Thomas B. Slater
Abington, 126 pages
Any book that causes Christians to reconsider the importance of the Book of Revelation for contemporary discipleship is worth noting. Thomas B. Slater, an ordained elder in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and professor of New Testament language and literature at McAfee School of Theology, is convinced that faithful witness to Jesus Christ is the core practice described in John’s apocalypse. Witness, according to Slater, is central to the entire vision. Christians undergoing suffering and persecution resisted evil by daring to follow Jesus and bear public witness against all odds. This persistent witness, by its very nature, led to civil disobedience by those early Christians.
Slater argues the same is true today, even though contemporary Christians fail to acknowledge this point. He presses both the left and the right to reject the violence in the Book of Revelation. It is resistance literature for Christians who are pressured to abandon their beliefs and practices in order to conform to a social order that is rejects the way of Jesus. Writing this commentary, Slater joins Brian Blount and William Stringfellow, among others, in highlighting John’s apocalyptic vision as critical for the church. Rather than a “left behind” primer, Slater challenges readers to embrace a faithful witness to the reign of Christ against all other rulers that privilege comfort and conformity.
