Apocalypsis
1. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent a week in Tallahassee, Florida at an event called Boys' State. It was put on by the American Legion (an association of foreign war veterans), and it was a government/civics-oriented thing. The highlight, at least for me, was that you could get yourself "elected" to various positions in a faux state government, and then form up and go through the motions of being legislators and other politicians. I got "elected" to the State Senate, and we deliberated in the actual Florida State Senate chambers, voted on proposed legislation, and all the rest. I "served" the State Senate with my (still to this day) close friend Justin (now Father Justin, the Russian Orthodox priest), and we had a grand old time.
In addition to the legislative stuff, there was a great deal of, well, political content, for lack of a better term. The biggest part of this was that we all had to prepare "Americanism" speeches, and then give them as part of a competition. I think Justin ended up winning the competition, or at least did well enough to get noticed up the American Legion folks and get selected to go on to the national version of the same basic thing. He was an excellent orator. Still is.
I have no recollection of what I said in my "Americanism" speech, nor do I have any memory of what Justin said. It doesn't really matter. We were never told what exactly "Americanism" meant, or rather what it meant to the American Legion folks. But, in a way, we didn't have to be told. It was pretty obvious. "Americanism" meant that you should loudly and in an unambiguous and uncomplicated manner proclaim that the United States of America was the greatest country in the history of the world. It's primary problem, according to "Americanism," is that Some People don't believe that, or at least don't say that loudly or unambiguously enough. The source of greatness is to be found primarily in a set of symbols--the Flag, the Troops, the National Anthem, etc.--that are less concrete realities and more Platonic Ideals. The only real threat to our country, per "Americanism" was not believing in those symbols, or not believing in them the right way. You didn't need to be some sort of master of social dynamics to realize that the #1 issue according to these American Legion folks was that the Supreme Court said that it burning the flag was Constitutionally-protected speech, and that was a travesty that needed to be cured with a Constitutional Amendment.
I was far more conservative then than I am now (as is Justin, for the record). But this "Americanism" business rubbed me the wrong way, even at the time. I thought the problem with "Americanism" as a concept was that it was an empty signifier, that it was a term that didn't mean anything.
But I was wrong. It absolutely meant something. It still does.
2.
As Luke Skywalker might tell us, every part of what goes by the technical name of "dispensational millenialism," more commonly known as "End Times prophecies" or "Left Behind" thinking of various sorts, is dangerous nonsense. But one of its biggest sins is that it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of what John of Patmos is doing in the Book of Revelation. Indeed, "the Book of Revelation" is not the best name for it. The "title" of the book, derived from its first word in the Greek original, is ἀποκάλυψις, transliterated as "apocalypsis." "Apocalypsis" means "the unveiling" and that word, I believe, is chosen very carefully. By definition, if you unveil something, you are showing something that is already present or true, but is otherwise difficult to see. You are not, and this is important, predicting something that will happen in the future. Predicting something that will happen in the future means that the thing you are predicting does not yet exist. And, if it does not exist, it cannot be unveiled.
So, what truth is John of Patmos unveiling? Simple-- that Jesus the Christ is the Lord. That statement has little natural resonance for us here in the 21st Century. But, to 1st Century Christians living in Asia Minor, in the very heart of the Roman Empire, it was a statement of revolution. Because, for those living in Asia Minor in the 1st Century, Rome, personified in the figure of Caesar, was the only Lord. As the Scripture scholar N.T. Wright is fond of saying, to say that Jesus is Lord is also, necessarily, to say that Caesar is not the lord. John of Patmos is spitting in the eye of the greatest Empire that had ever been known, at least to that point.
But here's the key, and this is why John of Patmos is engaging in "apocalypsis" and not prophecy--the statement "Jesus is Lord" is present tense. Jesus is the Lord now, not exclusively in some future eschaton. Contrary to pervasive misinterpretations throughout the centuries, John of Patmos is not saying "I know things suck now, but don't worry Jesus will eventually come to overthrow these powers and take charge." He saying something far, far more radical--"Jesus has already overthrown these powers, and He is in charge. It may not look like it right now, but it is true." That is the truth that John is unveiling. Reducing it to prophecy cheapens the message, and makes John into a liar.
