1 00:00:00,692 --> 00:00:01,663 (climactic music) 2 00:00:01,663 --> 00:00:03,833 - [Narrator] The Bible, a book who's origins lie thousands 3 00:00:03,833 --> 00:00:05,743 of years ago in the Middle East. 4 00:00:05,743 --> 00:00:08,233 It still inspires billions today. 5 00:00:08,233 --> 00:00:11,115 - Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 6 00:00:11,115 --> 00:00:13,573 - [Narrator] Seven figures from different walks of life 7 00:00:13,573 --> 00:00:16,143 offer their personal perspective on the best-selling book 8 00:00:16,143 --> 00:00:18,306 of all time and what it means to them. 9 00:00:19,983 --> 00:00:22,153 - Even if you've never read of a word of the Bible, 10 00:00:22,153 --> 00:00:24,846 your life will have been shaped by it. 11 00:00:26,204 --> 00:00:28,423 - [Narrator] In this program, Robert Beckford 12 00:00:28,423 --> 00:00:31,192 goes in search of the Book of Revelation. 13 00:00:31,192 --> 00:00:33,942 (dramatic music) 14 00:00:38,970 --> 00:00:40,873 (dark music) 15 00:00:40,873 --> 00:00:44,073 I heard the voice of the fourth beast say come and see 16 00:00:44,073 --> 00:00:46,573 and I looked and behold a pale horse 17 00:00:46,573 --> 00:00:49,383 and his name that sat on him was death 18 00:00:49,383 --> 00:00:51,597 and hell followed with him and power was given unto them 19 00:00:51,597 --> 00:00:55,308 over the fourth part of the Earth to kill with sword 20 00:00:55,308 --> 00:00:58,963 and with hunger and with death and with the beasts 21 00:00:58,963 --> 00:01:00,593 of the Earth. 22 00:01:00,593 --> 00:01:02,786 - The Book of Revelation, the last in the Bible 23 00:01:02,786 --> 00:01:07,786 and the most controversial work in the entire epic saga. 24 00:01:08,036 --> 00:01:13,036 22 chapters describe horrific scenes of bloodshed, plague 25 00:01:14,013 --> 00:01:19,013 and cataclysmic disaster as the beast with the number 666 26 00:01:19,013 --> 00:01:22,342 and four avenging horsemen are let loose. 27 00:01:22,342 --> 00:01:26,203 It's a horrifying vision of the end of the world 28 00:01:26,203 --> 00:01:29,172 in which all but a handful of the Christian faithful 29 00:01:29,172 --> 00:01:30,466 are wiped out. 30 00:01:31,553 --> 00:01:34,033 - To Carl Jung, one of the great psychoanalyst 31 00:01:34,033 --> 00:01:37,970 of the 20th century, these pages held a veritable orgy 32 00:01:37,970 --> 00:01:42,970 of hatred, wrath, vindictiveness and blind destructive fury. 33 00:01:43,513 --> 00:01:47,638 To DH Lawrence, the world imagined was hideous. 34 00:01:47,638 --> 00:01:50,543 For centuries, many Christians have chosen 35 00:01:50,543 --> 00:01:52,613 to ignore the Book of Revelation. 36 00:01:52,613 --> 00:01:56,252 It's supernatural visions too problematic to unravel. 37 00:01:56,252 --> 00:01:59,793 Others have embraced it's violent images, 38 00:01:59,793 --> 00:02:02,766 believing the book can scare the faithful into piety. 39 00:02:03,853 --> 00:02:06,413 This is the tradition I was brought up with. 40 00:02:06,413 --> 00:02:09,850 I was taught that the Book of Revelation was literal truth 41 00:02:09,850 --> 00:02:12,543 but I believe there's more to it than the death 42 00:02:12,543 --> 00:02:14,632 and destruction that most people know. 43 00:02:14,632 --> 00:02:19,183 I want to discover if this strange and confusing book 44 00:02:19,183 --> 00:02:23,733 deserves it's bad reputation or whether centuries of misuse 45 00:02:23,733 --> 00:02:27,278 and abuse have obscured it's true meaning. 46 00:02:27,278 --> 00:02:30,028 (dramatic music) 47 00:02:33,603 --> 00:02:37,703 And the first went and poured out his vile upon the Earth 48 00:02:37,703 --> 00:02:40,203 and there fell a noisome and grievous sore 49 00:02:40,203 --> 00:02:42,617 upon the men which had the mark of the beast 50 00:02:42,617 --> 00:02:45,843 and upon them that worshiped his image. 