THDDOCTORAL-A New Heaven and A New Earth - The Book of Revelation and Latin American Liberation Theology

A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH: THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND
LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY

__________

A Thesis

Presented to

the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

University of Denver

__________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

__________

by

Alicia M. Olson

June 2008

Advisor: Gregory Robbins

1453944

1453944

2008
Copyright 2008 by
Olson, Alicia M.

All rights reserved

Copyright by Alicia M. Olson
All Rights Reserved

ii
Author: Alicia M. Olson
Title: A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH: THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND
LATIN AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Advisor: Gregory Robbins
Degree Date: J une 2008

ABSTRACT

The Apocalypse of J ohn is often cited as a favorite text of base communities in
Latin America, but little has been written about how Revelation is interpreted in this
context. Works on Revelation by four Latin American liberationist authors, Pablo
Richard, Carlos Mesters, J orge Pixley, and J usto Gonzalez, are discussed in detail.
Content, method, and the influence of the themes of liberation theology on their
interpretations of the Apocalypse are discussed in relation to each. Liberationist readings
of Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way that they do not ignore the
past or future, but rather find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in
Revelation's visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.

iii
Table of Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................1

Chapter One: Revelation in North Atlantic Scholarship ...................................................3

Chapter Two: Latin American Liberation Theology ......................................................10
Liberation TheologyHistory and Major Themes ............................................10
Hermeneutics in Liberation Theology ................................................................20
Criticisms of Liberation Theology ......................................................................23

Chapter Three: Pablo Richards Apocalypse, A Peoples Commentary .........................28
Author and Audience ..........................................................................................28
Significant Pericopes and Characters ..................................................................31
Vision of the Future ............................................................................................34
Human Activity ...................................................................................................36
Method ................................................................................................................37

Chapter Four: Carlos Mesterss The Hope of the People who Struggle:
A Key to Reading the Apocalypse of St. John .................................................................39
Human Activity ...................................................................................................43
Method ................................................................................................................45

Chapter Five: J orge Pixleys Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American
Perspective ....................................................................................................................48
Human Activity ...................................................................................................51
Method ................................................................................................................52

Chapter Six: J usto Gonzlezs For the Healing of the Nations: The
Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict .........................................................54
Human Activity ...................................................................................................58
Method ................................................................................................................59

Chapter Seven: Analysis and Conclusions .....................................................................61

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................68

1

Introduction

Religious texts are a unique set of literature. They gain special authority to
mediate the nature of the divine and/or the divine will for humanity. Part of their
greatness lies precisely in their ability to speak to perennial human questions of suffering,
death, and relationships to other humans and to the divine. But once divorced from their
original contexts their timeless authority can also be used to devastating ends; in the
name of great religious texts and traditions, all manner of tragedies have been justified.
However, because religious texts stand as sources of authority that are, ultimately,
independent of the traditions that surround them, they can become sites of protest.
Rereadings, and even rewritings, of religious texts have served as a sacred mandate for
those groups who lack the social, economic, or political authority to pursue change.
In this thesis, I will be exploring the significance of one of Christianitys sacred
texts: the book of Revelation. Specifically, I will be studying several interpretations of
the Apocalypse of J ohn produced by Latin American liberation theologians. Liberation
theology begins in an awareness of the poverty that the majority of Latin American
people face, and a commitment to relieving it. Liberation theology finds in its readings
of the biblical texts, especially Revelation, a vision of their own oppression overcome by
the power of God. In the Bible, liberation theology finds a divine ally in its pursuit of
freedom for the oppressed.

2
The Apocalypse of J ohn is cited as one of the favorite books of the base ecclesial
communities in Latin America. Its images of immoral empire, oppression, and
martyrdom resonate with many Latin American Christians, mirroring profoundly their
own experiences. My thesis is that liberation theologys orientation toward both praxis
and the significance of the social situation of the reader lead exegetes toward the use of
methods that emphasize the importance of understanding the (historical) social situation
of the text (Revelation), and produce exegesis that articulates a vision of the ideal
(liberated) future and suggests how the contemporary audience should go about attaining
that vision.
In this paper I will first address some introductory material for my readers before
discussing the liberationist readings of Revelation. The introductory materials include a
synthesis of the findings of North Atlantic scholarship on the Apocalypse, and a brief
introduction to the history, method, and hermeneutics of liberation theology, as well as a
discussion of its limitations. Next, I will discuss the content and method of four
liberationist works on Revelation. These works, selected from among those available in
English, were chosen for their diversity. I will conclude with an analysis of the ways in
which the theology of liberation has influenced the exegesis of Revelation.

3

Chapter One
Revelation in North Atlantic Scholarship

Liberation readings are not necessarily historical readings, and a comparison of
the two will make this clear. Historical-critical scholarship has as its aim discovering
what the biblical texts most likely meant to their authors and first audiences. While this
is not the only valid way to read the Bible, and scholarship can never discern with
certainty what was in the mind of the author or original audience, this method can bring
confusing features of the text to new light. In this section of my paper, then, I will offer
an overview of what the dominant (North Atlantic) historical-critical scholarship has to
say about Revelation and how its first audience might have understood it, in order to
serve as a basis for comparison with the Latin American liberationist readings of
Revelation.
Between the second century BCE and the second century CE many works similar
to Revelation were written. Since they generally report a vision of heaven in which a
messenger reveals hidden knowledge, they are known as apocalyptic literature (from
the Greek word which means to unveil). The standard definition of apocalypse, as
developed by the Society of Biblical Literatures Genres Project, is
a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation
is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a

4
transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological
salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.
1

Apocalypses reveal, with the help of an angel or other supernatural being, a hidden
dimension of history, either the future, or the heavenly, or both. The purpose of this
writing is to aid the audience in interpret[ing] present, earthly circumstances in light of
the supernatural world and of the future, and [influencing] both the understanding and the
behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.
2
Apocalyptic visions are meant
to give their audiences a new perspective on the present circumstances and encourage
them to live differently because of this new perspective. The circumstances that
generally inspire apocalypses are times of perceived crisis; that is, times when the people
for whom they are written feel marginalized, oppressed, or otherwise hopeless.
Apocalypses are also usually written pseudonymously. Writing in the name of a famous
ancestor was usually for the purpose of legitimating the writing, and also because many
apocalypses have overviews of history which are told as predictions, to which antedating
lends credibility. Pseudonymous authorship may also reflect the authors fears of
retribution by those of whom his or her apocalypse is critical. Together, these aspects
give the impression that the future is fixed and known by God, even though the present
is under the authority of those opposed to Gods plans.
3
Revelation (along with one
other early Christian apocalypse, the Shepherd of Hermas) is unique in that J ohn does not
use a pseudonym. Instead, he speaks in his own name as a prophet of the community.

1
Leonard L. Thompson, The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990), 24.

2
Ibid., 32.

3
Ibid., 21.

5
Early Christian prophecy was characterized by ecstatic experiences in the Spirit,
understood in light of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18). These
prophets were often community leaders in areas where more formal hierarchy had not
been established.
4
This blending of genres implies that Revelation is not solely the
product of an apocalyptic outlook on the world, and that the sense of oppression he felt
may have been due to actual historical circumstances.
What, then, was the situation in Asia Minor to which J ohn responded with
revelation and prophecy? Based on internal evidence and the witness of Irenaeus, the
book was probably written around 95 CE. Domitian was the emperor of Rome at that
time. Asia Minor, the area in which the communities of chapters 2 and 3 are located, was
part of the Roman Empire. Despite the grim picture that later Roman and Christian
historians have painted of Domitians reign of terror, Domitian seems to have been no
more overtly hostile to Christianity than any other emperor between Nero (5468 CE)
and Decius, (24951 CE) who was the first to institute official persecution of the
religion.
5
The caricature of Domitian as a persecutor of Christians, who demanded to be
addressed as lord and god, is partly due to historians in the time of Trajan, Domitians
successor. As part of their strategy to make the new dynasty seem superior to the old,
they characterized the previous emperor in an exceptionally unflattering way. Emperor
worship was not, in fact, unique to Domitian; it began before his time and continued to be
popular with other emperors long after his death. During his reign, titles like lord and

4
Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 2
nd
ed.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 143.

5
David E. Aune, Apocalypticism, Prophecy and Magic: Collected Essays (Tbingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2006), 3.

6
god were probably used by those seeking favor with the emperor, rather than being
officially mandated.
6
Early Christian commentators on Revelation, reading J ohns
presence on Patmos as exile (Rev.1:9 NRSV), in combination with the vision of the souls
of martyrs under the altar (Rev.6:9-10) and the accounts of Roman historians, perpetuated
the characterization of Domitian as persecutor of the church. Rereading of these sources
by historians has concluded that there was no government-sanctioned persecution under
Domitian, nor officially-imposed increases in the requirements for participation in the
imperial cult.
7

This does not mean, however, that J ohn was without reason for viewing his
situation as a time of crisis. Collins names several sites of conflict for the churches of
Asia Minor that seem to have played a role in J ohns understanding of his situation.
There was conflict within the church, as evidenced by the letters in to the communities in
chapters 2-3. While the disagreement was literally over whether the people could eat
meat sacrificed to idols (and fornication, an activity symbolically associated with
idolatry), the larger question was what relationship Christians could have to their
surrounding culture, to which J ohns answer seems to have been, as little as possible.
8

Irrespective of whether emperor worship was mandatory, it was popular in parts of Asia
Minor that were vying for favor with the emperor, and J ohn viewed it as blasphemous.
Polytheism was not the only fault Roman culture had in J ohns estimation. Throughout

6
Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 171.

7
Ibid., 175. See also Schssler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation, 8-9, for an argument against this
view.

8
Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of The Apocalypse, (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1984), 88.

7
Revelation, J ohn refers to Rome as Babylon, a title it earned by sharing with Babylon
the distinction of having destroyed the J erusalem temple.
9
As we see from the portrayal
of the wealthy prostitute in Revelation 18, Rome is also condemned for it its affluence.
Many in the eastern part of the empire perceived Roman rule as exploitative. Revelation,
like other J ewish documents of the time period, the Sibylline Oracles, holds explicit
political attitudes and very definite political implications, namely, that the poor had been
treated unjustly.
10
Revelation is critical of those Christian communities that are wealthy
because it was possible to get and to maintain wealth only by accommodation to the
polytheistic culture or the J ewish community, toward both of which Revelation was
hostile.
11
Finally, although there was no official persecution of Christians, the threat of
death for the faith was still very real. The Christians of Rome had been Neros scapegoat
within living memory, and Antipas (Rev. 2:13) and J ohn (Rev. 1:9) had both suffered for
their fidelity to the Christian sect.
12
The precedent seems to have been that any adult
Christian, if accused, could be executed by the governor for adherence to the cult,
although it was probably a rare occurrence.
13
J ohns vision condemns Rome precisely for
setting itself up as ruler and judge of the world, roles which he believes only rightfully
belong to God and the Lamb. The crisis J ohn confronts with his apocalyptic vision is not
absolute persecution and oppression, as many have understood the origins of apocalyptic

9
Ibid., 76.

10
Ibid., 94.

11
Ibid., 133.

12
Ibid., 102.

13
Thompson, The Book of Revelation, 172; Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 100.

8
literature, but rather the tension between his expectations of the Kingdom of God and the
social situation in which he found himself.
14

That J ohns writing has been preserved in the Christian canon testifies to the
resonating power of his vision of the world, which surely had an effect on its readers.
North Atlantic scholarship understands this influence as mostly internal. Revelation
makes its readers aware of the cosmic scale of their struggle with the Roman empire
through the use of mythic symbols and allusions to the Hebrew Bible. It recognizes,
however, that the suffering of the Christians is not decisive. Rather, the communities can
be assured of their victory and the coming judgment of God if they persevere;
15

Revelation encourages hope and perseverance.
16
It provides an emotional release by
allowing the audience to experience the victorious future and aggression against their
enemies in their communal readings.
17
This aggression may have also been turned
inward to intensified community norms of poverty, celibacy, and exclusivity.
18

In conclusion, Revelation is a late first-century Christian document that uses
mythic imagery of divine combat and judgment to reorient its readers to the cosmic
significance and ultimate fate of their temporal struggle. J ohn casts Rome and its
benefactor, Satan, as would-be usurpers of Gods rightful roles as king and judge. North-
Atlantic historical-critical scholarship, which encompasses literary, rhetorical, and social-

14
Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 106.

