Revelation is a strange and puzzling book. Apart from the few who are endlessly fascinated by it, most of us are unsure what to do with it. And since it seems so different from the rest of the New Testament, perhaps the safest policy is to ignore it.
But what if that meant losing something really important? What if Revelation turned out to be a powerful and gripping presentation of the same momentous news we find throughout the New Testament? If so, bypassing it will mean that our devotion and discipleship will fail to be as deep and robust as they should be.
A gospel pageant? If that is what Revelation brings us, perhaps it is time to read it again!
Jesus made claims about redemptive community throughout his ministry when he called people to extravagant grace. Even in the midst of the oppression of his day, Jesus preached and taught that redemptive community was possible if his followers would simply stop hoarding, hiding, and excluding. What a prophetic word for today in the midst of modern day oppression and fears of scarcity! In this edited volume, in honor of religious education scholars Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, eight of their PhD advisees–each scholars in their own right–join Seymour and Crain to lay out their vision of redemptive community. Rooted in their own scholarship, each contributor proposes ways in which Jesus' vision of redemptive community can become reality in churches and congregations, and in our larger world. In addition to essays by Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, scholars contributing to this volume include Dori Grinenko Baker, Reginald Blount, Evelyn L. Parker, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Leah Gunning Francis, Carmichael Crutchfield, Debora B.A. Junker, and Denise Janssen. The foreword by Mary Elizabeth Moore and afterword by Seymour and Crain set the volume in the larger context of the church and academy.