In Revelation, there is personal transformation. That is salvation. There’s politics and the crumbling of empires built on violence and greed. That is also salvation. There’s the disarming of evil and the cosmic triumph of life over death. And that, too, is salvation. But all this is part of one story about how Jesus saves the world. For John, none of these perspectives are at odds. Personal transformation, social justice, and cosmic healing are implications of a victory already won. The challenge is expanding our imagination wide enough to take it all in.
Jeremy Duncan in Upside Down Apocalypse: Grounding Revelation in the Gospel of Peace
This passage in Duncan’s book on Revelation jumped out at me because, for many progressive Christians, salvation is a difficult concept to conceptualize. A key tenet of this kind of Christianity is that humans are essentially good, if error-prone. Thus, constructing a soteriology – a theory of how and why we might need to be saved – is a fraught exercise. Combine this with the religious trauma of many progressives, brought about by an upbringing in the church that was so often centered on all the ways we are bad and wrong and deserving of hell, and you get a setting where the concept of salvation is unwelcome at best.
So, I like what Duncan does here, to expand the idea of what salvation can mean, pulling it out into three dimensions: personal, social, and universal. “Being saved” isn’t just about your own personal failings; its a communal project of reconciliation and rebirth, brought about through justice, mercy, and the setting right of past wrongs.
Today’s Song: “O Come O Come Emmanuel” by The Civil Wars
Justin DaMetz 