3. The other pervasive error is the idea that Rome persecuted Christians and Jews because they worshiped the God of Israel and (in the case of Christians) Jesus of Nazareth. Rome was far too smart and too pragmatic for that sort of purposeless religious inflexibility. Rome didn't care in the slightest who you worshiped or didn't worship. Religions came and went, intermixed and cross-bred throughout the Roman world. You could join weird mystery cults; you could even cut your own testicles off if you wanted. Nothing about the God of Israel or the man from Nazareth was any weirder or more radical than a host of other Middle Eastern religious imports.
No, the problem from the Roman perspective with both the Jews and the Christians was that they both insisted that because they worshiped the God of Israel and His Son, that meant that they could not join in what was the real religious program of Rome. See, the Romans knew perfectly well that Zeus and Jupiter and Cybele and Isis and Astare and Ba'al were, at the end of the day, all the same thing. Call it whatever you want, describe it however you chose--none of that matters. What mattered, for Rome, was that you recognized that you had no sovereign beyond Rome, or beyond those lesser sovereigns that Rome allowed to exist. You needed to have your first loyalty to Rome, and to the symbols of Rome, and to the power and wealth and culture of Rome. Rome understood that going to whatever temple and making whatever offering you desired was fine, and even a good thing for Rome, so long as your daily devotion was to ultimately to Rome itself.
It was this religious program, the symbols and the ostentatious displays and the wealth and the cultural norms, that Christians and Jews refused to pay homage. And it was this refusal that made Christians and Jews an intolerable threat. Rome would have been perfectly happy for Christians and Jews to continue to believe whatever they wanted to believe, so long as they also pledged their hearts to the idea of Pax Romana and all of its attendant trappings. For Rome, Christians and Jews were political, not religious, dissidents, and thus a political, and not religious, problem.
And no one understood this more clearly than John of Patmos. What is striking about his Apocalypse is that, despite the fact it is written in barely intelligible Greek, it reflects a keen understanding of Rome and how Rome functions. John understood that it is in symbols that the power of Rome lies, and so his Apocalypse deliberately and careful subverts them. The Book of Revelation, in many ways, can be read as a piece of political satire--the over the top, and yet ultimately futile, presentation of the various stand-ins for Roman power seems to me to be very deliberate and carefully chosen. John of Patmos is the Sacha Baron Cohen of the 1st Century, because he understands that the most powerful way to attack Empire is to show it as foolish, weak, and ultimately ridiculous.
4. All of this is the part I didn't see in high school with Boys' State, and frankly didn't understand until very recently. You see, "Americanism" is just the old Roman playbook reimagined. Like it's ancestor, it's not hostile to religion (especially the thoroughly co-opted mid-20th Century version of white Christianity that is only starting to lose its grip in the United States). In fact, you are encouraged to go to the "church of your choice" every Sunday, and will be lauded for your piety. All of that is fine, as long the other six days of the week you give fealty to the symbols of America, to the flag and the troops and the institutions and to the glory and power of America. As with Rome, the genius of "Americanism" is the way it co-opts and absorbs all of these other, potentially antagonistic, ideas and commitments, deflecting them away from itself so that it can do its thing without interference.
I was right to detect that there was a lack of substantive content behind this idea of "Americanism." It's not a creed in the sense of a set of formal, didactic commitments to principle. It's much more slippery than that. Amorphous notions like "patriotism" and "love of freedom" are effective precisely because of their very indeterminacy. They seem so neutral, even harmless, that you don't see the way in which they are being used to frame everything else that you see. If America is good, and we are with America, then "Americanism" teaches (quietly yet persistently) that those who oppose us must be bad. "Americanism" is a vehicle for identifying who our enemies are, and those enemies are, as always, Not Us. Being too rigid about who the Not Us are defeats the purpose of the exercise--it needs to be able to bend and twist to adapt to new circumstances and scenarios. Anyone can practice "Americanism," so long as you pledge allegiance. No wonder they were obsessed with the flag.
In the halycon days of the mid-90s, even if I had a clear picture of all of this, I probably would have dismissed it as, on balance, harmless. It's just a bunch of old, conservative dudes doing old, conservative dude stuff, I would have said. It doesn't matter all that much, I would have said.
