Not to ruin the wonderfully positive vibes on this site, but is anyone else here concerned that American society, politics, and culture have become morally and psychologically addled?Do you mean before 1965? Or after?
(Yeah, I’m getting tired. I have Advent posts stacked up to Xmas Eve. I’m ready to move on. Time I started….)
I don't know what the various Protestant lectionaries do but this pre-Advent season concentrates a lot on Revelations in Catholicism. I'm trying to follow it divorced from the action-comic reading that you get if you don't read it allegorically. I've found reading what Luke Timothy Johnson says about it in The Writings of the New Testament An Interpretation is helpful. I should pay more attention to the Common Lectionary. It's helpful since there's no church in our town, anymore.I wish the RCL gave more space to Revelation, but the comic book readings of it that pervade Protestant culture would overwhelm most sermons. By the time you explain what it doesn’t say, your time’s up or you’ve lost everyone. Of course, I used it for funerals (Chapter 21), but nobody really listens to funeral sermons.
Revelation shows up for the Last Sunday of Pentecost for one year of the cycle, IIRC. And maybe once in another year, in the long grind of Pentecost.That always excited me because it was my only chance to exegete the text. But because it was my only chance, the excitement soon faded.
Maybe I should try to work it into a Xmas exegesis… 🤔
I don't know what the various Protestant lectionaries do but this pre-Advent season concentrates a lot on Revelations in Catholicism. I'm trying to follow it divorced from the action-comic reading that you get if you don't read it allegorically. I've found reading what Luke Timothy Johnson says about it in The Writings of the New Testament An Interpretation is helpful. I should pay more attention to the Common Lectionary. It's helpful since there's no church in our town, anymore.
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