics levelled against contemporary green catastrophism, John's
catastrophism motivated his audience to action, undermined dominant ideologies,
and exposed economic social structure as a basis for radical political critique.
Further, catastrophism only scratches the surface of John's apocalypticism, and
I'll show how three further aspects of his apocalyptic language add to his
rhetorical strategy. Then, in chapter 4, I'll show how these features of John's
ancient rhetoric can be reproduced effectively in a contemporary green context.

In the previous chapter, we saw how some kinds of catastrophic language
prominent in contemporary green rhetoric can elicit fatalism and conservatism
and support the 'death of politics.' To understand why John's catastrophic
language had a very different effect, it is important to first understand that
John has a very different catastrophic dialectic.

Whereas green rhetors typically position the catastrophe as an impending event
over which the audience has some measure of control, John, in contrast,
discusses a series of catastrophes which have already begun, and are largely in
the hands of cosmic forces far bigger than his audience. While typical green
catastrophism ends with an exhortation to to avert the catastrophe, John's
exhortation is 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.
Failing to show face could be embarassing, or even 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. 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. 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, pp. 54-57].

Understanding John's central message this way, as one to endure the hardships of
resisting the imperial cult, makes sense of his catastrophic visions, such as
the one of the 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
[@thompson-revelation, pp. 27-28] suggests, a catastrophe only visible as a
catastrophe from John's apocalyptic perspective -- which is already unfolding,
which he wants his audience to endure. Thus, as Ben Witherington III puts it:

> 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]

Using this alternative catastrophic dialectic, exhorting his audience to endure
an ongoing disaster rather than avert a future one, is essential to John's
radical politics. Andrew Chester [@chaos-new-creation] has explored in detail
how John subverted the dominant Greek value-system, 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]

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].

St John's rhetoric therefore is against fatalism: he motivates and calls his
audience to meaningful 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.

As a result, apocalypticism has been a powerful force helping to mobilise
radical social movements – for better and for worse – continually throughout
Christian history. The Gregorian reforms, the Lombards, the Hussites, the
Lutherans, the Diggers, Columbus and the American 'Founding Fathers,' the
French, American and Haitian Revolutions, the numerous evangelical revivals, the
'spectre' of Communism, the rise of National Socialism, and today's
environmental movement – all have been associated with apocalyptic forms of
language.

So if the catastrophism of John's Apocalypse is essential to the success of his
rhetoric, how else does John use apocalyptic language to achieve his rhetorical
goals? I will focus on three key features: revealed knowledge, tribulation
discourse, and end-time speculation.

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 Apocalypse is John's account of a vision he experienced.
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). This literary structure follows 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. Modern biblical scholars mostly agree that this is a key marker of
an ancient literary genre, which, incidentally, they label '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 [@thompson-revelation, pp. 5-6]. 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 along with the 'Lamb who
was slain.'

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). Unrepentant evildoers 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. Crucially, this eschaton is not only a remote,
invisible future, but it is real and present in the Church: when the martyrs are
willing to follow the Lamb to non-violent, self-sacrificial resistance against
idolatrous, life-denying ideologies, the New Jerusalem is already visible.
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 is visibly bringing about. Contemporary green rhetors often shy away from
utopian visions for fear of being 'unrealistic.' While John does not have a
scientistic prejudice about what a 'realistic' vision ought to look like, he is
likewise rightly concerned that his vision be plausible: his utopia is possible,
even inevitable, and visibly beginning to come about.

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.