Genesis-Revelation, Acts

The Creation from Genesis

The Book of Revelation (use handout)

Selections from the Book of Acts

What are potential relationships (esp. narratives) between Genesis, Acts, and Revelation?

3b. . . . Is utopia “progressive / liberal” or “reactionary / conservative?”

Restoration of Tree of Life and human closeness to God in heaven

Images of Last Judgment > "Rapture"

Previous texts' references to apocalypse, millennialism

More, Utopia

28 Utopus . . . separated them from the continent, deep channel dug

Looking Backward

33 though a century only had elapsed since I fell asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous, millennium . . . solved itself

"post-millennial" school of Christian eschatology: God's kingdom on earth established before second coming (liberal version of millennialism; cf. John Kennedy's inaugural address conclusion: "let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.")

"Mr. Barton's Sermon" (chapter 26)

 . . . I could fain exchange my share in this serene and golden day for a place in that stormy epoch of transition, when heroes burst the barred gate of the future and revealed to the kindling gaze of a hopeless race, in place of the blank wall that had closed its path, a vista of progress whose end, for very excess of light, still dazzles us! . . . The ten commandments became well-nigh obsolete in a world where there was no temptation . . . . . Humanity's ancient dream of liberty, equality, fraternity, mocked by so many ages, at last was realized. . . . The enfranchisement of humanity . . . may be regarded as a species of second birth of the race. . . . the return of man to God "who is our home." . . . Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it.

Herland

56 They made a brave fight for their existence, but no nation can stand up against what the steamship companies call "an act of God." While the whole fighting force was doing its best to defend their mountain pathway, there occurred a volcanic outburst . . . ; they were walled in

57 miracle, temple, Maaia, 5 daughters

58 new race

+ suggestion by Brouke that entry of men = another millennium

Ayn Rand, Anthem. 1938, 1946.

48 legends of the great fighting, fire called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned [contrast interest of utopias in difference]

 92-3 . . . like a world ready to be born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give . . . [cf. Genesis and Gospel of John]

Callenbach, Ecotopia

2 heal the fratricidal breach that rent the nation—so the continent can stand united against rising tides of starvation and revolution.

2 stand-off, helped by national economic crisis

Point:

Millennial and utopian narratives often generically related. Find one, find the other. Crises > opportunities for large-scale reform

Why do utopias often involve millennial narratives?

2c. How does the introduction of “millennialism” (end-time or apocalyptic narrative) transform the plot of the utopian narrative?

48 legends of the great fighting, fire called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned [contrast interest of utopias in difference]

Leftover notes from earlier versions of class

Discuss Genesis & Revelation

Try to connect to course objectives and to other course texts.

Attitude: These are big classic texts that we could never finish anyway, so our goal is broadly to acknowledge how they fit into utopian studies

Instructor will lead discussion but invite comments on objectives or connections.

move from fiction to scripture, myth

continuity of narrative

Discussion topics for Genesis & Revelation

What is the relationship of the Apocalypse in Revelation to the earlier utopia of Eden and the later utopia of Heaven?

What exactly is utopian about Eden? How much does it begin to appear utopian upon its loss?

What is dystopian about the world of Revelation? What is utopian about heaven? How much is revealed of either?

(Issues of coding in apocalyptic narratives: symbols, allegories, etc.)

"amoral familism"

Genesis-Revelation intro

background sources for instruction:

timing of end-times

apocalyptic prophets and preachers always say the world will end "soon" or "in our generation" but tend not to specify exactly when the world will end

Why not?

If you specify a time and date, people may simply stop working and wait for end, which disables economic support for apocalypticism.

Any attempts to set dates have so far ended in embarrassment. Outside world mocks, further disabling economic support. Some members leave apocalyptic groups following disappointments . . . .

But the surprising finding is that many followers of apocalyptic groups increase their commitment after disappointments. Jehovah's Witnesses as most striking example.

Anyway, most apocalyptic prophets and preachers work in a mid-zone of saying it's soon without saying exactly when. That way they maintain tension and excitement without the downsides of disappointment, ridicule, distancing from outside world.

Quick general insights re Revelation / Apocalypse

It's always the end-times in America. With some variations in intensity, members of every generation think of themselves as "the last generation."

Shakers, Latter-Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other historical denominations of Protestant Evangelicals and / or cults including, in some aspects, the Puritans.

(Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Branch Davidians all descended from the first mass evangelical apocalyptic movement, "the Millerites" of 1840s.)

The fact that every generation so far has been wrong does nothing to dampen excitement for end-times or fresh welcome to "the news" that Jesus will return soon.

E. g., "Rapture Enthusiasm" built up toward 2000. Given the significance of the number 2000, I thought or hoped that Apocalyptic thinking would cool off, but 9/11, Iraq War, and other Holy Land conflicts inflamed apocalyptic thinking again--not to mention increasing political and media power of Protestant Evangelicals.

But such thinking never just goes away--why not?

Theologically speaking, it may be true

Matthew 24

 ³⁴Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

   ³⁵Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

   ³⁶But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

As public school, bracket theological and examine empirical, 

Two areas of appeal: literary and cultural 

literary appeal

linear narrative of Genesis-Revelation

Judeo-Christian contribution to world history: most other civilizations have conceived time in cyclical terms, like nature or evolution.

But Genesis marks beginning of time, Revelation end of time

Conforms with familiar modern linear ideas of time like "time is a river" or "the arrow of time"

In literature, the most compelling stories at least on a popular level tend to be simple stories with clear progressions and delineations of good and evil

As another literary appeal, apocalypse is sudden, dramatic, spectacular, full of powerful and sublime imagery

Kind of like watching a special-effects movie: things blow up, but you're unaffected.

(Generally speaking, the only people deeply into end-times thinking are usually confident that they're not to be affected by widespread suffering.)

cultural appeal

Apocalyptic thinking tends to rise during periods of rapid, disorienting change

A few consistencies in modern western civilization:

Every generation has far more people than previous generation, creating need for mobility, relocation, growth, change.

Scientific, technological, and social change are self-accelerating, so that each level of change feeds faster change.

Examples:

Descriptions of human types and characters by decades

Computer generations: if you own it, it's obsolescent

USA as prime tradition-less field for change, self-transformation, makeovers

Rip Van Winkle syndrome: every American grows up into a world different from the world born into

Americans have conflicted attitudes toward change, progress, etc.

material prosperity and longevity

"I want to live forever." 

"If that drug can help me, I'm going to take it."

sense of moral decay

Tendency for Americans to say, "Things sure are getting bad out there."

"It's not like it used to be."

"You can't go anywhere, trust anybody, any more."

Such perceptions of decline are an essential part of apocalyptic thinking, whether theological or environmental.

In sum, American fixation on apocalypse may be a cultural expression of disorienting change, rootlessness, anomie

Utopian alternatives as possible outcomes of apocalyptic thinking

No extreme revisions of human society without extreme threats

(cf. Social Security)

follow-up to New Urbanism web review

selections from Ecotopia

26 Alviso: cluttered collection of buildings with trees everywhere . . . all jumbled amid apartment buildings [cf New Urbanism]

26 built almost entirely of wood, reforestation program

26 apartments very large by our standards, 10 or 15 rooms to accommodate communal living groups

27 streets cf. medieval cities

27 groceries home in string bags or bicycle baskets

27 supplies for shops, like most goods, moved in containers, electric trucks

27 entire population w/in half mile of transit station, many small park-like places, no large paved areas exposed to sun

Liz Davis

Dr. Craig White

6/18/2007

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” Preview

Biography: Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 and was killed on April 4, 1968. He was an educated man he received a B. A. from Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was a committee member of the NAACP. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement.

Are there Utopian ideas within Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech?

The Speech: Dr. King’s speech was delivered on August 28^th 1963 during the march on Washington for jobs and freedom. He preached of civil disobedience and he tried to encourage his followers not to give up the fight they had been fighting for so long.

Ø      Dr. Martin Luther King was the leader who led followers through the civil rights movement. His speech was an illustration of what the nation needed to create an equal and somewhat perfect society where no one was any better than another.

Ø      reference to Emancipation Proclamation

Ø      “One hundred years late, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”

Ø      “This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Ø      “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

Ø      “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”

Ø      “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Ø      “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Ø      “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

Ø      “One day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

“With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

   “And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! ³

instructor on millennialism in King's Dream Speech

LITR 5731 Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Minority

"The Dream" is comparable to "The Second Coming" (Christ's Millennium) in that the day of fulfillment is always on or over the horizon but never quite happens.

2d. How essential is “millennialism” (apocalyptic or end-time narrative) to the utopian narrative?

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed--we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. . . .

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today! . . .

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.