15

16
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1991), 37.

17
Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 156.

18
Ibid., 161.

9
scientific methods concludes that Revelation encourages the Christian communities of
Asia Minor to continue to testify to J esus and to resist accommodation to Roman culture,
which is ultimately destined for destruction. Revelation is also cathartic: the emotions of
fear and resentment toward those perceived as opponents are relieved through literary,
rather than literal, violence. The authors to be discussed in the second half of this work
are familiar with the North Atlantic rendering of the social situation and purpose of
Revelation. But they are also profoundly influenced by the theology of liberation of
Latin America, which merits introduction.

10

Chapter Two
Latin American Liberation Theology

In this part of my paper, I will give my readers an introduction to Latin American
liberation theologys history and major themes, hermeneutics, and critiques of liberation
theology. This will allow the reader to join me in analyzing the works on Revelation that
comprise the heart of this study. I will focus primarily on topics I have found most
relevant to reading the Apocalypse.

Liberation TheologyHistory and Major Themes
Liberation or contextual theologies share a concern for life experiences, which are
often taken as the basis for reflection and for affirming that every person is created in the
image of God and has dignity. Liberation theology today encompasses a variety of
theologies which locate as their starting point class, race, culture, gender, sexuality and
combinations of these factors. Although individual works of theology stressing these
perspectives had been written before the 1960s (e.g., feminist theology), it is in Latin
America, after the Second Vatican council that liberation theology as liberation theology
begins to take shape. For simplicitys sake, when I refer to liberation theology in this
paper, I will mean the liberation theology which specifically comes out of Latin America.

11
When I wish to refer to other liberation theologies, I will specify the location from which
they come, e.g., U.S. Hispanic liberation theology.
The Second Vatican Council began under Pope J ohn XXIII in 1962 and ended
under Pope Paul VI in 1965. It produced a body of texts that were intended to reconnect
the Catholic Church pastorally with the modern world. This included a recovery of the
Bible for theological undertaking and an invitation for local and regional churches to
articulate the task of evangelization from their own unique situations.
1
Although the
Latin American representatives to Vatican II contributed little to the official sessions,
they began to think creatively about the Latin American context and, with the approval of
Pope Paul VI, convened a conference of the Latin American episcopate in 1968 at
Medelln, Colombia. This conference marks the transition from a church dependent on
Europe for its theology to Latin America as an originator of its own theological
reflection. The key themes of this new theological reflection were poverty and the
pursuit of justice, institutionalized violence and the pursuit of peace and love for
neighbor, and a singular view of history that stressed the political dimension of faith.
2
A
few years after Medelln, Gustavo Gutirrez published A Theology of Liberation, which
set the tone for the following decades conversation about theology. In this work,
Gutirrez establishes a method for liberation theology which will be discussed more fully
below. Between Medelln and the 1979 meeting at Puebla, Mexico, many advances were
made in the theology of liberation, including the articulation of liberation perspectives on

1
Roberto Oliveros, History of the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino:
Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ignacio Ellacura and J on Sobrino, trans. Department of
Books and Libraries of the Spanish Ministry of Culture (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), 12-14.

2
Ibid., 15.

12
the poor as interlocutor of theology in Latin America (in contrast to the atheist or skeptic
as dialogue partner of North Atlantic theologies), hermeneutics, church history,
Christology, ecclesiology, and spirituality.
3
Since the mid-1970s, Latin American
liberation theologians had also been in contact with U.S. Latina/o theology. This
dialogue was fruitful for both parties, and resulted, for the Latin American theologians, in
a broader understanding of oppression that included not only class, but also race and
gender, which were more significant loci of exclusion in the United States.
4
However,
not all of the leadership in the Catholic Church in Latin America was pleased with the
new theological perspectives, and many rejected them. Additionally, as liberation
theologians worked alongside non-Christian liberation movements, many religious
leaders were suspected of communism and attacked, removed from office, or even killed.
The synod at Puebla was scheduled for October of 1978, but was postponed until
early 1979 upon the death of Pope J ohn Paul I. J ohn Paul II opened the meeting, and
approved its final documents.
5
Puebla was significant for liberation theology as an
affirmation of its use of the tools of the social sciences for pastoral ends. It also affirmed
the pursuit of a just society and solidarity with the poor, thus endorsing the direction
established at Medelln. However, the response to liberation theology, both from within
Roman Catholicism and without, has been mixed since that time. In the mid-1980s, for
example, it was both censured by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and

3
Ibid., 20-21.

4
Gilbert T. Cadena, The Social Location of Liberation Theology: From Latin America to the
United States, in Hispanic/Latino theology: Challenge and promise, ed. Ada Mara Isasi-Daz and
Fernando F. Segovia, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 180.

5
Oliveros, History of the Theology of Liberation, 23.

13
commended as expedientuseful and necessary by Pope J ohn Paul II.
6
Since the fall
of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the end of socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism,
liberation theology has struggled to redefine itself. It has done so in three interrelated
moves, as characterized by Ivan Petrella: reasserting core ideas, reformulating or
revising basic categories, and critiquing idolatry.
7
What has been lost, Petrella
argues, and needs to be regained to prevent liberation theology from becoming paralyzed
and its vocabulary meaningless, is its commitment to a specific historical project.
8
Many
of the clergy are turning from strictly class-related issues to other avenues, including
ecological concerns, womens rights, race, and so on.
9
Protestant churches not aligned
with liberation theology, especially charismatic churches, have grown immensely in Latin
America.
10
Conservative bishops have been deliberately appointed in many Latin
American dioceses and progressive bishops relocated to less populous areas.
11
Base
communities are not experiencing the same growth as in previous decades. All of this
together has led to diminished visibility and influence for liberation theology. On the
other hand, liberation theology has left its mark on the other theologies which now fall

6
Ibid., 27.

7
Ivan Petrella,. The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto, (Burlingon, VT:
Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 2.

8
Ibid., 11.

9
Christopher Rowland, Introduction: The Theology of Liberation, in The Cambridge
Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), 248.

10
Leif E. Vaage, Introduction, in Subversive Scriptures: Revolutionary Readings of the
Christian Bible in Latin America, ed. and trans. Leif E. Vaage, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press
International, 1997), 17.

11
Christopher Rowland, Epilogue: The Future of Liberation Theology, in The Cambridge
Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), 249.

14
under the classification liberation or contextual theology, and in seminaries around the
world. And the gap between the wealthy and the poor of the Latin American nations, the
context that gave birth to liberation theology, remains an unanswered problem.
Many of the leading liberation theologians of the 1960s and 70s were trained in
Europe and have developed their theology from the lives of the Latin American people
with tools gained in their studies, including historical-critical exegesis, political theology,
and the social analyses enabled by Marxs thought and other social sciences. The use of
social sciences as partners in theological reflection (as opposed to the more traditional
dialogue with philosophy) is one of the hallmarks of liberation theologys method.
12

Liberation theology chose to engage the social sciences because the wrenching poverty
and institutional violence of Latin America called for new methods. The church in Latin
America was faced with the task of evangelizing not the non-believer, as in the North
Atlantic countries, but what Gutirrez calls the non-person: those who are not
recognized by the existing social order: the poor, the exploited, those who are
systematically and legal deprived of their status as human beings.
13
The need for the
social sciences as an aid to a theological understanding of the political, economic and
social conditions of the poor comes out of two prior commitments: a preferential option
for the poor, and a theological method that calls for practice as a prerequisite to
reflection.

12
Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 24; Enrique Dussel, Theology of Liberation and
Marxism, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 86.

13
Gustavo Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, in The Cambridge
Companion to Liberation Theology, ed. Christopher Rowland, trans. Judith Condor (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28.

15
The poor are central to liberation theology. J esus addressed his message of the
Kingdom of God primarily to the poor and socially marginalized and began to enact it
through the various miracles he performed on their behalf.
14
Therefore God and Gods
reign are present in a unique way among the poor. A preferential option for the poor,
then, is a commitment to solidarity with the poor as an expression of openness to the will
of God. Solidarity involves concrete action on behalf of the political, economic, personal
and spiritual liberation of the poor.
15
An option for the poor is the first act, and only after
this can the second act, theological reflection, be performed adequately: What we mean
to say by this is that the veneration of God and the doing of Gods will are the necessary
conditions for reflection on Him [sic].
16
For this reason, orthopraxycorrect living
becomes at least as significant as orthodoxy.
The liberationist movement of Latin America, convinced that active solidarity
with the poor was a prerequisite to properly doing theology, engaged in political struggles
on behalf of the rights of the poor. This engagement made adequate analytical
categories necessary. Thus it came about that an infant Latin American theology began
to make use of the tools of Marxist categories.
17
Liberation theologys engagement with
Marxism has been a cause of criticism and misgiving from within the Catholic hierarchy.
However, liberation theology asserts that it uses a certain Marxism in a certain way

14
J on Sobrino, Central Position of the Reign of God in Liberation Theology, in Ellacura and
Sobrino, 368-69.

15
Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, 26.

16
Ibid., 28.

17
Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 86.

16
never in such a way as to be incompatible with the foundations of the faith.
18
The
philosophical aspects of Marxism (dialectical materialism) are firmly rejected, while
other aspects (ideological criticism, social criticism, economic criticism, etc.) are utilized
to analyze social reality.
19

The foregrounding of the poor, or non-person, as the interlocutor of liberation
theology has earned it the euphemism contextual theology. However, as liberation
theologians argue, no theology is without context. By refusing to identify any particular
historical project with the reign of God, as the political theologies of Europe advocated,
the church becomes, by default, guardian of the status quo.
20
Liberation theology was not
simply about granting religious authority to a revolution, either. In a variety of places,
liberationist thinkers articulated definitions of liberation that both demanded real social
change and prevented complete identification of the coming of the kingdom of God with
any particular temporal revolution. Gustavo Gutirrezs definition of liberation will serve
as a lucid example:
(1) Political and social liberation, which points toward the elimination of the
immediate causes of poverty and injustice, especially with regard to socio-
economic structures (2) human liberation liberating human beings of all
those thingsnot just in the social spherethat limit their capacity to develop
themselves freely and in dignity (3) and crucially, liberation from selfishness
and sin .
21

18
Ibid., 92.

19
Ibid.

20
Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 13.

