The way of imagination

             The paradox of the kingdom of God.  The book of Revelation is clear – it is precisely by dying for their faith that the martyrs “overcome” the “beast”, the “world” and all the enemies of God.  Jesus showed us the way to true victory – by giving up his life on the cross, he defeated the “principalities and powers” (cf. Col. 2.14-15).  Despite the fact that everyone – including the disciples – believed that Jesus’ death was a defeat and proof that he was not the Messiah after all (cf. Lk. 24.19-24), the New Testament consistently insists that the opposite was in fact the case .  The cross was Jesus’ “enthronement” as Messiah, as King of Israel, and constituted his victory over the true enemies of the people of God – sin, death and all the forces of evil (cf. Eph. 6.12).  The New Testament tells us again and again, lest we miss it – the kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom.  That is to say, God’s powe...

       Unmasking the matrix.   The Jesus-followers of Ephesus lived in a world where Caesar was Lord, in which the (temples of the) gods were everywhere, a world where everyone knew their place, a world populated with countless nameless slaves, a world of empire – both efficient and ruthless, with a social order that demanded loyalty (and taxes!) and which promised peace, justice and prosperity (for the 1%).   Everything the Ephesians would have encountered on a daily basis served to reinforce the official, imperial interpretation of reality – the architecture, the many statues of the emperor, the temples of the many gods, the social protocols, the way money was spent (and collected), the dress codes – everything proclaimed “this is the way things are and the way they are meant to be”.   As John writes to the seven churches of Asia, he faced a significant challenge – how to get his readers to “see” the world for what it really was, to see themselv...

       Another day in Asia .   John of Patmos wrote to “the seven churches of Asia”, the first of which is the church in the city of Ephesus (cf. Rev. 1.4, 9-11).   The area of land we now know as Turkey was referred to as “Asia Minor” (or “Anatolia”) in the ancient world, and the Western end – once it was acquired by the Romans – became the “province of Asia”, where the seven churches of Revelation were located (the island of Patmos, where John had been exiled, was off the coast of “Asia”, in the Aegean Sea).   Asia Minor had been the western hinterland of the Persian empire, and was the first territory conquered by Alexander the Great during his campaigns which began in 334 B.C.; thus had Asia Minor been “Hellenised”.   The Romans acquired Asia Minor in the late 2 nd century B.C. [1] and lost no time in exploiting its vast wealth through overt theft and later, through taxation (i.e., legalized theft).   In 27 B.C., Caesar Augustus m...

             Prophets have always been critical of “religious” institutions – in ancient Israel, this meant the cultic life of the tabernacle/temple which was overseen by priests and which was intimately associated with the Israelite monarch from the time of King Solomon.   Of course, a formalized liturgical life could easily lead to hypocrisy and a “cultural/civic religion” which, as Marx would denounce many centuries later, [1] could simply lend itself to the maintenance of the status quo, as opposed to producing real justice in society (cf. Micah 6.8; Jer. 7.1-15, etc.).   As opposed to religious practice that was merely “ritualistic”, prophetic religion was always concerned with faithfulness to the covenant with Yahweh – i.e. living a life of justice vis-à-vis God and your fellow humans (cf. Dt. 6.5; 11.13; 13.3; Lev. 19.18, 34).   The prophets of Israel were ruthless in their critique of religious observance that was not accom...