By Celeste Kennel-Shank
Mennonite Weekly Review

	J. Nelson Kraybill, president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., talks with Chico and Tatiana Fajardo-Heflin of Reba Place Church, a Mennonite congregation in Evanston, Ill., about the Book of Revelation on March 1 in Schaumburg. — Photo by Celeste Kennel-Shank/MWR

Yet, the Bible’s last book contains important lessons for church life today, argues J. Nelson Kraybill, president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind.

“This is a book of worship and how we worship,” Kraybill said March 1 at Christ Community Mennonite Church. “We are not to be worshiping false gods, of which there are many in our culture.”

Kraybill has been studying, writing and speaking for more than two decades about Revelation, a book that both has inspired him and “generated a lot of mischief throughout Christian history.”

Kraybill has finished a manuscript of his insights about Revelation, provisionally titled Worship Shapes Allegiance: Devotion and Politics in the Book of Revelation. He is seeking a publisher.

Leroy Kennel, a minister at Christ Community Mennonite Church, invited Kraybill to teach several sessions March 1-2 as part of a study Kennel has been leading on Revelation.

“It’s the most misused and unused book,” Kennel said.

Kraybill believes studying Revelation is key for Mennonites today.

“We in North America live at the heart of empire, and that’s both a political and economic and military empire,” Kraybill said. “The forces of seduction are devious and powerful.

“Revelation calls us to give radical allegiance to the Lamb, which means worship Jesus and live like him, and that’s hard to do in a consumerist and militarized culture.”

The Bible’s last book is a call for followers to choose between worshiping the imperial system and worshiping Christ the slain lamb, Kraybill said.

“Revelation is pretty high-octane literature because it is so polarized,” he said.

Kraybill noted a number of ways in which the writings of John of Patmos are popularly misused. Some Christians fail to place the Book of Revelation in historical context.

“If you don’t, you end up with the Left Behind series,” Kraybill said, speaking of the best-selling books that depict a violent end times. The kingdom of God comes after a period in which the world is ruled by the Antichrist, according to this theology.

Kraybill emphasized that the the kingdom of God is not just coming sometime in the future but is already breaking into the present.

He explained how Christians such as those who follow the Left Behind series combine passages from Old and New Testament books, including Daniel and 1 Thessalonians, from which they get an understanding that Christians will be raptured, or drawn up to heaven, before the end times begin.

Christians with such understandings of the end times often perceive Revelation as foreseeing current times, he said.

“John did not predict events of the 21st century,” Kraybill said. “The book makes sense from start to finish looking at the Roman Empire.”

Yet Revelation can help today’s readers examine the societies in which they live.

“Revelation provides a marvelous paradigm and set of images for us to critique the use and abuse of power today,” Kraybill said.

A recent event the Book of Revelation can help Christians analyze is the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which Kraybill called “the most apocalyptic moment” he remembers in the United States.

“This was an uncovering and unveiling kind of event in U.S. history,” Kraybill said, noting that the word “apocalypse” means “to uncover.”

In the aftermath, the United States committed beastly actions to avenge the beastly actions of the terrorists, he said. In doing so, many Christians turned their allegiance from Christ the lamb to the Beast of the empire, he said, referring to the two primary images of Revelation.

Kraybill also countered how Revelation is used to justify environmental degradation, as some Christians believe they will leave this world behind.

“For me the deep and profound truth is that God wants to redeem the world,” Kraybill said. “We’re not going to abandon this planet; God is going to restore it and renew it.”