21
Gutirrez, The Task and Content of Liberation Theology, 26.

17
Liberation has an irreducibly political element. It cannot avoid addressing material
oppression and poverty and offering concrete solutions. But neither can it advocate only
shallow or immediate solutions that fail to address all aspects of human liberation.
22

Liberation theologys approach to the kingdom of God is different from that of
traditional Catholicism. Traditional Catholic doctrine tends to elevate the transcendent
dimension of the kingdom of God, speaking of true liberation as inner liberty ,
[which] refuses to accept power and worldly logic.
23
Liberation theology, by contrast,
is committed to a concept of the Reign of God (kingdom of God) which unifies, without
either separation or confusion, transcendence and history.
24
When the kingdom of God
is both transcendent and historical, the utopian vision that the fullness of the kingdom of
God provides does not become a mere comfort.
25
Instead, it serves as a rule against
which present life and projects for the future can be measured. A utopia that is not in
some way what animates and even effects historical realizations is not a Christian utopia.
It is not even an ideal vision of the Kingdom; instead, it is an idealistic and ideologized
vision of itself.
26
There is an intimate relationship, though not an identity, between

22
Petrella, The Future of Liberation Theology, 16.

23
Pope Benedict XVI, quoted in Rohter, Larry, As Pope Heads to Brazil, Rival Theology
Persists, The New York Times, May 7, 2007. Liberation theology would argue that it is in continuity with
the church in proclaiming the historical character of the kingdom of God: If one reads, for example,
Gaudium et Spes or the various papal encyclials on the churchs social teaching, one sees there the need to
historicize, if not the Kingdom, at least the faith and the Christian message (Ellacura, Utopia and
Prophecy, 291). What is at issue, then, is two differing interpretations of the trajectory of Catholic
doctrine: one which is open to historicizing the kingdom of God, and one which views the kingdom and
other aspects of Christianity as solely transcendent and/or internal.

24
Sobrino, Central Position of the Reign of God, 355.

25
Ignacio Ellacura, Utopia and Prophecy in Latin America, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 292.

26
Ibid., 293.

18
transcendence and history. The ability of history to be critiqued by the transcendent
vision, and historys ability to respond to that critique, is at the heart of liberation
theology. This challenge to the present order of things is offered in the manner of the
prophets of the Hebrew Bible, and of J esus. Prophecy denounces the specific unjust
realities that it encounters. In much of Latin America dependency, the capitalist system,
and the institutional church are structures which enable the poverty and oppression of the
people, according to liberation theology.
27
This identification of capitalism as a sinful
structure is part of what earns liberation theology its pejorative Marxist label.
However, liberation theology would agree that socialism is equally capable of evil and is
to be denounced by prophets who are living under those situations.
28

At the heart of all prophetic criticism is a call to reject idolatry. Idolatry gains a
specific understanding in liberation theology, especially in the works of Hugo Assman,
Enrique Dussel, Franz Hinkelammert, and Pablo Richard. Marxs concept of commodity
fetishism and its relationship to idolatry in liberation theology is a good example of one
of the ways that Marxs thought informs liberation theology. Dussel describes it as a
complete, integral rereading of Marx himself from a Christian, theological
perspective.
29
Liberation theologians find in both Marx and the prophets (though
starting in different places, and for different ends) the idea that people worship their own
work and let it control their lives. Because humans do not relate to one anotherbut to
moneyas they exchange goods, Marx argues, they are alienated from each other and

27
Ibid., 300.

28
Ibid, 298.

29
Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 97; emphasis in original.

19
from their own work. Therefore, in place of real social interaction and real recognition of
the labor required to produce an item, the people establish religionwhich is the
abstraction of their social relationsand are controlled by moneywhich is the
abstraction of their labor and the labor of others. These abstractions are likened, by
Marx, to the fetishes (totems) of primitive religions.
30
Liberation theologians make use
of both Marxs understanding of religion and of fetishism. For them, Marxs famous
description of religion as an opiate of the masses does not necessarily need to be true.
Religious misery is, on the one hand, the expression of real misery and, on the other, the
protest against real misery.
31
Religious expressions that are merely an expression of
misery, and not a protest against it, are in fact a valid target of critique. But, when
religion is a protest against misery, when it seeks to alleviate misery, it is truly religion
according to liberation theologians. The God proclaimed by the prophets, liberationist
argue, is a God of justice. Whoever does not practice justice but claims to worship God
is engaged in idolatry because s/he is, in fact, worshipping a different God than the God
proclaimed in the biblical accounts. Likewise, anything other than God that controls
ones life is an idol.
Today we have an abundant idolatrous production. There are idolaters by
perversion: those who pervert the meaning of God, who manipulate God, who
deform the divine image, or who use the divine name in vain. There is also
idolatry by substitution: the true God is replaced by false gods. This occurs when
human beings absolutize or divinize realities that they themselves create.
32

30
Stewart Crehan, Commodity Fetishism, The Literary Encyclopedia, posted March 13 2006.
http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1656 (Accessed April 15, 2008).

31
Karl Marx, quoted in Ellacura, Utopia and Prophecy, 292.

32
Pablo Richard, Theology in the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 156.

20
Marxs critique of religion and fetish serve liberation theology as a tool to distinguish
between true religion and idolatry of various kinds. This can be seen in their critiques of
capitalism and the institutional church. The capitalist system produces substitute idols of
accumulation, security, and wealth, while the institutional church is guilty of perversion
or distortion of the divine image by de-linking God from justice in the world.
In the emphasis on the poor as the unique recipients of the good news of the
kingdom, and the reading of the prophets above, one begins to detect that liberation
theology is also engaged in a new reading of the Bible. The radical rereading of theology
and new understanding of the Bible finds its authority in the reading of the biblical texts
from the privileged place of the poor under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To this I will
now turn.

Hermeneutics in Liberation Theology
The impulse to urge the poor to read the Bible for themselves came out of the
Catholic Action movement of the early-to-mid twentieth century. It had as its method
and motto See, J udge, Act. See, in this context, meant to observe ones life and
community and the problems in it. Then the people, in community, were to judge the life
circumstances in light of the Bible, and finally to act to change the situation. J udging
required the people to be familiar with the biblical texts and to be able to interpret their
lives in light of them.
33
As this movement spread to Latin America, especially Brazil, it
originated what are today known as base ecclesial communities (also known as base
communities or CEB). These groups of laity gather to read the Bible for the purpose of

33
Robin Nagel, Claiming the Virgin: The Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil, (New
York: Routledge, 1997), 41.

21
understanding its meaning for their lives. The foundations of the liberationist
hermeneutic, then, were in place before the Vatican II council. Another motivation for
developing a liberationist hermeneutic was the growing presence of charismatic churches,
J ehovahs Witnesses and other protestant groups. Their biblical literacy and unique
interpretive paradigms challenged the Catholic laity to understand better the biblical
foundations of their own positions.
34
To this was added liberation theologys preferential
option for the poor, which demands a reading of the Bible for the poor and from the
perspective of the poor.
35
Matthew 11:25 is often cited in defense of this: J esus said, I
thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from
the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Although in reality it is
more often educated clergy who are interpreting the Bible for the people and/or leading
the base communities, a reading of the Bible from the perspective of the poor is the ideal
of liberation theology.
Carlos Mesters is one of the most-cited proponents of biblical interpretation by
the people. He argues that the biblical texts are written from the perspective of the poor,
out of their memory of suffering and the liberating acts of God in history, and therefore
the poor today are in the best position to interpret it.
36
Like objectivity in theology,
objectivity in hermeneutics is impossible, and the readings produced from a position of
dominance will be different than readings from a perspective of oppression. The poor
view the biblical texts as mirrors of their own lives; as a new or living text which can aid

34
Carlos Mesters, Defenseless Flower: A New Reading of the Bible, trans. Francis McDonagh
(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), 159.

35
Ibid., 165.

36
Ibid., 19.

22
them in reflection on their own circumstances. Popular reading of the Bible is almost
always done in the context of communities. Some are formalized around methods similar
to that of the Catholic Action movement. Others are guided by booklets produced to
explain some of the insights of exegesis. Some have no formal methods. Regardless, the
communities expect the Holy Spirit to guide them as they read, and are open to new and
unexpected interpretations. Explicit openness to the Spirit lends authority to their
readings, but unlike charismatic churches, liberationist communities are interested in the
political implications of their readings. Mesters identifies three key components for the
task of hermeneuticsthe text itself, with the aid of the insights of exegesis; the
community of faith; and an awareness of the lives of the people. When any of these are
out of proportion, or missing, the reading produced becomes myopic.
37
The objective of
studying the Bible is to discover not just its meaning, but its meaning for life. This
hermeneutic approach, Mesters argues, is similar to the reading strategy of the Church
Fathers, who searched for the spiritual significance of the text and not just its literal
sense.
38
The Pauline epistles and gospels often evidence this kind of interpretive method
(e.g., Gal 4:21-31, Mt 2:15). Exegesis and popular interpretation, then, should ideally
invigorate and strengthen each other.
Since the task of interpretation belongs to the entire community, the rle of the
exegete is more modest, but nonetheless important. The exegete first of all engages in
study that is at the service of the community of faith and the struggle of the poor, and not

37
Ibid., 107-09.

38
Ibid., 26.

23
the academic guild.
39
It uncovers the literary and historical meanings of the Bible so that
these meanings may be brought to the community of faith to aid their search for the
spiritual meaning.
40
Exegesis also involves a critical study of the biblical texts which
unmask[s] the ideological uses of the gospel
41
and discern[s] the witness of those
believers, our forebears in faith, who found in their history the God of life.
42
In other
words, the task of exegetes who are committed to the struggle for liberation is threefold:
to make the historical-literal meaning of the Bible available to the community of faith; to
highlight the liberative aspects of the Bible; and to denounce those who use the name of
God to justify oppression, whether in the biblical texts or in contemporary life.

Criticisms of Liberation Theology
Since its beginning, liberation theology has faced criticism for its approach to
theology. Much of the criticism has come from within Roman Catholicism, both from
European and Latin American leaders, regarding the methods of liberation theology.
Because the Roman church is hierarchal in its structure, the misgivings or hostility of a
local leader toward liberation theology can make its practice very difficult. On the other
hand, the criticism from outside of the Roman Catholic hierarchy questions the results of
liberation theology: Does it work?

39
Vaage, Introduction, 13.

40
Richard, Theology in the Theology of Liberation, 166.

41
George V. Pixley, Gods Kingdom: A Guide for Biblical Study, trans. Donald D. Walsh,
(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1981), 104.