51 00:02:45,843 --> 00:02:49,073 And the second angel poured out his vile upon the sea 52 00:02:49,073 --> 00:02:52,513 and it became as the blood of a dead man 53 00:02:52,513 --> 00:02:55,666 and every living soul died in the sea. 54 00:02:56,973 --> 00:02:59,713 The Book of Revelation is the terrifying resolution 55 00:02:59,713 --> 00:03:01,473 to the Christian Bible. 56 00:03:01,473 --> 00:03:04,413 The shocking images in this prophetic narrative 57 00:03:04,413 --> 00:03:07,293 are it is said a record of the words of God 58 00:03:07,293 --> 00:03:11,213 spoken to the Jesus Christ in a vision to a man called John. 59 00:03:11,213 --> 00:03:13,283 But more about him later. 60 00:03:13,283 --> 00:03:16,039 In Revelation, a door is open to heaven 61 00:03:16,039 --> 00:03:18,883 and John witnesses the events that will lead 62 00:03:18,883 --> 00:03:22,194 to a climactic battle between God and Satan. 63 00:03:22,194 --> 00:03:26,357 At the center of the story is a book sealed seven times. 64 00:03:26,357 --> 00:03:30,053 The opening of each seal unleashes another vision 65 00:03:30,053 --> 00:03:33,633 of the horrifying experiences mankind will face 66 00:03:33,633 --> 00:03:35,786 before the last judgment and salvation. 67 00:03:37,023 --> 00:03:40,373 He sees the four horsemen bring destructive fury 68 00:03:40,373 --> 00:03:44,133 and the wrath of God before which every living soul cowers. 69 00:03:44,133 --> 00:03:46,993 While Satan, who gets a starring role in the book 70 00:03:46,993 --> 00:03:49,063 appears in the guise of the beast 71 00:03:49,063 --> 00:03:52,034 who is marked with the number 666. 72 00:03:52,034 --> 00:03:56,534 But within all this, John sees a glorious future 73 00:03:56,534 --> 00:04:01,153 in which Satan is defeated and cast into a lake of fire. 74 00:04:01,153 --> 00:04:04,393 In the final verses, all humanity is called forth 75 00:04:04,393 --> 00:04:06,433 to be judged by the creator. 76 00:04:06,433 --> 00:04:08,843 Those found worthy are granted salvation 77 00:04:08,843 --> 00:04:12,058 in God's new Jerusalem here on Earth. 78 00:04:12,058 --> 00:04:13,354 - Praise the Lord. - Praise the Lord! 79 00:04:13,354 --> 00:04:14,583 - I said praise the Lord! - Praise the Lord. 80 00:04:14,583 --> 00:04:16,863 - [Narrator] Blessed are they that do his commandments, 81 00:04:16,863 --> 00:04:18,868 that they may have right to the tree of life 82 00:04:18,868 --> 00:04:22,453 and may enter in through the gates into the city, 83 00:04:22,453 --> 00:04:25,723 for without are dogs and sorcerers and whore mongers 84 00:04:25,723 --> 00:04:28,893 and murderers and adulators and whosever loveth 85 00:04:28,893 --> 00:04:30,278 and maketh a lie. 86 00:04:30,278 --> 00:04:33,620 - I was raised in the Midlands in the 1970's, 87 00:04:33,620 --> 00:04:38,620 my parents were Pentecostals and I loved going to church. 88 00:04:38,903 --> 00:04:40,723 We were taught to believe fervently 89 00:04:40,723 --> 00:04:43,045 that our lives were driven by the word of God. 90 00:04:43,045 --> 00:04:47,833 And for three hours twice a day, Sunday after Sunday, 91 00:04:47,833 --> 00:04:50,727 I worshiped with my parents and my eight sisters. 92 00:04:50,727 --> 00:04:54,723 At home and at church, we were taught to believe 93 00:04:54,723 --> 00:04:56,773 that the words of the Book of Revelation 94 00:04:56,773 --> 00:05:00,483 were quite literally true, a step by step guide 95 00:05:00,483 --> 00:05:02,396 to the end of the world. 96 00:05:02,396 --> 00:05:06,473 - [Pastor] In the mighty power name of Jesus. 97 00:05:06,473 --> 00:05:09,373 - [Robert] As Bible believers, we understood that the spirit 98 00:05:09,373 --> 00:05:11,518 of God was present in our daily lives 99 00:05:11,518 --> 00:05:14,010 and that he saw everything. 100 00:05:14,010 --> 00:05:17,639 When I was a boy, this scared me into obedience. 101 00:05:17,639 --> 00:05:21,333 If I was good, then I'd be spared at the last judgment 102 00:05:21,333 --> 00:05:24,053 but if I sided with Satan, I'd be condemned 103 00:05:24,053 --> 00:05:26,443 to face eternal torment. 