A decade ago I read one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. It was called An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land. It was by William Stringfellow, a US theologian, whose work is not widely known.
It was written at the height of the Vietnam War when American opinion was even more polarised than it is today. In it Stringfellow used the images of the Book of Revelation to offer a searching reflection on American society and values. Surprisingly, to those who assumed that America’s destiny put it on the side of the New Jerusalem, Stringfellow said that America, as one of the principalities and powers talked of by the apostle Paul was in fact on the opposite side, that of Babylon.
Stringfellow’s book offers an antecedent for Michael Northcott’s timely challenge to the apocalyptic religion of America, and the preoccupation in some quarters with the Book of Revelation as a kind of map of the end of the world. Although Northcott doesn’t mention Stringfellow, like him he points out that preoccupation with the end of the World is not the only way to read the last book of the Christian Bible: Biblical apocalyptic, rightly interpreted, provide powerful resources for Christians to resist and critique American imperialism.
Northcott also draws on some of the alternative Christian positions on offer in the US. Prime among them is that of the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, especially the critique of Christen-dom, his pacifism as well as the practical work of Mennonites in conflict resolution.
Northcott’s book illuminates the background of the religious culture of the now dominant segment of modern North American religion, which has been particularly influential on George Bush and Republican politics, and points out that this is not the only theological voice we should be heeding in this powerful and, for us all, important nation.
Christopher Rowland is Dean Ireland Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Queen’s College, Oxford