42
Gilberto da Silva Gorgulho, Biblical Hermeneutics, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 126.

24
The criticisms of liberation theology from within the hierarchy of Roman
Catholicism largely concern liberation theologys method. The questions arise over what
place, if any, Marxism should have in theology and exegesis. Liberation theology has
also been accused, at a number of points, of not being serious theology. It is too
subjective and does not deal adequately with questions of systematic theology,
metaphysics or epistemology. Liberation theology frames its engagement with the
thought of Marx as another in a long line of dialogues of theology with the tools of its
day, including Aquinass appropriation of Aristotle and the incorporation of history into
theology, both of which were initially viewed with alarm and have since become
commonplace. Liberation theology, then, is simply making use of the best available tools
of its time, as theology has always done, to meet the needs of the situation in which the
church finds itself.
43
However, those critical of liberation theology within the Catholic
hierarchy see it as a dangerous deviation of the Christian faith. In their judgment, the
faith is placed in the service of a revolutionary politics and a Marxist ideology [which is]
reducing the Christian faith to a purely earthly projectevacuating it of its
transcendent dimension.
44
The theology of liberation theology in this view is a cloak
for political and ideological commitments, one which distorts the faith and will not lead
to true, transcendent liberation. Between these two positions lies a disagreement about
the appropriateness of the church being engaged in changing the political realm. But
even those who agree with or are sympathetic to a view of the sacred that engages with
the political may find something to be desired in liberation theology. Liberation theology

43
Dussel, Theology of Liberation and Marxism, 85-86.

44
J uan Jos Tamayo, Reception of the Theology of Liberation, in Ellacura and Sobrino, 40.

25
depends upon the experience of the poor. While in some ways this reincorporation of the
perspective of the poor is laudable, it can also lapse into subjective hermeneutics.
Reading the Bible in base communities, for example, often ignores the findings of
exegesis and the historical circumstances of the text, leaving the people to read their own
circumstances intoand out ofthe text. Even liberation theologians have been accused
of nave readings of the Bible.
45
Liberation theology relies upon the experience of God
and the hope of the people as its implicit justification of the existence of God, assuming
that metaphysical questions had little relevance for the people of Latin America. This
might be acceptable if liberation theology wished to address itself only to the narrow
concrete circumstances of Latin America in the late twentieth century. Since in no
moment has it ever renounced its will to universality,
46
and seeks rather a full
reorganization of the traditional categories of theology under the head of the liberating
reign of God, liberation theology is lacking in its engagement with the questions of
modern philosophy. Liberation theology has tried to rectify its lack of systematization
and of attention to philosophical categories in the volume Mysterium Liberationis.
Theological method is not the only aspect of liberation theology that has been
critiqued. From graduate schools to the streets of Brazil, the results of liberation theology
are being questioned. Some claim that it simply does not work: it fails to liberate people.
Also, despite its desire to listen to the voice of the people, liberation theology may
actually be telling the people of their need for liberation while ignoring their expressed

45
Ibid., 47.

46
Ibid., 34.

26
desires for the older church habits of giving comfort, sustenance and guidance.
47
The
failure of liberation theology to actually liberate people is due to a number of related
aspects: liberation theology is not clear about its own social and political objectives, it
does not adequately understand capitalism and so does not fully grasp the economic
situation of Latin America; it has abandoned the historical projects that were the concrete
expressions of liberating theology.
48
Additionally, protracted struggles within Roman
Catholicism about the appropriateness of liberation theology have drawn energy away
from external struggles. The end of the Soviet Union, which many viewed as the end of
socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism, leaves liberation theology to continue to
flounder in its articulation of concrete objectives. It cannot be said that liberation
theology has accomplished nothing, however. Many small-scale victories, from running
water to non-governmental organizations and successful political campaigns have their
roots in base communities and liberation theology.
49
However, in the pursuit of
conscientization and various community development activities, some leaders in the
liberationist movement have neglected the spiritual needs that drew the people to the
church in the first place. Nagels assessment is that, for Catholic laity both within and
outside of the liberation movement
much of the practice of liberation theology stumbled because it did not allow
room for vital and deeply held beliefs about how God, J esus, Mary and the church
were understood to work in peoples lives. Many who believed in and followed

47
Nagel, Claiming the Virgin, 160.

48
Tamayo, Reception of the Theology of Liberation, 48; Michael Novak, Will it liberate? Questions
About Liberation Theology, (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 9; Petrella, The Future of Liberation
Theology, 11.

49
Nagel, Claiming the Virgin, 161.

27
the teachings of liberation theology felt that the movement focused too much on
political activism at the expense of religious expression.
50

In the rejection of an old, Eurocentric elitism, liberation theology faces the new challenge
of avoiding an elitism of the politically active that is insensitive to the needs of the mass
of people it hopes to represent.
51

Liberation theology is born out of the desperation and hope of the Latin American
people and the conviction that the God professed by Christianity is a God of life. It seeks
to aid and engage the poor in their struggle for liberation, a liberation which is tangible
and historical, but not reducible to any particular political or social revolution.
Theologically, it seeks to unmask the structures of oppression and to announce the
kingdom of God, a utopia free from oppression and death, as a reality that can be built in
the present. Hermeneutics is likewise an activity committed to serving the poor by
engaging in exegesis that is relevant to their needs and by making the historical-literal
meaning of the Bible available to those who search for its liberative meaning today. The
remainder of this paper will observe and analyze four specific instances of liberationist
exegesis of the book of Revelation.

50
Ibid., 158-59.

51
Ignacio Ellacura, The Church of the Poor, Historical Sacrament of Liberation, in Ellacura and
Sobrino, 561.

28

Chapter Three
Pablo Richards Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation.

Author and Audience
Pablo Richard, originally from Chile, is a Professor at the National University of
Costa Rica who has worked with religious community leaders from many parts of Latin
America. His work, Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation was
originally published in Spanish in 1994 (Editorial DEI), but I am reading the 1995
English translation (Orbis Books). I am not aware of any changes to the text for
publication in English.
Richard writes with two audiences in mind: first, those he calls pastoral
agents.
1
These are the leaders and educators (both male and female) of the churches of
Latin America, and second, for scholars and exegetes (2-3). The book demonstrates its
commitment to scholarly audiences with its detailed exposition of fetish and idolatry in
relation to Revelation 13. The section The Meaning of Revelation for Our Time,
presumably directed toward his pastoral audience, is less than two pages long. However,
although Richard does not directly address the contemporary situation of his audience in
the rest of the book, he does dwell on pastoral concerns, such as the place of violence in
Revelation (31-32, 123-24), or the need for a utopian vision (156-58). In addition,

1
Pablo Richard, Apocalypse: A Peoples Commentary on the Book of Revelation, (Maryknoll:
Orbis Books, 1995), 2.

29
Richard uses present in such a way that it means both the historical situation of J ohn,
and also all of history between the resurrection of J esus and his thousand-year reign with
the saints, including the present moment of Richards audience.
Richards work is a commentary on Revelation. He suggests as the thesis of
Revelation: The risen Christ leads the community in the present time in his
confrontation with the monster, the beast, and the false prophet (170). The book begins
with an introduction to Revelation. He introduces not only the literary genre, but first the
apocalyptic strand of early Christianity and its function as an important corrective or
counterpart to both Montanism and Hellenism. Richard also holds to the position (via
Ksemann) that apocalyptic is the mother of Christian theology, in particular a
theology that is historical, political, popular, eschatological, and opposed to an
excessively Hellenized Greco-Latin theology (16-17, emphasis added). For Richard, the
Apocalypse, and apocalyptic theology in general, is a theology that comes from the
people, as opposed to the theology that is created by the elite minority who wished both
to embrace Christianity and the political/social/economic benefits of participating in the
Roman empire. The recovery of the popular, apocalyptic traditions of early Christianity
is important to him as a corrective to overly rational, hierarchical, authoritarian elements
of contemporary theologies.
The overview of apocalypticism and apocalyptic literature is followed by seven
chapters that correspond to the major divisions Richard finds in the apocalypse. Each
begins with an outline of the structure of that portion of Revelation, and Keys for
Interpretation which are comments on the sub-sections of the text Richard identifies.

30
Revelation is not primarily about the future coming of Christ, but about the
resurrected Christ liberating the people from the oppressive Roman empire. This is
because Richard understands the structure of Revelation in such a way that the majority
of Revelation is given to analysis of the present (Rev.4:1-19:10), and the center of the
book (Rev.14:1-5) is framed by events which recall the Exodus. Revelation does not
narrate particular historical events (natural disasters, wars, etc.) (84-86). Instead, it is an
analysis of the political situation of the empire, through the medium of mythic language,
which reveals the judgment of God in the present. For example, of Rev.14:9-11 Richard
writes,
It is not the horrors of hell that are being described here (nowhere in Revelation is
there such a description) but the horrors that one who adores the beast and his
image and who accepts its mark has to undergo now in this life. the
worshippers lose their subject quality, their identity, their spirituality. This is
an internal suffering in Gods presence. (123-24)

Because J esus is alive, the reign of God and the new Exodus of the people have already
begun. Therefore, the judgments of God on the oppressors have begun as well.
Identifying the judgment of God with particular historical events (whether in the past,
such as natural disasters, or in the future, such as torment in hell) leads to bizarre
conclusions and textual manipulation (86). If, instead, the visions are understood as
tools and criteria for a prophetic discernment of history, (4) they help the people to see
Gods liberating activity throughout history.
However, not all of Revelation is mythic in Richards interpretation. The first
resurrection (Rev.20:4-6), which in Richards understanding is the event that inaugurates
the reign of God on earth is a literal resurrection, just as J esuss resurrection is literal.

31
This reign of God with the faithful witnesses is an end to idolatry and oppression, but it is
also a utopia, since it cannot be brought about by human means alone:
The utopia of the thousand-year reign is a transcendent utopia: it is beyond all
human possibility and feasibility and assumes that the parousia of J esus and
bodily resurrection of the martyrs have taken place. The fact that this utopia is
transcendent does not make it un-historical: the thousand-year reign is beyond the
destruction of Babylon and the beasts and the defeat of Satan, but it is not beyond
history; it takes place in history and is part of our history. (157)

Richard is explicitly rejecting both fundamentalist and spiritualizing interpretations of the
thousand-year reign and instead claims his reading is closer to the J ewish apocalyptic
understanding of the text. Fundamentalist readings misuse the logic of eschatology as a
scientific instrument for predicting the end of the world, while spiritualizing
interpretations deny the reality of the resurrection and reign of the martyrs. Richards
reading, on the other hand, offers a realalthough humanly unattainablereign of Christ
that provides hope and inspiration for the faithful and oppressed communities and all who
struggle for justice.

Significant Pericopes and Characters
Richard identifies the structure of Revelation as a chiasm which finds its center in
14:1-5. This episode, in which the Lamb and the 144,000 confront the beast, is also the
center of the present time. In other words, the primary activity of the community in the
present is to stand with the Lamb, undefiled (by idolatry, as Richards reads this passage),
and engaged in worship, singing a hymn that is learned through resistance and through
faith in the transcendent dimension of history (119).