104 00:05:26,443 --> 00:05:28,442 - Father as we have obeyed your word, 105 00:05:28,442 --> 00:05:31,277 we pray that you open the windows of heaven 106 00:05:31,277 --> 00:05:33,793 and you will flood us with blessings. 107 00:05:33,793 --> 00:05:36,102 - Why should we be interested in the Book of Revelation? 108 00:05:36,102 --> 00:05:38,573 - Well, first of all, it's probably the sort 109 00:05:38,573 --> 00:05:41,703 of the best airport novel that there is in the Bible 110 00:05:41,703 --> 00:05:42,583 that you can get ahold of. 111 00:05:42,583 --> 00:05:44,813 I mean, it really is, it's popular literature, 112 00:05:44,813 --> 00:05:48,633 it's sort of "New Moon" meets "Da Vinci Code" 113 00:05:48,633 --> 00:05:49,466 all mixed together. 114 00:05:49,466 --> 00:05:51,505 So, it's a fabulous read at one level. 115 00:05:51,505 --> 00:05:53,523 At another level, it is probably one 116 00:05:53,523 --> 00:05:55,606 of the most dangerous books in the world, 117 00:05:56,526 --> 00:05:58,371 so to ignore would be in fact to turn your back 118 00:05:58,371 --> 00:06:01,853 on something that has shaped who and what we are. 119 00:06:01,853 --> 00:06:03,358 - Explain this danger to me. 120 00:06:03,358 --> 00:06:05,813 - I think it's dangerous because I think it fundamentally 121 00:06:05,813 --> 00:06:08,425 subverts the Jesus of the gospels. 122 00:06:08,425 --> 00:06:10,793 And I think that's a problem 123 00:06:10,793 --> 00:06:12,643 because then it legitimates violence 124 00:06:12,643 --> 00:06:15,723 where as the gospels show a Jesus 125 00:06:15,723 --> 00:06:17,073 who turns his back on violence. 126 00:06:17,073 --> 00:06:19,285 I mean, we have to remember, Robert 127 00:06:19,285 --> 00:06:20,118 that the early Church was very ambiguous 128 00:06:20,118 --> 00:06:22,004 about whether this book should be in the Bible at all. 129 00:06:22,004 --> 00:06:25,493 Most of the Church didn't want the Book of Revelation 130 00:06:25,493 --> 00:06:27,313 included in the cannon of the Bible, 131 00:06:27,313 --> 00:06:29,824 which was basically fixed around 382 A.D. 132 00:06:29,824 --> 00:06:33,373 It only made it in because it was believed 133 00:06:33,373 --> 00:06:36,023 to have been written by the beloved disciple of Jesus, 134 00:06:36,023 --> 00:06:39,923 John and I think that we would have been better off 135 00:06:39,923 --> 00:06:41,485 without it. 136 00:06:41,485 --> 00:06:44,313 However, we had it, it has given us a sense 137 00:06:44,313 --> 00:06:46,509 that there are epoch moments 138 00:06:46,509 --> 00:06:49,101 when if you can read the signs, 139 00:06:49,101 --> 00:06:52,388 you can change the course of the entire history 140 00:06:52,388 --> 00:06:53,793 of the world. 141 00:06:53,793 --> 00:06:55,610 - I'm on a journey to redeem Revelation. 142 00:06:55,610 --> 00:06:57,351 Do you think it's possible? 143 00:06:57,351 --> 00:07:01,382 - No, I think you're on a fool's errand, I really do. 144 00:07:01,382 --> 00:07:04,890 - The living book and the Bible is relevant 145 00:07:04,890 --> 00:07:08,853 to every generation, even though it was written 146 00:07:08,853 --> 00:07:10,703 all these years ago, you can't say 147 00:07:10,703 --> 00:07:12,510 that oh, it was only for that generation, 148 00:07:12,510 --> 00:07:16,846 because it is the same god that is behind this work. 149 00:07:16,846 --> 00:07:20,263 ♪ Because of who you are ♪ 150 00:07:21,428 --> 00:07:23,071 - [Robert] Whether we're familiar with the Bible or not, 151 00:07:23,071 --> 00:07:25,664 the world imagined in Revelation 152 00:07:25,664 --> 00:07:29,873 infatuates our existence, almost daily we're faced 153 00:07:29,873 --> 00:07:32,193 with events of unimaginable horror 154 00:07:32,193 --> 00:07:34,243 and turn to the apocalyptic language 155 00:07:34,243 --> 00:07:36,059 in search of understanding. 156 00:07:36,059 --> 00:07:39,420 Popular culture delights in it's grotesque visions 157 00:07:39,420 --> 00:07:42,433 and our nightmares are inhabited by such figures 158 00:07:42,433 --> 00:07:46,146 as the beast with seven heads and the whore of Babylon. 