The Promised Land Project: In the Realm of the Prophets: On the Biblical Book of Revelation

Turning Vision into Action....at least hypothetically

Strike up the music of the band
We're blazing a trail for the promised land
Heaven on earth is within you.

Through the writing of stories, poetry, essays, and a novel, I’ve creatively contended with the consumer culture and the problem of the ideal in the modern era. This preoccupation in time would lead to a vision of cultural transformation and where I believe our democratic society needs to go to truly progress beyond the modern era. Conceding my limited credibility, this blog provides a synthesis of recognized visionaries, poets, and writers with the objective of making a credible argument. Ultimately, it is a certain feeling the project strives to inspire and sustain on a certain level, making more vital use of poetry and the arts; consequently whether one agrees or not is less important than whether one senses it and feels it over time.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

In the Realm of the Prophets: On the Biblical Book of Revelation

Having come to Christianity through poetry, I'm inclined to take the Bible poetically rather than literally. Certainly some verses can be taken literally, such as what strike me as the essential teachings of Christ: love God and love each other. But to my view, taking the Bible literally while failing to recognize its poetry is like reading lyrics without hearing the music.

I won't go into the historical background of the Biblical Book of Revelation too much, but it's inseparable from its time and place: a time of Christian persecution by Roman authorities back in the days of the Roman Empire. Arguably, the prophecy of the Book of Revelation has already been fulfilled as Christianity overtook the Roman Empire. Yet Christians worldwide continue to look for the second coming of Christ and that matters.

Christians can still act to acheive human salvation while maintaining that conviction that Jesus will physically return; and, I believe, it's common that many Christian churches promote such an approach. As I began this blog to express my vision -- my call in the blogosphere -- I didn't necessarily expect a lot of readers; I was conscious that if I only get one reader, it could still be all important if that one reader happens to be the right reader.

I ran into a guy in Eugene, Oregon who seemed to me to resemble Jesus in form and persoanlity, who struck me as a true poet and also happened to be jewish. If I run into him again, I'll ask him if it ever occurred to him that he might be the second coming of Christ. But short of a literal realization of the Book of Revelation, we should also explore poetic realizations in the fulfillment of prophecy, such as that which I alluded to in the previous blog.