FACING APOCALYPSE

Keller uses the book of Revelation to make sense of our current historical moment in this work of theological criticism.

With the threats of climate change, authoritarianism, and a global pandemic, it’s easy to feel like we’re living through apocalyptic times. For Keller, there are obvious parallels to the famous revelation of John of Patmos, the biblical scribe who “denounced the global economics and politics of his time in language that sounds eerily relevant to ours. He wrote a long scroll of a letter warning that the news would get worse, much worse, before it gets—better? Why are we still acting out the dark dreams of John’s Apocalypse?” Keller argues that John’s prophecy is not a literal one, however, so much as a self-fulfilling one: The imagery and metaphors of end times have become so ingrained in Western society that it seems people go looking for apocalypses. Perhaps, then, a new reading of Revelation can alter how people interpret the world around them, allowing them to see other potentialities in the ominous new developments. Through a process she terms “dreamreading,” the author offers an eco-political analysis of the Bible’s surreal final book, uncovering in it new perspectives for the current apocalyptic moment. The book is a critical work, and the voice is appropriately scholastic. Even so, Keller’s prose is smooth and infused with playful energy: “Read in their context, the dragon and two beasts of the Apocalypse are anti-cosmic forces. John faces the stakes with alarming clarity: he was visualizing, he was hearing, a pattern already monetized and marked, normalized and—bloody resilient. Preparing the way for a messianic take-down of the empire, he takes it down in parody.” It’s a dense read at times, but Keller more than brings the Scripture to life. Her keen and ambitious interpretation is the perfect match for the phantasmagoria of Revelation. Readers will take away a different view of the esoteric book and a slightly altered view of climate change as well—no mean feat for a work of literary theory.

A surprising, elegant contemplation of apocalypses, old and new.