Ted Grimsrud

For many, the book of Revelation seems hopelessly hard to interpret. It gives the impression of being full of frightening and confusing visions. However, To Follow the Lamb: A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation shows that Revelation actually is fascinating, inspiring, and empowering. The key to reading Revelation is simple. Let’s take seriously the opening words of the book that tell us it is a “revelation of Jesus Christ.” Let’s expect Revelation to help us understand Jesus and his will for us. We may expect that Revelation shares the same basic sensibility that we find in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. Revelation is an exhortation to discipleship—follow the Lamb wherever he goes! It offers a sharp critique of the world’s empires and of how people of faith find ways to be comfortable within the empires. Revelation portrays God as merciful and peaceable—but engaged in a battle against the spiritual powers of evil, as fought with the weapons of love, not worldly violent weapons. To Follow the Lamb opens up Revelation’s blueprint for faithful living: Resistance to the empires and embrace of the compassionate and healing love of the Lamb.

A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation

To Follow the Lamb

Michael Hardin

Do "eschatology" and "peace" go together? Is eschatology mostly about retribution and fear--or compassion and hope? Compassionate Eschatology brings together a group of international scholars representing a wide range of Christian traditions to address these questions. Together they make the case that Christianity's teaching about the "end times" should and can center on Jesus's message of peace and reconciliation. Offering a peace-oriented reading of the Book of Revelation and other biblical materials relevant to Christian eschatology, this book breaks new ground in its consistent message that compassion not retribution stands at the heart of the doctrine of the last things. Besides its creative treatment of biblical materials, Compassionate Eschatology also makes a distinctive contribution in how several essays engage the thought of Rene Girard and his mimetic theory. Girard's project is shown to reinforce the biblical message of eschatological peace.

The Future as Friend

Compassionate Eschatology

A war is always a moral event. However, the most destructive war in human history has not received much moral scrutiny. The Good War That Wasn't--and Why It Matters examines the moral legacy of this war, especially for the United States. Drawing on the just war tradition and on moral values expressed in widely circulated statements of purpose for the war, the book asks: How did American participation in the war fit with just cause and just conduct criteria? Subsequently the book considers the impact of the war on American foreign policy in the years that followed. How did American actions cohere (or not) with the stated purposes for the war, especially self-determination for the peoples of the world and disarmament? Finally, the book looks at the witness of war opponents. Values expressed by war advocates were not actually furthered by the war. However, many war opponents did inspire efforts that effectively worked toward the goals of disarmament and self-determination. The Good War That Wasn't--and Why It Matters develops its arguments in pragmatic terms. It focuses on moral reasoning in a commonsense way in its challenge to widely held assumptions about World War II.

World War II's Moral Legacy

The Good War That Wasn't--and Why It Matters

Do atonement theologies that focus on Jesus' death underwrite human violence? If so, we do well to rethink beliefs that this death is necessary to bring salvation. Focusing on the Bible's salvation story, Instead of Atonement argues for a logic of mercy to replace Christianity's traditional logic of retribution. The book traces the Bible's main salvation story through God's liberating acts, the testimony of the prophets, and Jesus's life and teaching. It then takes a closer look at Jesus's death and argues that his death gains its meaning when it exposes violence in the cultural, religious, and political Powers. God's raising of Jesus completes the story and vindicates Jesus's life and teaching. The book also examines the understandings of salvation in Romans and Revelation that reinforce the message that salvation is a gift of God and that Jesus's "work" has to do with his faithful life, his resistance to the Powers, and God's vindication of him through resurrection. The book concludes that the "Bible's salvation story" provides a different way, instead of atonement, to understand salvation. In turn, this biblical understanding gives us today theological resources for a mercy-oriented approach to responding to wrongdoing, one that follows God's own model.

Ted Grimsrud

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