5. The Trump regime's court evangelicals, Robert Jeffries and Franklin Graham and Paula White (alongside their fellow-travelers and enablers among Roman Catholics and mainline Protestant churches), will tell you that Trump is a "Biblical figure." Truthfully, I think they are right, though not in the way they think. They will also tell you that Trump's Presidency has a lot to do with the Apocalypse of John, and I think they are right about that, too. The Presidency of Donald Trump is, itself, an apocalypsis. It rips the cover off and exposes the nature of "Americanism" for all to see.
I, and I think a large group of fellow Christians, didn't really understand a big part of what John of Patmos was trying to tell us before Trump came on the scene. The compromises we were being asked to make in the name of "Americanism" were too small, too subtle, too entrenched in a long history of similar compromises to really be noticeable. It didn't seem like it mattered all that much. But all of that has now been unveiled. And, once again, the key here is "unveiled." Trump didn't change anything; he just pointed out the reality that has always been there. It was just as true and just as present back in the mid-90s as it is now. It was just harder to see then.
Trump is an apocalyptic figure in another sense. Consider chapter 13, verses 1-6, of John's Apocalypse:
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’
The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
People, I think, miss the forest through the trees here. Yes, John is clearly referencing and name-checking other apocalyptic texts, especially the Book of Daniel, in his description of the Beast. But the core point of the ten horns and seven heads and the leopard with bear feet and all of that is that the Beast is ridiculous. It's goofy and stupid, and everyone should be able to immediate see how goofy and stupid it actually is. And, yet, people are amazed by this dumb thing, and follow it around shouting ludicrous and over-cooked praises.
It is fashionable, or at least it was, to dismiss Trump as a buffoon. Trump, of course, is a buffoon, but the notion that his buffoonishness would be disqualifying was deeply naive. The stupidity, the venality, the uncamouflaged greed, the fundamental ridiculousness of Trump, all of that is apocalypsis. It shows us what lies behind all of these high-minded appeals to principled values in the "Americanism" discourse. All of that is a useful cover, but in the end it is wholly optional. The only true commitment of "Americanism" is that we are good and Not Us is bad, and it has always been so. Like the Beast, some thought that this ideology had received a mortal blow in recent years, but that, too, was deeply naive.
The chorus has already formed, pregnant with amazement--"who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"
6. The time has come for those who profess the Christian faith here in the United States to put aside "Americanism" for good and for all. John of Patmos should be our guide, just as he was the guide to those 1st Century churches in Asia Minor. Jesus is still Lord, Empire is still ultimately dumb and foolish, yet seductive and compelling in its foolishness. We are absolutely in the same place that those ancestors in faith were.
Now is not the time to take the Mark.
In addition to the legislative stuff, there was a great deal of, well, political content, for lack of a better term. The biggest part of this was that we all had to prepare "Americanism" speeches, and then give them as part of a competition. I think Justin ended up winning the competition, or at least did well enough to get noticed up the American Legion folks and get selected to go on to the national version of the same basic thing. He was an excellent orator. Still is.
I have no recollection of what I said in my "Americanism" speech, nor do I have any memory of what Justin said. It doesn't really matter. We were never told what exactly "Americanism" meant, or rather what it meant to the American Legion folks. But, in a way, we didn't have to be told. It was pretty obvious. "Americanism" meant that you should loudly and in an unambiguous and uncomplicated manner proclaim that the United States of America was the greatest country in the history of the world. It's primary problem, according to "Americanism," is that Some People don't believe that, or at least don't say that loudly or unambiguously enough. The source of greatness is to be found primarily in a set of symbols--the Flag, the Troops, the National Anthem, etc.--that are less concrete realities and more Platonic Ideals. The only real threat to our country, per "Americanism" was not believing in those symbols, or not believing in them the right way. You didn't need to be some sort of master of social dynamics to realize that the #1 issue according to these American Legion folks was that the Supreme Court said that it burning the flag was Constitutionally-protected speech, and that was a travesty that needed to be cured with a Constitutional Amendment.
I was far more conservative then than I am now (as is Justin, for the record). But this "Americanism" business rubbed me the wrong way, even at the time. I thought the problem with "Americanism" as a concept was that it was an empty signifier, that it was a term that didn't mean anything.
But I was wrong. It absolutely meant something. It still does.
2.
