The Nonviolent Apocalypse

Revelation is resistance literature, written to instruct early Christians on how to live as followers of Jesus in the Roman Empire. The Nonviolent Apocalypse uses modern examples and scholarship on nonviolence to help illuminate Revelation’s resistance, arguing that Revelation’s famously violent visions are actually acts of nonviolent resistance to the Empire. The visions form part of Revelation’s proclamation of God’s way as a just and life-giving alternative to the system constructed by Rome. Revelation urges its readers to pursue this radical form of living, engaging in nonviolent resistance to all that stands in the way of God’s vision for the world.

When scholars have set Jesus against various conceptions of the “messiah” and other redemptive figures in early Jewish expectation, those questions have been bound up with the problem of violence, whether the political violence of a militant messiah or the divine violence carried out by a heavenly or angelic figure. Missing from those discussions, Simon J. Joseph contends, are the unique conceptions of an Adamic redeemer figure in the Enochic material­—conceptions that informed the Q tradition and, he argues, Jesus’ own self-understanding.

A peacemaker’s guide to the book of Revelation The book of Revelation—which deals on a cosmic scale with good and evil, politics and empire, community and eternity—has intrigued and frustrated readers since it was written. How do we make sense of John’s prophetic vision of cosmic war in light the nonviolence Jesus embodies in the gospels? What does it mean to tell us about Jesus, our world, and the future of all things? As End Times conspiracy theories surge, it’s more important than ever that we read the final book of the Bible without distorting the true message of Jesus. In Upside-Down Apocalypse, author Jeremy Duncan draws on biblical scholarship and nonviolent theology to guide readers through the book of Revelation, understanding the vision of John in the light of the Jesus we know through the Gospels—the full revelation of the Divine. Along the way, readers will discover what the writer imagines as he weaves this profound revelation of non-violent triumph and see with fresh eyes how the Prince of Peace turns violence on its head once and for all.

A provocative study that cuts to the very heart of Christian thought, The Nonviolent Atonement challenges the traditional, Anselmian understanding of atonement along with the assumption that heavenly justice depends on Christ s passive, innocent submission to violent death at the hands of a cruel God. Instead J. Denny Weaver offers a thoroughly nonviolent paradigm for understanding atonement, grounded in the New Testament and sensitive to the concerns of pacifist, black, feminist, and womanist theology. While many scholars have engaged the subject of violence in atonement theology, Weaver s Nonviolent Atonement is the only book that offers a radically new theory rather than simply refurbishing existing theories. Key features of this revised and updated second edition include new material on Paul and Anselm, expanded discussion on the development of violence in theology, interaction with recent scholarship on atonement, and response to criticisms of Weaver s original work. Praise for the first edition: The best current single volume on reconstructing the theology of atonement. S. Mark Heim in Anglican Theological Review Weaver provides an important contribution to atonement theories by seriously inserting the contemporary concerns of pacifist, feminist, womanist, and black theologians into the centuries-old christological conversation. . . . A provocative but faithful proposal benefiting any student of christology. Religious Studies Review A noteworthy contribution to the literature on the atonement. Weaver provides a useful critique of the history of atonement motifs; he does a fine job of placing Anselm s theology in its historical context; he creatively fuses a singular biblical vision from the earthly narrative of the Gospels and the cosmic perspective of the Apocalypse; and he attempts to relate discussions of the atonement to Christian social ethics. Trinity Journal This is a superb succinct survey and analysis of classical and contemporary theories of the atonement, ideal for students and general readers. . . . A clearly written, passionately expressed introduction to current debates on the atonement. . . . Excellent resource. Reviews in Religion and Theology

A respected biblical scholar shows how the Book of Revelation made sense to its first readers and what it really means for Christians today.

Exploring novels by Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, and Sylvia Townsend Warner as political theology – works that imagine a resistance to the fusion of Christianity and patriotism which fuelled and supported the First World War – this book shows how we can gain valuable insights from their works for anti-militarist, anti-statist, and anti-nationalist efforts today. While none of the four novelists in this study were committed Christians during the 1920s, Andrews explores how their fiction written in the wake of the First World War operates theologically when it challenges English civil religion – the rituals of the nation that elevate the state to a form of divinity. Bringing these novels into a dialogue with recent political theologies by theorists and theologians including Giorgio Agamben, William Cavanaugh, Simon Critchley, Michel Foucault, Stanley Hauerwas and Jürgen Moltmann, this book shows the myriad ways that we can learn from the authors' theopolitical imaginations. Andrews demonstrates the many ways that these novelists issue a challenge to the problems with civil religion and the sacralized nation state and, in so doing, offer alternative visions to coordinate our inner lives with our public and collective actions.

This book is a collection of philosophical papers that explores theoretical and practical aspects and implications of nonviolence as a means of establishing peace. The papers range from spiritual and political dimensions of nonviolence to issues of justice and values and proposals for action and change.

Is the book of Revelation the biblical book for the twentieth-first century due to the growing interest in apocalyptic? A fresh approach is needed to help access its symbolic mysteries, an approach that avoids fundamentalist, literal interpretation and the tendency in liberal thinking to doubt that God will act decisively in the future in some way. These meditations take us far and wide in an understanding of Christian apocalyptic thought--from the lived faith of refugee and oppressed communities, to traditions of the Orthodox Church. Emphasized throughout is a direction in modern scholarship that sees the catastrophes described in Revelation as symbolic of events that are already happening in the course of world history. It presents the bringing of the era to its end because of the victory of Christ over evil, which is to be finally vanquished with universal judgment and glorious consummation in store. The unfolding work of God's justice is displayed. Fellowship with the martyrs, the servants of the Lamb, is of special significance. The Apocalyptic Heart traces these themes based on particular moments in the text of Revelation and explores their meaning for the present.