32
Two other passages especially mark the present moment of the community. The
present is the time between the sixth and seventh trumpet and the sixth and seventh
bowls. (The trumpets and the bowls are parallel passages). Richard identifies the texts
that fall between the sixth and seventh as the prophetic and anti-prophetic movements. In
the first, Rev.10:1-11:13, J ohn is re-commissioned as a prophet, and the two witnesses,
whom Richard describes as the prophetic church, offer their testimony and perform
signs until their time is up. In the anti-prophetic movement (Rev.16:13-16), spirits from
the mouths of the dragon, beast and false prophet perform equally miraculous signs and
gather the kings of the earth against the people of God. In other words, the present
moment is characterized by the conflict between the prophetic witness of the church and
the foul spirits of the empire (94).
The idolatry that Revelation condemns (also described by J ohn as fornication) is
probably eating meat sacrificed to idols, usually through associations and guilds (53).
But in a larger sense, this idolatry is linked to a pre-Gnostic tendency [prompted by]
the need on the part of some Christians to modify Christianity so that they could
participate in the economic, political, and social life of the empire (53). Idolatry is the
greatest sin. It is not simply participation in cult rituals but glorification and fetishization
of the empire, or anything else that rules at the expense of human dignity and
personhood. Fetishization is a significant concept for Richard. He defines it several
times throughout the book:
Power, which is an object or tool in the hands of responsible human subjects,
becomes subject; and the human subjects become objects, with no name, no
power, no authority. Fetishizing power likewise means absolutizing it and turning
it into an idol, and in the end turning it into an oppressive and criminal power
(power becomes beast, Molech, Baal). (132)

33

Richards analysis of the worship of the beast is drawn indirectly from Marxs concept of
commodity fetishism. For him, it is at the heart of all that Revelation warns its readers
against.
The character(s) in Revelation with which Richard wishes his audience to identify
are variously called the holy ones, the people of God, the communities, the martyrs.
They are the people who are faithful to Christ in standing against the idolatrous,
oppressive empire. They are also those who are poor and oppressed by the empire. The
holy ones should be poor because of their refusal to be implicated in the idolatry of the
empire. It is for their wealth and complacency that the church of Laodicea is rebuked
(Rev.3:14-22), and for their complicity with the empire that J ezebel (Rev.2:20-24),
Balam (Rev.2:14), the Nicolatians (Rev.2:6, 15) and the synagogues of Satan (Rev.3:9)
are to be avoided (53-54). Although the martyrs call out for justice for their own deaths,
God punishes Rome for all of the deaths it has caused:
Verse 24 is the most remarkable in all of chapter 18; it provides us with the
ultimate proof that Rome has been found guilty: In her was found the blood of
prophets [community leaders] and holy ones [the Christian community]; and all
who have been slain on the earth. Revelation is concerned that justice be done
not only for the blood of the members of the Christian community, but for all
victims of the Roman empire. (137; brackets mine)

For this reason, it seems appropriate to name the holy ones with those others who
have lost their lives on account of the oppression of the empire, regardless of whether
oppression was directed at them because of their faith. This is because Richard describes
the setting of Revelation not as a time of persecution of Christians, but a time of
oppression for those Christians (and others) who were unwilling (or unable) to participate
in the economic, political, or social life of the empire (23). Richard understands the good

34
news of the judgment of God not uniquely for the Christian community; rather,
Revelation is wrath and punishment for the oppressors, but good news (gospel) for those
excluded and oppressed by the empire of the beast (4).

Vision of the Future
As mentioned above, the thousand-year reign of Christ is a utopian period within
history, though it is outside the ability of humans to bring it about completely. This is not
a second coming of Christ, since he is resurrected and present among the communities.
The thousand-year reign is instead an end to suffering, oppression and sin within history.
Richard articulates several movements of the future, of which the thousand-year reign is
one. The first is the judgment against the beast and the false prophet, and the binding of
Satan (Rev.19:19-20; 20:1-3). (It should be noted in this context that Satan is not an
independent personality; rather, Satan is a mythic personification of the supernatural
forces of evil, which are the historical accumulation of sin, personal as well as
socialespecially the capacity of the human being to build idols (104). The
imprisonment or destruction of Satan, then, is the removal of sin, oppression, idolatry,
etc. from the world.) The judgment of Babylon (Rev.18:1-24) (the seventh bowl) and the
rejoicing in heaven at the reign of God (the seventh trumpet, Rev.11:15-19) are also part
of this first movement, the victory of God over sin and oppression, and the beginning of
the thousand-year reign of Christ, which is the utopia of all those who struggle against
the idolatry and oppression of empires in order to establish Gods reign on earth (156).
Following the thousand-year reign is the judgment of Death and of the dead. The
dead are judged not by their good ideas or intentions but rather by what they do; it is

35
orthopraxis that saves us, not orthodoxy (158). The Lambs book of life is also used at
the judgment. It is a list of those who have made an option for life and for the God of
life (159). Death, and the dead who are not found in the book of life are thrown into the
pool of fire and sulfur. This is annihilation, and not eternal torment (123).
Once Death has been destroyed, the new heaven and new earth, and the new
J erusalem can arrive. This new cosmos is characterized by openness, equality, and life.
Death, oppression and chaos are no more, and God makes freely available those things
that sustain life. There is no temple in the new J erusalem, and all of the hierarchies the
temple upheld are dissolved:
Distinctions between holy and profane, priest and lay person, Christian and non-
Christian likewise vanish. There are no hierarchies, no differentiations, no
power elites, and no oppressed. That is why Gods glory can fill the whole city,
and God can be all in all. (163, 166)

The city is immeasurably large, with gates which never close, and the tree of life is
available for the healing of the nations. The new creation is not exclusively for
Christians, but for all who have made an option for life. There is nothing outside of the
reign of God and the Lamb:
In short, heaven and earth are new and J erusalem is new, because life triumphs
over death, order over chaos, and light over darkness within them; compassion is
victorious over all wailing, crying and pain; and there is no longer any curse.
What is transcended here is not matter or bodiliness, but death, chaos, darkness,
suffering, the curse; heaven, earth and city remain; history continues, but now
with death and the curse removed. (160)

This is the utopia of the poor. It is not a rejection of the corporeal world in favor of a
transcendent liberation, but a rejection of death and oppression in favor of a world that
makes life accessible for all.

36
Human Activity
Revelation is neither passive nor violent, but advocates active non-violent
resistance on the model of J esus. J esus is described in the opening benediction as the
faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth
(Rev.1:5). Those who are also faithful witnesses will take part in the first resurrection
and reign with J esus over the earth, so the activity encouraged for the community is to be
faithful in their testimony, just as J esus was faithful. Richard explains that the Greek
word witness also means martyr. To be a faithful martyr, one must be willing to
uphold ones testimony even to the point of death, though being a martyr or witness does
not necessarily imply a violent death (151). The community is to be faithful by
continuing to resist and expose the idolatry of the empire (106-07).
God is the one who brings about the judgments and liberation of the people in
history, but, as Richard highlights, in parallel passages the community also brings about
this judgment through its prophetic/martyrological activity. The two witnesses of
Rev.11:3-13 represent the community of the faithful, and they call down the same kinds
of plagues that accompany the seven trumpets and bowls (91). They are also responsible
for the spiritual defeat of Satan (Rev.12:11):
Revelation makes this spiritual power of the martyrs very clear. They are capable
of casting the devil out of heaven, of stripping him of all his transcendent and
spiritual power; they are capable of destroying the supernatural forces of evil, of
destroying all idolatry and religious falsehood. (106)

However, witness is not the only activity expected of the communities. They are
also called to anticipate the utopia of the thousand-year reign and the new creation. The
purpose of apocalyptic literature, according to Richard, is to give courage and vision to

37
the communities so that they can create a new world in their situations of exclusion,
oppression and/or persecution. Both the utopian vision of the thousand-year reign of the
martyrs with Christ (life without idolatry and oppression) and the utopian vision of the
new creation (life without death) are meant to guide human action and thinking in a
particular direction in the present (157).

Method
Richard draws on both the tools of historical-critical interpretation of the Bible
and Marxs concept of commodity fetishism (through other liberationist authors) to write
a commentary on Revelation. He is aware of the ways that understanding genre and
allusion are necessary for understanding the text, but he also brings the parallels between
idolatry and fetishism to bear on understanding how the Roman empire becomes beast.
His exposition of chapter 13 is an unmasking of the power of the fetish of empire.
Richard is sensitive to issues of class in his opening chapter on early Christian traditions,
and also in his description of the crisis in Asia Minor that precipitated the writing of
Revelation. He frequently draws parallels between the social situation of the
communities of Revelation and the people of the Third World, without emphasis on their
differences. Apocalyptic literature is, for him, primarily a liberating genre, concerned
with destroying the dominant oppressive mythos through the introduction of an
alternative mythos. These visions reorient the people to their social situation and
encourage them to orthopraxis. This means not only endurance or hope for the coming
end of the world, but also the building of the future [which] is what gives meaning to the
present moment and to all of history. Moreover, this future can be advanced in the

38
community, which is the first fruit of that future (29). The idea that the future can be
built or advanced in the present disagrees with the conclusions of many North Atlantic
scholars that the rhetorical function of Revelation is internally-oriented. Richard argues
that because J esus is present among the communities, in other words, because the
resurrection has already begun in J esus, the eschatology of Revelation therefore is
realized in the present time. it is possible to build the reign of God in history (171).

39

Chapter Four
Carlos Mesterss The Hope of the People who Struggle: A Key to Reading the Apocalypse
of St. John.

Author and Audience
Carlos Mesters is a Dutch Carmelite priest who currently resides in Brazil. His
work with Base Communities is well known. J ust before he published his work on
Revelation, he was the author of a compilation of essays entitled Defenseless Flower: A
New Reading of the Bible, which is a theory of hermeneutics for the base communities.
His work on Revelation, The Hope of the People Who Struggle was first published in
Portuguese in 1983. It was republished in 1994 in South Africa in an English translation,
which the translator acknowledges is not literal, but rather tries to be faithful to the
original while also maintaining the originals plain-spoken tone. The English edition is
about the shape and size of a childrens book and makes use of formatting (bold or
italicized fonts, headings, lists) to organize and present the information clearly.
The writing style is simple and makes use of illustrations from everyday life to
help the reader understand the function of some of the conventions of apocalyptic. In a
brief 70 pages, Mesters offers to his readers not an entire commentary of the Apocalypse,
but an introduction that will guide them in further study. This is in line with Mesterss
overall perspective on the relationship of exegetes and clergy to the peoples reading of

40
the biblical texts: the destiny of the scientists, the exegetes, is not to impose an
understanding of the Bible on the little ones or to shape or alter their vision of the
biblical texts. Rather the exegetes are to be at the service of the poor and their vision of
the Bible.
1
For this reason, Mesters spends less than half of the book commenting on
Revelation itself, and much more time describing the historical setting and conventions of
apocalyptic literature, and offering suggestions for study (16, 32-33).
As the translator notes, the intended audience for this English edition is post-
Apartheid South Africans. They continued to struggle against racism and other forms of
oppression that still existed even though official Apartheid had ended (ix). Mesterss
original Portuguese edition was likewise intended for communities in situations of
oppression, and those in solidarity with the oppressed: Those who remain on the side of
those who oppress and persecute the people will not be able to understand anything of
J ohns message for us today (34).

Mesters describes the structure of Revelation as three movements, each of which
repeat, with different emphasis, the same basic message (good news): The time is
close! (9). These three sections are: the opening letters (Rev.1:1-3:22), God the
Liberator (Rev.4:1-11:19), and the judgment of God against the oppressors (Rev.12:1-
22:21). For Mesters, the present is marked in the second section by the fifth seal, when
the souls cry out from under the altar, and again in the third section by the description of

1
Carlos Mesters, The Hope of the People who Struggle: A Key to Reading the Apocalypse of St.
John, trans. St. Dominics Solidarity Group ([Athlone, SA?]: Theology Exchange Programme in
association with Cluster Publications, 1994), 19.