As Luke Skywalker might tell us, every part of what goes by the technical name of "dispensational millenialism," more commonly known as "End Times prophecies" or "Left Behind" thinking of various sorts, is dangerous nonsense. But one of its biggest sins is that it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of what John of Patmos is doing in the Book of Revelation. Indeed, "the Book of Revelation" is not the best name for it. The "title" of the book, derived from its first word in the Greek original, is ἀποκάλυψις, transliterated as "apocalypsis." "Apocalypsis" means "the unveiling" and that word, I believe, is chosen very carefully. By definition, if you unveil something, you are showing something that is already present or true, but is otherwise difficult to see. You are not, and this is important, predicting something that will happen in the future. Predicting something that will happen in the future means that the thing you are predicting does not yet exist. And, if it does not exist, it cannot be unveiled.
So, what truth is John of Patmos unveiling? Simple-- that Jesus the Christ is the Lord. That statement has little natural resonance for us here in the 21st Century. But, to 1st Century Christians living in Asia Minor, in the very heart of the Roman Empire, it was a statement of revolution. Because, for those living in Asia Minor in the 1st Century, Rome, personified in the figure of Caesar, was the only Lord. As the Scripture scholar N.T. Wright is fond of saying, to say that Jesus is Lord is also, necessarily, to say that Caesar is not the lord. John of Patmos is spitting in the eye of the greatest Empire that had ever been known, at least to that point.
But here's the key, and this is why John of Patmos is engaging in "apocalypsis" and not prophecy--the statement "Jesus is Lord" is present tense. Jesus is the Lord now, not exclusively in some future eschaton. Contrary to pervasive misinterpretations throughout the centuries, John of Patmos is not saying "I know things suck now, but don't worry Jesus will eventually come to overthrow these powers and take charge." He saying something far, far more radical--"Jesus has already overthrown these powers, and He is in charge. It may not look like it right now, but it is true." That is the truth that John is unveiling. Reducing it to prophecy cheapens the message, and makes John into a liar.
3. The other pervasive error is the idea that Rome persecuted Christians and Jews because they worshiped the God of Israel and (in the case of Christians) Jesus of Nazareth. Rome was far too smart and too pragmatic for that sort of purposeless religious inflexibility. Rome didn't care in the slightest who you worshiped or didn't worship. Religions came and went, intermixed and cross-bred throughout the Roman world. You could join weird mystery cults; you could even cut your own testicles off if you wanted. Nothing about the God of Israel or the man from Nazareth was any weirder or more radical than a host of other Middle Eastern religious imports.
No, the problem from the Roman perspective with both the Jews and the Christians was that they both insisted that because they worshiped the God of Israel and His Son, that meant that they could not join in what was the real religious program of Rome. See, the Romans knew perfectly well that Zeus and Jupiter and Cybele and Isis and Astare and Ba'al were, at the end of the day, all the same thing. Call it whatever you want, describe it however you chose--none of that matters. What mattered, for Rome, was that you recognized that you had no sovereign beyond Rome, or beyond those lesser sovereigns that Rome allowed to exist. You needed to have your first loyalty to Rome, and to the symbols of Rome, and to the power and wealth and culture of Rome. Rome understood that going to whatever temple and making whatever offering you desired was fine, and even a good thing for Rome, so long as your daily devotion was to ultimately to Rome itself.
It was this religious program, the symbols and the ostentatious displays and the wealth and the cultural norms, that Christians and Jews refused to pay homage. And it was this refusal that made Christians and Jews an intolerable threat. Rome would have been perfectly happy for Christians and Jews to continue to believe whatever they wanted to believe, so long as they also pledged their hearts to the idea of Pax Romana and all of its attendant trappings. For Rome, Christians and Jews were political, not religious, dissidents, and thus a political, and not religious, problem.
And no one understood this more clearly than John of Patmos. What is striking about his Apocalypse is that, despite the fact it is written in barely intelligible Greek, it reflects a keen understanding of Rome and how Rome functions. John understood that it is in symbols that the power of Rome lies, and so his Apocalypse deliberately and careful subverts them. The Book of Revelation, in many ways, can be read as a piece of political satire--the over the top, and yet ultimately futile, presentation of the various stand-ins for Roman power seems to me to be very deliberate and carefully chosen. John of Patmos is the Sacha Baron Cohen of the 1st Century, because he understands that the most powerful way to attack Empire is to show it as foolish, weak, and ultimately ridiculous.
