This resonates. I grew up in a dispensational church and then attended a dispensational Bible college (which thankfully had the opposite effect of turning me into a presbyterian). I’m fascinated (and horrified) by the ways in which Revelation, as well as the Gospel of John, have been flipped on their heads to justify the oppression they critique. After reading Revelation for the Rest of Us last year, I started seeing similar themes in John’s Gospel and believe it had a similar intent of inoculating the spirit of empire that inheres to sinful nature. Like Revelation, John was written to an oppressed people, but once later readers of John came into power, that Gospel became the chief biblical justification for imperialistic anti-semitism. Here’s part 2 of a series where I developed some of that way of reading John: https://www.aaronjhann.com/p/when-empire-comes-to-church-part.
This resonates. I grew up in a dispensational church and then attended a dispensational Bible college (which thankfully had the opposite effect of turning me into a presbyterian). I’m fascinated (and horrified) by the ways in which Revelation, as well as the Gospel of John, have been flipped on their heads to justify the oppression they critique. After reading Revelation for the Rest of Us last year, I started seeing similar themes in John’s Gospel and believe it had a similar intent of inoculating the spirit of empire that inheres to sinful nature. Like Revelation, John was written to an oppressed people, but once later readers of John came into power, that Gospel became the chief biblical justification for imperialistic anti-semitism. Here’s part 2 of a series where I developed some of that way of reading John: https://www.aaronjhann.com/p/when-empire-comes-to-church-part.
McKnights book is so good. It was Gormans book, Reading Revelation Responsibly, that really opened it all up for me to see things differently.
Thanks for your thoughts, its great to meet you!
I decided long ago not to study relevation... I love tapping into worship and look forward to the next sermon series.
I hear you! We started the series back in January. It’s on apple podcasts under Watermark Tampa. So far we’ve covered 5 chapters.