41
the beasts and the army of the lamb (Rev.13:1-14:5)in other words, the time just before
the justice of God comes about (58-61). Mesters thinks that the core of Revelation, 4:1-
10:7 was written by J ohn for the Christians at the time of the persecution of Nero. A
second persecution
2
under Domitian required further reflection, and the first and third
sections were added by J ohn to produce a final form around 95.
Throughout the book, Mesters continually points to themes of the Exodus in this
work. For example, the title He who is, and was, and is to come, (Rev.1:4) repeated
several times in Revelation itself, recalls the name Yahweh of the Exodus account, which
Mesters describes as God-with-us. God the liberatorThe commitment which God
made to remain with His people to the end in order to liberate them, is expressed in the
name Yahweh (44; emphasis in original). The sealing of the 144,000 (Rev.7:1-17) is
also understood as a parallel to the census in the desert after the Exodus (Num. 1:20-43)
(48). Unlike North Atlantic scholarship, which often compares Revelation to its
apocalyptic cousin in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel, and other apocalyptic texts, Mesters
draws far more parallels between Revelation and the Exodus accounts in Exodus,
Deuteronomy, Numbers and Wisdom (Daniel is referenced 3 times, while the Exodus
accounts are referenced 19 times). Most of these references to the Exodus occur in
chapter six, in which the author comments on section two of his outline (God the
Liberator, Revelation 4:1-11:19). However, Mesters references not only the Exodus, but
other parts of the New Testament and Hebrew Bible as well, to explain allusions and lend
support to his arguments. In fact, except for the second chapter, where Mesters gives an
overview of the genre and structure of Revelation, he is in the habit of citing every

2
In 1983, when this book was originally published, official persecution under Domitian was the
scholarly consensus concerning the setting of Revelation.

42
allusion to the text, so that you could check for yourself in the Apocalypse to see what I
was saying (13).
Mesters describes the setting of Revelation as a time when the churches of Asia
Minor were facing active oppression under the reign of Domitian. The communities are
marked by fear, weariness, doubt, despair, and persecution. Most of the communities are
poor; the wealthier ones are complacent (6-7, 12). Mesters asks his audience to identify
with the persecuted churches of Revelation 1-4 and with those who are persecuted by the
law today (34), specifically when the persecutors are part of a regime whose
organization is contrary to the Gospel (25).

Unlike Richards emphasis on a literal first resurrection, Mesters thinks of it as a
figurative resurrection:
Their witness left a seed which resurrected in the Church and which now grows
and spreads all over the world. This will last for a thousand years (Rev.20:4).
The other dead do not participate in this first resurrection (Rev.20:5) because their
lives were worth nothing and left no seed in the ground of the life of the people.
(65)

The thousand years is also a figurative amount of time, the time between the end of the
persecution of the empire until the end of the world (65). Although Mesters usually
collapses the time between the biblical text and the situation of his audience, in this case
he identifies the present time of the audience as the thousand-year reign. However, he
moves through the final judgments of Babylon, the beast, the dead, Death and Satan and
the thousand-year reign very quickly in favor of meditation on the vision of the new
heaven and new earth.

43
Once Mesters gets to Rev.21:1, the pace of his comments slows down
dramatically. A full four pages is devoted to this chapter of Revelation, more than any
other chapter of Revelation in Mesterss book. The final eschatological visions of the
new heaven and new earth are described as J ohns guesses about what the future will be
like based on the peoples past with Goda new creation, a new covenant, a new
organization of the people, etc. J ust as the allusions to the Hebrew Bible reveal that the
God who was at work in the history of the people is at work today, so too, the final
visions demonstrate that we can guess what the future will be like by looking at what God
has done in the past (16, 20, 46, 48, 67). Mesters is careful to remind his readers that
no-one knows anything about the end of time, except the Father (47, 65, 67). He
describes the ideal social organization as fraternal and egalitarian (48, 68). This is
characteristic of the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus, the early churches, the
144,000 virgins, and the new creation. The new creation is also a perfect balance of
community and individuality, free from darkness, chaos, pain, death and persecution,
with life available for everyone in the presence of God.

Human Activity
The only characteristic of the new creation that begins in the present with human
involvement, rather than awaiting Gods work at the new creation, is the fraternal and
egalitarian social order. The communities of Revelation should focus on creating this
fraternal, egalitarian society in the present, so that when God does judge the empire, the
perfect society will be ready to be revealed. Their role is not to overthrow the empire,

44
but to remain faithful and undefiled by worship of false gods (that is, virgins).
3
Instead
of wasting energy by directly fighting that power, they should put their efforts into
preparing for the future, imitating the people of the Exodus of long ago (48). Mesters
does not explicitly suggest that this is the course of action the present communities
should take. It is, however, what characterizes the people of God at critical moments in
their history.
Mesters confronts the perception that Revelation encourages passivity early on in
book: It is true that many people lean on the Apocalypse in order not to become
involved. But this did not apply to the people of the communities in Asia. They had
already been struggling for many years. Their problem was not how not to get involved
but to find a way not to become discouraged in the struggle! (21). J ohn assumes that his
audience is already involved in activity. The communities are faithfully resisting
persecution under Domitian, and most of them are praised in the opening letters. The
fact, then, that much of the activity in Revelation comes from heaven is encouragement to
persevere: God is at work to end their suffering and has not forgotten about them.
In addition to describing the activity of the communities of Revelation, Mesters
also make suggestions for his audience in particular. These recommendations are meant
to aid his audience in further study of Revelation, to discover for themselves its meaning

3
The 144,000 followers of the lamb are described as virgins, which Mesters interprets, they
never followed the false gods of the Roman Empire (27). This equation of sexual activity with idolatry,
which is found also in Richards work, is drawn from the opening letters of the Apocalypse, where meat
sacrificed to idols and fornication are linked as the sins of Jezebel, and from the common use of fornication
as a metaphor for idolatry in the writings of the Hebrew prophets. However, understanding sexual activity
as idolatry is difficult in this particular passage because of its wording, It is these who have not defiled
themselves with women, for they are virgins, (Rev 14:4). Idolatry as fornication usually involves a female
character who is being unfaithful to the (male) Yahweh through liaisons with other deities (e.g., Hosea).
The fact that these characters are male, and warriors, suggests celibacy as a community ideal, ritual purity
of the military during war, misogyny, or some combination of these (Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 129;
Thompson The Book of Revelation, 70).

45
for today. The people are encouraged to read the Bible and understand it on their own,
instead of relying on clergy or scholars to explain it. Consulting a commentary, study
Bible notes or other experts is one suggestion among many for understanding
Revelation. Reading with others, in prayer, and with an openness to the work of the
Holy Spirit (33) are important. The text of Revelation should be read as a whole before
trying to interpret the details. The communities should interact not just with the text of
Revelation, but try to understand how its visions draw on the Hebrew Bible and the life
and religion of the churches of Asia Minor. Practice is also significant to understanding
Revelation: the present-day communities should be in solidarity with the oppressed and
put into practice whatever they learn from their study. Finally, no interpretation which
produces fear or discouragement should be considered valid, since the purpose of the
apocalyptic genre is to produce hope. While some of the interpretive guidelines Mesters
sets out are particular to Revelation, for the most part what he establishes is a method for
the base communities to use in any study of the Bible.

Method
Mesters draws the readers attention to the tools of historical-critical study of the
Bible. In his brief work, he devotes an entire chapter to the historical setting and genre of
Revelation, and another chapter to the conventions of apocalyptic literature. The middle
chapter is an overview of the structure of Revelation and recommendations for reading it.
The final three chapters of the book are brief commentary on the three major divisions
Mesters marks out in the text. The Hope of People who Struggle is an attempt to bring
scientific exegesis and the reading of the people into communication with one another.

46
Without mutual guidance, each is in danger of losing its way. Popular
interpretation, for lack of help from scientific exegesis, is in danger of slipping
into subjectivism. The interpretation of exegesis, for lack of contact with life, is
in danger of seizing up completely and getting lost in the meanderings of its own
speculations.
4

Rather than using the vocabulary of contemporary biblical scholarship, Mesters
uses metaphors or illustrations from everyday life to get at the significance of these
concepts. This strategy is in response to Mesterss own observations about the needs of
base communities: It can never be forgotten that most people in study groups are people
not used to reading. They have difficulty reading. Most of them have only elementary
schooling.
5
For example, one of the characteristics of the apocalyptic genre that Mesters
discusses is that a portion of past history is presented as though it were in the future.
6

Mesters uses the example of a person on a bus at night asking the driver where the bus is.
The driver in this example responds by telling the passenger what route the bus had
taken, where the bus was at present, and how close the bus was to its destination. The
Apocalypse is like the driver who helps the people of the communities to situate
themselves on the long journey of Gods plan which takes place in the darkness of
persecution.
7

Finally, Mesters seems to view his work as a facilitator. He is committed to
popular interpretations of the Bible, although acknowledging the need for partnership
with exegesis as a corrective to subjectivism. The Hope of People who Struggle,
therefore, is not meant to be a comprehensive explication of the meaning of Revelation

4
Mesters, Defenseless Flower, 99.

5
Ibid., 84.

6

7
Mesters, The Hope of the People who Struggle, 29.

47
for the lives of his audience. Instead, he offers guidelines, introductory material, and
direction for his audience toward avenues of further discovery within their communities.

48

Chapter Five
J orge Pixleys Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American Perspective

Author and Audience
J orge Pixley, who is a professor of Bible at the Baptist Theological Seminary of
Nicaragua (he is himself an American Baptist), wrote his piece as a contribution to an
edited volume on global perspectives on the Bible. For the volume, Return to Babel, the
editors selected ten biblical texts and assigned three authors (one from Latin America,
one from Africa, and one from Asia) to write essays on each text. Each author was asked
to use a similar format in his or her essay: a discussion of those elements of his or her
context which have the potential to provide fresh insight to the text, an engagement with
the biblical text, and an engagement of the text and context.
1
No essay in the volume is
longer than ten pages, and most average six or seven, so these essays are more suggestive
than comprehensive. The organization and breadth of the book indicate that the audience
is most likely students of contextual theology and biblical studies. Pixleys essay,
therefore, is a meditation on the text selected for the volume, Rev. 21:1-22:5, following
the parameters outlined above.

1
J ohn R. Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison, Introduction, in Return to Babel: Global
Perspectives on the Bible, ed. J ohn. R Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison (Louisville: Westminster J ohn
Knox Press, 1999), 3.

49
Although Pixley lives in Nicaragua, and has also taught in Puerto Rico and
Mexico, the context he selects for his essay is Cuba, specifically the utopian vision that
motivates the Cuban Revolution, which is the most important inspiration for the
organization of popular movements in Latin America.
2
Pixley characterizes the utopian
vision of the Cuban Revolution as one that strove to erase social differences and to reject
imperialist domination. Cubas project was successful in working toward both of these
goals until the end of the Soviet Union, which was Cubas primary trade partner.
However, Cubas economic situation, as well as its utopian vision, is now in a state of
crisis (201-2).

J ohns description of the city reveals as much about J ohns fears for the present as
his hope for the future. Pixley focuses on a few key descriptions of the new heaven/new
earth that are telling: first, unlike other utopian visions in the biblical texts (banquet,
garden, pastoral landscape), J ohns utopia is urban (Rev.21:2). J ohn does not contrast the
city of Babylon with a rural life, but with another city, one that has been purified.
Anyone who might taint the purity of the city is excluded (Rev.21:8): both internal and
external enemies, as well as women. Pixley understands J ohn to mean that celibacy is the
preferred lifestyle for Christians when he says that the 144,000 are ones who have not
defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins (Rev.14:4); other authors in my
study translate or interpret this passage to mean not defiled with idolatry of the empire,

2
J orge Pixley, Revelation 21:1-22:5: A Latin American Perspective, in Return to Babel: Global
perspectives on the Bible, ed. J ohn Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison, (Louisville, KY: Westminster J ohn
Knox Press, 1999), 201.