4. All of this is the part I didn't see in high school with Boys' State, and frankly didn't understand until very recently. You see, "Americanism" is just the old Roman playbook reimagined. Like it's ancestor, it's not hostile to religion (especially the thoroughly co-opted mid-20th Century version of white Christianity that is only starting to lose its grip in the United States). In fact, you are encouraged to go to the "church of your choice" every Sunday, and will be lauded for your piety. All of that is fine, as long the other six days of the week you give fealty to the symbols of America, to the flag and the troops and the institutions and to the glory and power of America. As with Rome, the genius of "Americanism" is the way it co-opts and absorbs all of these other, potentially antagonistic, ideas and commitments, deflecting them away from itself so that it can do its thing without interference.
I was right to detect that there was a lack of substantive content behind this idea of "Americanism." It's not a creed in the sense of a set of formal, didactic commitments to principle. It's much more slippery than that. Amorphous notions like "patriotism" and "love of freedom" are effective precisely because of their very indeterminacy. They seem so neutral, even harmless, that you don't see the way in which they are being used to frame everything else that you see. If America is good, and we are with America, then "Americanism" teaches (quietly yet persistently) that those who oppose us must be bad. "Americanism" is a vehicle for identifying who our enemies are, and those enemies are, as always, Not Us. Being too rigid about who the Not Us are defeats the purpose of the exercise--it needs to be able to bend and twist to adapt to new circumstances and scenarios. Anyone can practice "Americanism," so long as you pledge allegiance. No wonder they were obsessed with the flag.
In the halycon days of the mid-90s, even if I had a clear picture of all of this, I probably would have dismissed it as, on balance, harmless. It's just a bunch of old, conservative dudes doing old, conservative dude stuff, I would have said. It doesn't matter all that much, I would have said.
5. The Trump regime's court evangelicals, Robert Jeffries and Franklin Graham and Paula White (alongside their fellow-travelers and enablers among Roman Catholics and mainline Protestant churches), will tell you that Trump is a "Biblical figure." Truthfully, I think they are right, though not in the way they think. They will also tell you that Trump's Presidency has a lot to do with the Apocalypse of John, and I think they are right about that, too. The Presidency of Donald Trump is, itself, an apocalypsis. It rips the cover off and exposes the nature of "Americanism" for all to see.
I, and I think a large group of fellow Christians, didn't really understand a big part of what John of Patmos was trying to tell us before Trump came on the scene. The compromises we were being asked to make in the name of "Americanism" were too small, too subtle, too entrenched in a long history of similar compromises to really be noticeable. It didn't seem like it mattered all that much. But all of that has now been unveiled. And, once again, the key here is "unveiled." Trump didn't change anything; he just pointed out the reality that has always been there. It was just as true and just as present back in the mid-90s as it is now. It was just harder to see then.
Trump is an apocalyptic figure in another sense. Consider chapter 13, verses 1-6, of John's Apocalypse:
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’
The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
People, I think, miss the forest through the trees here. Yes, John is clearly referencing and name-checking other apocalyptic texts, especially the Book of Daniel, in his description of the Beast. But the core point of the ten horns and seven heads and the leopard with bear feet and all of that is that the Beast is ridiculous. It's goofy and stupid, and everyone should be able to immediate see how goofy and stupid it actually is. And, yet, people are amazed by this dumb thing, and follow it around shouting ludicrous and over-cooked praises.
It is fashionable, or at least it was, to dismiss Trump as a buffoon. Trump, of course, is a buffoon, but the notion that his buffoonishness would be disqualifying was deeply naive. The stupidity, the venality, the uncamouflaged greed, the fundamental ridiculousness of Trump, all of that is apocalypsis. It shows us what lies behind all of these high-minded appeals to principled values in the "Americanism" discourse. All of that is a useful cover, but in the end it is wholly optional. The only true commitment of "Americanism" is that we are good and Not Us is bad, and it has always been so. Like the Beast, some thought that this ideology had received a mortal blow in recent years, but that, too, was deeply naive.
The chorus has already formed, pregnant with amazement--"who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"
6. The time has come for those who profess the Christian faith here in the United States to put aside "Americanism" for good and for all. John of Patmos should be our guide, just as he was the guide to those 1st Century churches in Asia Minor. Jesus is still Lord, Empire is still ultimately dumb and foolish, yet seductive and compelling in its foolishness. We are absolutely in the same place that those ancestors in faith were.
Now is not the time to take the Mark.
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