David A. DeSilva - Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelations Warning

Many books on Revelation written for a general audience push readers to accept the authors new and innovative decoding of Revelations prophecies in the current world situation. Often this includes some prediction of what the author believes will come to pass in the readers near future based on his or her alignment of Revelation with current world politics.

I wrote this book for people who are not satisfied with this kind of speculative, fanciful, often manipulative approach to Revelation. I wrote this book for those who suspect that Revelation does have an important word to speak to the churches today, but also that Johns concern is not to provide a playbook for the end times. I also wrote this book for people like those who were captivated by Harold Campings predictions of the return of Jesus and the rapture of the faithful in May (and then October) of 2011, or by the myriad other prophecy experts who make of Revelation a Christian Ouija board for prognosticating the future. Surely it is time to take Johns word to Johns congregations in Asia Minor more seriously, and to study the bookin Harold Campings own words after admitting his failureeven more fervently... not to find dates, but to be more faithful in understanding.

My own starting point for reading and interpreting Revelation is to ask what Johns word would have meant to, and how it would have challenged, Christians in the seven churches located in the Roman province of Asia Minor in the late first century C.E. On this basis, I would invite readers to ponder how John would analyze and address our contemporary situation, what he would identify as the significant challenges to preserving faithful response and witness, and how he would change our outlook on the major features of our own landscape such that we become more inclined to overcome those challenges.

Primarily, I wrote this book for people like those who populate my own church and who participate together in small groups or Sunday morning Christian education programs. While I am a New Testament scholar by training and profession, my primary goal for my work is to help people in churches, whether ministry staff or laity, listen to Scripture more intently and intentionally, and wrestle with discerning its guidance for the formation of disciples and faith communities. I believe that much popular writing on Revelation has actually hindered people from such genuine listening and wrestling, and so I am particularly passionate about communicating the fruits of scholarly study of Revelation to the people who gather in churches around this book as part of the Word of the Lord.

If this book is well illustrated, it is in large measure due to the generosity and efforts of a number of individuals who went out of their way to help, for which I am profoundly grateful. Mr. Victor England of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. and his assistant Ms. Dale Tatro, Ms. Poppy Swann of Numismatica Ars Classica AG, and Dr. Stefan Krmnicek of the Institut fr Klassische Archologie, Tbingen, graciously gave me permission to use the images of coins depicting facets of Roman imperial ideology. Mr. Travis Markel kindly made certain that I had the highest resolution images available from Classical Numismatic Group, and Thomas Zachmann photographed the coins from the numismatic collection at the Institut fr Klassische Archologie. I also wish to acknowledge Mr. Fernando Real, a talented artist from Brazil, whose stunning depiction of the Whore of Babylon appears in these pages. Ms. Marisa Basso of Folhapress helpfully facilitated the process of obtaining permission to use this image. My own photographs were taken during a ten-day visit to the archaeological sites in Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum, supported by a study leave grant from Ashland Theological Seminary.

The material in this volume has its roots in a workshop I created for pastors and laypersons interested in exploring a reading of Revelation grounded in the world of John, its author, and the seven congregations to which John originally sent his collection of oracles and visions. It was further developed in a series of presentations I created for a group traveling under the auspices of Educational Opportunities Tours, Inc. I am grateful to the Rev. Dr. James Ridgway, the founder and past president of that organization, and to his son, Mr. James Ridgway, the current president, for inviting me to accompany the tour group and to present these lectures. Their commitment to provide not only travel services, but also meaningful engagement with the Scriptures and Christian formation as an integral part of their tours, provided the principal venue in which this book took shape. I am also grateful to them for pressing me to make the material as accessible as possible, which planted in my mind the idea of publishing this material for nonspecialists. As in all my writing endeavors, I am also grateful to the administration of Ashland Theological Seminary, whose support of my work is a token of their commitment to educating not only the students who enroll in our degree programs, but also all who are a part of the Christian church.