50
pure of heart. This concern with purity/defilement is also reflected in the descriptions of
the city, which is presented predominantly by geometric shapes and consists of minerals
and precious stones (203). With the exception of the river of life and the tree of life,
there is little that suggests the presence of living beings or the satisfaction of bodily
needs (203). J ohns vision of the new heaven/new earth is also characterized by power:
the eternal life consists in reign[ing] forever and ever (Rev. 22:5) with the Lamb, who
has crushed the power of the beast, the prostitute, and Satan. Finally, Pixley
characterizes J ohns utopia as alien. The city comes down to earth from God, which is
notable because of the absence of any human participation in its arrival. Taken together,
Pixley characterizes J ohns vision as a vision of a perfect society as dreamed by the
prophet of a group that felt besieged from outside by the powers of the Roman Empire
and betrayed from within by false brothers (and sisters, e.g., J ezebel) (203).
J ohn is characterized as a prophet who found himself in exile, and in a political
situation different than the one that had produced earlier visions for his communities (as
found in the Synoptic Gospels). This new situation required a new vision of the future.
Pixley urges his audience, like J ohn and those visionaries who inspired the shape of the
Cuban revolution, to articulate a utopian vision that responds to their contemporary social
situations in order to inspire action. However, the audience is also cautioned to avoid
J ohns pitfalls and to think critically about the vision that he created, which Pixley
criticizes for its defensive, impersonal, and passive character.

51
In his reflection, Pixley compares the Cuban need to refashion their utopian vision
in light of new historical situation with J ohns refashioning of the early Christian utopia
for a new historical situation of conflict with the empire and within the community.
Pixley does not identify a single vision of a new heaven and new earth that he would like
his audience to adopt. Rather, he identifies a pattern of continual modification of utopian
visions which are generated from particular contexts and require revision when new
problems arise for the community. This is a necessary process for the survival and
happiness of the community (204). He does suggest, however, some characteristics he
hopes any new utopian vision for Cuba will possess: socialist, anti-imperial, adjusted to
global economic realities, and possessing the human warmth that was lost to both
J ohns vision and the older Cuban vision in their defensiveness (205).

Human Activity
For Pixley, a groups utopian vision is an important motivator. Utopias are by
definition models that exist nowhere and that cannot be literally realized. They are not
historical projects that can guide historical and political action, but they are necessary to
motivate and to inspire social action (203). In spite of the fact that utopias cannot exist,
Pixley stresses the significance of utopian visions and the people who articulate them.
Utopian visions are the ends which guide decision-making processes and the distribution
of resources. New prophets are needed to advance new visions for the Cuban state and
for other protest movements in Latin America, and they are needed each time a new
social situation renders older visions nonviable. Implicit in Pixleys description of the

52
need for utopian visions is the idea that humans can or will engage in social action guided
by the particular vision they hold.

Method
Pixley approaches J ohns utopian vision with a hermeneutic of suspicion. Instead
of beginning with the authority of the biblical texts and trying to understand what they
mean for the community today, those who operate with a hermeneutic of suspicion begin
with the community today. These interpreters read the Bible and question the authors
motives and the influences of cultural, social and/or other factors on their writings, and
then appropriate what is helpful for them in their contemporary struggles. They would
argue that, rather than offering clever interpretive strategies so that the text really says
something they wish it to say, they can reject those ideas they find in the Bible that are
unhelpful or unethical. This is because inspiration resides not with the biblical authors,
but among the community today. In another work on the kingdom of God, Pixley uses a
similar approach, The Bible study we need must question our faith in the light of the
strategic requirements of the struggle for life and freedom only the working people in
their struggle for life will prove or disprove that the kingdom of God is good news for the
poor.
3
The biblical texts bear the marks of the times and places in which they were
written, and only insofar as the texts are used to provide aid in the struggle for liberation
can faith in them be considered well placed.
Pixley does not highlight any similarities between J ohns context and his own,
other than that both Cubans and the Asian Churches are facing new situations in

3
Pixley, Gods Kingdom, 7.

53
confrontation with the empire of the day. The bridge that Pixley creates between the first
audience and the contemporary audience is not a parallel social situation that allows the
biblical author to speak with equal authority to both audiences (as it is for other authors in
this study). Making use of the faith tradition without attention to differences in historical
situations can lead to exegesis that justifies domination.
4
Pixley distinguishes J ohns
theology from his activity. Although it is the subject of the Text section of his essay,
the content of J ohns vision is not what Pixley commends to the contemporary audience.
Instead, Pixley encourages imitation of J ohns actioncasting a new vision for a
community in new circumstances. In this way, Revelation continues to stand as an
example for the contemporary struggle for liberation even though its visions may not be
particularly relevant.

4
Ibid., 47.

54

Chapter Six
J usto L. Gonzlezs For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of
Cultural Conflict

Author and Audience
J usto Gonzlez, a Cuban-American Methodist, is a retired professor of church
history. At the time of this books publication, he had written several other works on
Revelation and lectured throughout the United States and Puerto Rico at theological
schools and seminaries. Gonzlez has also published works on Hispanic Theology. The
intended audience for this work seems to be pastoral workers and lay people in the
United States, both non-Hispanic and Hispanic. It was originally published in English in
1999 (Maryknoll), and was subsequently published in a Spanish edition in 2005
(Editorial Mundo Hispano).
In the first chapter, Garlic Wars? Culture and Conflict in the 21
st
Century,
Gonzlez has a dialogue with a friend about the smell of garlic in the friends church.
The garlic smell is due to the English-speaking congregations recent accommodation of
a Spanish-speaking congregation in the same building. The smell of garlic in the shared
space, pleasant to Gonzlez but unpleasant to his friend, becomes a metaphor for the

55
conflicts that occur when people of many cultures come into contact.
1
Cultural conflict,
both inside and outside of the Church, and what Revelation has to say to these situations
of conflict, is the theme of the book. The book unpacks the various layers of cultural
conflict that make up the context for reading Revelation: in our present world, in the
Roman empire, in the early church, and for J ohn himself. Gonzlez then shows how
Revelation responds to these conflicts by concentrating on the phrase every tribe and
language and people and nation in its various contexts, both positive and negative,
throughout Revelation (5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15).

This work is not a full commentary on the book of Revelation. Besides its focus
on the phrase nation, tribe, language, and people, Gonzlez draws from Revelation and
other New Testament documents (as well as other primary texts) to develop the
background to Revelation. Chapter 6, vv. 34 (the second seal) and 13:1-10 (the beast
from the sea) are examples of other passages from Revelation that Gonzlez uses to
demonstrate the conflict inherent in J ohns cultural setting. The setting of Revelation is
not just conflict with the Roman empire, however; there is also conflict within the early
church. Hellenized J ews, more traditional J ews, and gentiles were all drawn to
Christianity. Dispute over what and how much of J ewish culture to incorporate into the
Christian movement, and how to allocate power and resources are recorded in the New
Testament (1 Cor 9:20-23; Gal 2:14; Acts). And yet, Gonzlez concludes, rather than
shying away from intercultural conflict, Christianity thrived precisely at those edges

1
J usto L. Gonzlez, For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural
Conflict, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 2.

56
where conflict was inevitable (53). Next, Gonzlez draws out the culture of J ohn
himself: it is likely, from the myriad of references to the Hebrew Bible and the
construction of his Greek, that J ohn is a Palestinian J ew. As such J ohn is part of the
dominant culture of the church. But because J ohn is living in Asia Minor and writing in
Greek, J ohn also has the experience of being an immigrant and a minority.
After establishing the environment out of which Revelation was written, Gonzlez
enters into a discussion of the every tribe, nation, language and people passages. The
first he deals with is Rev.14:6-7. The angel announces the gospel to all people, showing
that the many cultures are part of Gods plan and not just an accident. However, even the
angel meets limited success, which puts into perspective the ministries of human
evangelists. After this, Gonzlez discusses the passages in which tribes/ languages/
nations/ peoples relate to the empire (Rev.13:7; 17:15). Here he describes the dangers of
romanticizing cultures and multiculturalism. These are: ignoring the sins of ones own
culture, believing cultures are stable when in fact they are always changing, and
overlooking the political and economic context of ones culture (78-80). Gonzlez
concludes this chapter with a discussion of 10:11, the small scroll.
Gonzlez compares Rev.10:11 to a similar episode in Ezekiel (Ezek. 2:8-3:3). In
Ezekiel, however, the scroll eaten by the prophet does not turn his stomach sour.
Gonzlez locates the difference in the command issued to J ohn after he eats the scroll:
You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings
(10:11). That is, the difficulty for J ohn is returning to his congregations and reminding
them that they are but one among many cultures that God is forming into a kingdom (90).
Gonzlez goes on in his final chapter to discuss the scenes (Rev. 5:9; 7:9) in which the

57
tribes, nations, peoples and languages are engaged in heavenly worship and how the
church today should begin to participate in this future plan of God. Since this worship
takes place in heaven, I will discuss it in my next section. The key to Gonzlezs
argument, though, is the vision of the small scroll and the claim that multiculturalism in
the church is both a sweet message of Gods mercy for all people and a bitter realization
that ones own culture is not a superior recipient of that message.
As may already be apparent, the character with which Gonzlez asks his readers
to identify is J ohn. The communities to which J ohn writes are seldom mentioned in
Gonzlezs book. J ohn is characterized as a member of the dominant culture within the
church, and as an immigrant to Asia Minor. This twofold identification allows Gonzlez
to use J ohn to speak to both the dominant culture and minority cultures in the churches
today about each other. To the minority cultures, J ohn speaks from the dominant culture
about love for ones culture and the difficulty of acknowledging that it is not superior (57,
91). To the dominant culture, J ohn speaks for minority groups and other outsiders about
the churchs accommodation to its cultural surroundings and the underside of that culture
(62-64). J ohn, therefore, makes an excellent protagonist for a book written to the
churches of the United States, where cultural segregation in the churches is more
common than oppression of Christians or the poverty of Latin America.

Gonzlez writes about heaven or the future, rather than specifically about the
new heavens and new earth of Rev.21:1-22:5. The portrait of the future heaven that he
draws is from Rev. 5:6-14 and 7:7-19, both of which he quotes in full. Both passages are

58
scenes of worship before the throne of God in which people of many cultures in
uncountable numbers are present as the kingdom and priests of God. He stresses that this
future will be a multicultural future characterized by communal worship of God. It is for
this reason that the church must begin to be multicultural now. This multiculturalism is
not a blend of all cultures into one, or an assimilation of minority individuals into the
dominant culture. Instead, multiculturalism exists when people are deeply rooted in their
own cultures traditions, aware of both the positive and the negative, and can then
appreciate the traditions of others.
The future is also a city, the new J erusalem, in contrast to the city of Rome.
Unlike Rome, where the nations, tribes, peoples and languages were subject to the empire
for its benefit, the new J erusalem is a city open to all, where all are honored as priests and
reign with the Lamb, and where death and pain are no more (112).

Human Activity
The vision of the future toward which history is moving gives perspective on and
meaning to present events. Gonzlez distinguishes between efficient cause and
teleological cause. J ohns vision of the future is a teleological cause, an end or purpose
toward which God is drawing history. It is revealed as a guide for the activity of the
church in the present, in much the same way that I turn onto a particular street when
driving because I know that street will take me to my desired destination (100).
The church should therefore act in a manner consistent with the future vision of
the reign of God both to provide a sound base for communicating the good news, and so
that, when the reign of God does begin, the church will feel at home in this reign. In an

59
age of cultural conflict (as Gonzlez characterizes the present in his first chapter), if the
church is a people that embraces and flourishes because of the meeting of cultures, it will
be an example and source of hope to the rest of the conflict-ridden world. He suggests
that this was the reality of the church in its first centuries, and an example which the
church should follow today. Gonzlez urges two particular actions: first, humility, which
is the recognition that ones own culture and cultural manifestation of Christianity are
one among many. Secondly, worship, which is an act of justice, and of preparation for
and proclamation of the reign of God. It is an act of justice because it requires that
humans be in proper relationship to other humans and to God (109). The prophets
declare that worship without justice to other humans is idolatry, because it is worship to a
God other than the God of justice presented in the biblical accounts. Worship is also an
act of proclamation and preparation because it anticipates the future in which every tribe,
nation, language and people will worship God. Gonzlez warns that if the church does
not anticipate the reign of God in the present through its worship (justice, proclamation,
activity), it shall be rather uncomfortable when the Reign does come! (106).

Method
Gonzlez describes his work as a multicultural reading of the book of
Revelationor rather, a reading of our multicultural situation through the lens of the
book of Revelation (95). There is an express desire to connect the text of Revelation to
the contemporary social situation of the audience. Gonzlez accomplishes this by
drawing parallels between J ohns setting and the setting of his audience in order to
employ the authority of the early church and scripture to elicit a similar response from the

60
contemporary church. He wants his readers to understand not just the Bible itself, but
understand how the biblical texts relate to their context in order to persuade his audience
to relate to its context in a similar way. Indeed, the underlying premise of this entire
book is that by looking at the cultural issues underlying the book of Revelation we
may come to see its deep significance for our age" (21).
In this work, Gonzlez does not interact with the book of Revelation as a whole.
Although the author and setting of the work feature prominently in For the Healing of the
Nations, many other questions that full expositions of Revelation usually deal with are
mentioned only briefly, if at all, such as apocalyptic genre: e.g., the plagues and many of
the eschatological judgments. Gonzlez has dealt with these issues in other works on
Revelation (e.g., Gonzlez and Gonzlez 1997). This particular work features instead
one aspect of J ohns visions that Gonzlez believes is relevant for the churches of the
United States today. This allows Gonzlez to avoid some controversial questions that
might alienate his pastoral audiences and which are of less concern to him
(premillennialism might be an example) in order to deal with another controversial issue,
multiculturalism.

61

Chapter Seven
Analysis and Conclusions

As I have shown in my second chapter, the liberation of the poor and oppressed is
of utmost concern to liberation theology. Theology and hermeneutics both reflect this
priority. Springing from this concern for the poor is an attention to the ways in which
context influences all theology and hermeneutics. From this concern also comes an
emphasis on the practical outworking of the two disciplines: both theology and exegesis
should be at the service of the poor in their struggle for liberation. My thesis is that
liberation theologys orientation toward both praxis and the significance of the social
situation of the reader lead exegetes toward the use of methods that emphasize the
importance of understanding the (historical) social situation of the text (Revelation), and
produce exegesis that articulates a vision of the ideal (liberated) future and suggests how
the contemporary audience should go about attaining that vision. Liberationist readings of
Revelation are oriented toward the present in such a way that they do not ignore the past
or future, but rather find in the past a mirror of the present struggles and in Revelation's
visions of the future a model for liberating activity in the present.
Liberationist exegetes do not read Revelation looking for signs of the immanent
end of the world that will bring an end to the suffering of the people. None of the works
on Revelation by liberationists I read understood Revelation as an emotional experience

62
of the future world that denied responsibility for activity in the present. All of the
liberationist readings sought interaction with the world in order to enact the Kingdom of
God in the present, if only within their communities. The great battle of Revelation 19
and the repeated plagues that God unleashes upon the wicked, in combination with the
dualistic distinction between the holy ones and the wicked did not lead to a justification
for violent action against those perceived as the communitys enemies/the enemies of
God. In fact, none of these authors advocates violence in his writing. Richard calls the
violence of Revelation cathartic, following Collins, while Mesters notes the absence of
any actual fighting in Revelation 19. Gonzlez is interested in cultural reconciliation,
while Pixleys main concern is vision casting and he is hopeful for a softening of the
defensiveness that anti-imperialism created in both J ohns and Cubas utopias. The
struggle of the poor for their liberation is not an armed struggle, but neither is it a
passive acceptance of the corrupt present until the just future is ushered in by God. It is
instead a political and ideological struggle to understand the nature of their oppression
and work together to overcome it.
Significant to building the kingdom of God in the present is an understanding of
the nature of oppressive structures. J ust as J ohn reoriented his audience to the meaning
and importance of their social situation, liberationist exegetes of Revelation work with
J ohn to understand the demonic powers behind their own contexts. What my selection of
texts does not illustrate well is the prevalence of this theme of un-concealing the
structures of oppression in liberationist exegesis of Revelation. As we have seen,
Richards work is the only one that relies significantly on Marxist analysis of the text,
which he uses in his discussion of fetish and idolatry in Revelation 13. Pixley has made

63
use of Marxist analysis in other works, but does not do so in his essay on Revelation.
Mesters and Gonzlez do not seem to draw much on Marxism in their works. A brief
examination of two further readings of the Apocalypse will illustrate how liberationist
exegetes interpret Revelation to disclose the power structures of their own situations. In
the article, Apocalyptic and the Economy: A Reading of Revelation 18 from the
Experience of Economic Exclusion, Nstor Mguez makes use of an analysis of semiotic
codes to demonstrate the antagonistic relationship between wealth and justice in
Revelation 18.
1
Instrumental logic, which pursues profit at the expense of justice,
destroys human life, and, in the end, itself.
2
This is true not just of Rome/Babylon, but
whatever system enthrones the marketplace, elevating it to the status of a god and giving
it the power to decide who lives and who dies.
3
Mguez concludes that only through an
alternative logic, one that rests on the justice of God, can human dignity be achieved.
4

Dagoberto Ramrez Fernndez, in an interpretation of the same passage, reveals how the
greatness and security of the empire are achieved through an all-encompassing,
monopolizing economic and political project which gave other lesser states and
colonies a share in this wealth but did so at the expense of poor peasants and slaves.
5

Third World countries, under the pressure of immense international debt, find their poor

1
Nstor Mguez, Apocalyptic and the Economy: A Reading of Revelation 18 from the
Experience of Economic Exclusion, in Social location and biblical interpretation in global perspective.
Vol. 2 of Reading from this place, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1995), 257.

2
Ibid., 262.

3
Ibid., 261.

4
Ibid., 262.

5
Dagoberto Ramrez Fernndez, The J udgment of God on the Multinationals: Revelation 18, in
Subversive Scriptures: Revolutionary Readings of the Christian Bible in Latin America ed. and trans. Leif
E. Vaage (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 86.

64
as vulnerable as the poor of the states and colonies of the Roman empire. Participation in
this system is considered idolatrous worship and merits the judgment of God.
6

Richards exposition of Revelation 13 is likewise an act of revealing the beastly and
idolatrous character of empire, misused authority and money.
7

Another commonality among the liberationist readings of Revelation is an
emphasis on the social setting of Revelation and its correspondence in some way to the
social setting of the present. Schssler Fiorenza characterizes this as a typological
approach to Revelation.
8
While an emphasis on the social setting of a text is a common
feature in scholarly exegesis, explicit awareness of similarities to the social situation of
the exegete is not. All of the liberationist works on Revelation placed it in its first
century context as a writing of protest against the Roman empire. Gonzlez sees
affinities between the cultural conflict of the first and twentieth centuries. Mesters writes
of persecution, weariness, and fear, as commonalities between the churches of Revelation
and the churches of today. For Pixley, both J ohn and the Cuban people stand at a
moment when the old utopia no longer meets the needs of the situation in which they find
themselves, and a new vision is needed. Richard identifies the social situation out of
which Revelation arose as one of exclusion, which is also characteristic for many in the
Third World today. Liberation theology is attentive to the ways in which theology grows
out of the context of the author; neither liberation theology nor the Apocalypse of J ohn
was written in a vacuum. Mesters also acknowledges the subjectivism into which the

6
Ibid., 95.

7
Richard, Apocalypse, 113ff.

8
Scussler Fiorenza, Revelation, 11.

65
peoples study of the Bible can fall if it is not informed by the findings of scientific
exegesis.
9
However, reading the Bible is not, for liberation theology, an objective
exercise. It is a reading committed to the liberation of the poor, one which views the
Bible not as a text bound to the distant past, but one which can serve as an interpretive
lens or mirror in which to view the present.
10
Therefore, reflection on both the past and
the present are necessary for an adequate reading of the biblical texts.
Committed readings are not new to hermeneutics, neither are readings which seek
a meaning for today in the Bible. Pastors often draw parallels between the historical
situation of the text and the lives of the congregation. What is distinctive about liberation
theologys approach is that its reading is not in service of a vision of spiritual maturity
or better Christians, but liberation of the oppressed. A conviction that the poor can and
should be liberated, and that the Christian faith and the biblical texts offer a divine ally
in [the] struggle,
11
are the underlying assumptions of liberationist hermeneutics.
Finally, liberation theology places an emphasis on the future as a guide for action
in the present. This theme is understated in some accounts and more prominent in others,
but in the liberationist works on Revelation I have read each points in some way to the
future or vision that J ohn writes to his communities as a resource for alternative ways of
living in the present. In Richards work, the utopian vision of heaven occurs within
history even though it cannot be brought about by human means alone. However, the
presence of the resurrected J esus in the midst of the communities means that they can

9
Richard, Defenseless Flower, 102.

10
Gorgulho, Biblical Hermeneutics, 124.

11
Pixley, Gods Kingdom, 105.

66
begin to build the reign of God in the present. The present is also characterized by a
sense of exodus. Gods judgment of oppressor is not an event that occurs at the end of
time, but one that is happening in history, as God is continually at work on behalf of
Gods people. For Mesters, the future, like many moments in the past history of the
people of God, is characterized as fraternal and egalitarian. The people of the present are
encouraged to live out those qualities in the present as they await the liberation that God
will bring. Likewise, in Gonzlezs work, the fact that the future is characterized by
multicultural worship is a reason to move toward appreciation of and openness to other
cultures. Finally, for Pixley, the utopian vision is intimately bound up with the peoples
action. This is why new visions that take into account changing circumstances must be
brought forth to guide the social action of the present. Each author is fundamentally
interested in the liberation of the people; that is, each author is not interested just in
interpretation for its own sake, but in how that interpretation will be meaningful for the
audience to which he writes. This is in response to the liberationist hermeneutic, which
establishes as the final task of exegesis to use its knowledge, no longer as something
which is an end in itself, but as a real service to the people.
12

This study is, by its nature, limited. It deals with the published works of learned
exegetes. It can tell us much about how scholars think the Apocalypse should be
interpreted in order to aid in the liberation of the people, but little about what the people
actually find in Revelation that helps or hinders them in their struggle. It also reveals
nothing of how or if the people interact with exegetes understandings of Revelation.

12
Mesters, Defenseless Flower, 103.

67
This study is also limited geographically. While Latin America may have been the
progenitor of liberation theology as such, liberation theologies are now found around the
world. The inclusion of J usto Gonzlezs work only begins to explore the variety of
liberationist readings of Revelation that have been produced through the books
encounters with other contexts. Further research could illuminate the likeness and
diversity in methods used by other theologies of liberation in their approaches to the
Bible. If the Bible in particular (and religion in general) can be a source of liberation and
not just a tool of oppression, it is important to know what circumstances make these
liberating perspectives possible.

68
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