159 00:07:47,243 --> 00:07:50,123 But if I'm to reclaim this work and celebrate 160 00:07:50,123 --> 00:07:51,863 it's place within the Bible, 161 00:07:51,863 --> 00:07:54,986 I have to uncover the world from which it sprang. 162 00:07:58,303 --> 00:08:00,193 The small Greek island of Patmos 163 00:08:00,193 --> 00:08:03,258 in what was once Asia Minor is dominated by the monastery 164 00:08:03,258 --> 00:08:07,052 of St. John the Divine and the holy cave of the apocalypse. 165 00:08:07,052 --> 00:08:08,609 And it was here that the final 166 00:08:08,609 --> 00:08:10,763 and arguably the most controversial book 167 00:08:10,763 --> 00:08:13,617 in the New Testament is believed to have been written. 168 00:08:13,617 --> 00:08:17,370 The writer names himself as John in the opening verses 169 00:08:17,370 --> 00:08:20,447 and traditional thought holds that he was Christ's disciple, 170 00:08:20,447 --> 00:08:23,309 author of the Gospel of John. 171 00:08:23,309 --> 00:08:26,102 At the time of writing in the first century, 172 00:08:26,102 --> 00:08:29,387 a new faith, founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ 173 00:08:29,387 --> 00:08:32,811 was spreading through the region but it's devotees 174 00:08:32,811 --> 00:08:37,443 risked punishment at the hands of the ruling Roman Empire. 175 00:08:37,443 --> 00:08:39,703 - When John's writing, you're at a time 176 00:08:39,703 --> 00:08:42,623 when the Roman Empire is at the height of it's strength. 177 00:08:42,623 --> 00:08:44,703 People are even beginning to worship the emperor. 178 00:08:44,703 --> 00:08:47,993 So, you've got Christians who are probably being persecuted, 179 00:08:47,993 --> 00:08:50,403 you've got people who are feeling under pressure 180 00:08:50,403 --> 00:08:52,473 from political authorities. 181 00:08:52,473 --> 00:08:54,383 So, what they're doing is, they're talking about 182 00:08:54,383 --> 00:08:56,133 how even though they've suffered, 183 00:08:56,133 --> 00:08:57,453 even though they've shared blood, 184 00:08:57,453 --> 00:08:59,203 ultimately they will be victorious. 185 00:08:59,203 --> 00:09:00,963 So, much of what Revelation is about 186 00:09:00,963 --> 00:09:04,666 is about these Christians who have born testimony to Jesus. 187 00:09:08,673 --> 00:09:10,631 - For most people today, the word apocalypse 188 00:09:10,631 --> 00:09:12,451 means the end of time. 189 00:09:12,451 --> 00:09:14,923 But the literal meaning from the Greek 190 00:09:14,923 --> 00:09:17,173 is the lifting of a veil 191 00:09:17,173 --> 00:09:18,495 and that's what happened here. 192 00:09:18,495 --> 00:09:21,663 This is the cave where according to tradition, 193 00:09:21,663 --> 00:09:25,973 John had his revelation and received the word of God. 194 00:09:25,973 --> 00:09:27,551 - [Narrator] Blessed is he that readeth 195 00:09:27,551 --> 00:09:29,759 and they that hear the words of this prophecy 196 00:09:29,759 --> 00:09:32,623 and keep those things which are written therein 197 00:09:32,623 --> 00:09:34,887 for the time is at hand on the Lord's day 198 00:09:34,887 --> 00:09:38,089 and heard behind me a great voice as if a trumpet saying, 199 00:09:38,089 --> 00:09:41,922 "I am alpha and omega, the first and the last 200 00:09:41,922 --> 00:09:44,693 and what thou seest, write in a book 201 00:09:44,693 --> 00:09:47,354 and send it onto the seven churches which are in Asia. 202 00:09:47,354 --> 00:09:49,913 (speaks in foreign language) 203 00:09:49,913 --> 00:09:52,312 - We don't know the exact spot where Christ stood 204 00:09:52,312 --> 00:09:55,902 but we do know that when the voice of God was heard, 205 00:09:55,902 --> 00:09:57,883 the rock split in three places. 206 00:09:57,883 --> 00:10:01,468 This symbolizes the holy trinity, the Father, Son 207 00:10:01,468 --> 00:10:02,994 and the Holy Spirit. 208 00:10:02,994 --> 00:10:05,712 It was here in this holy cave 209 00:10:05,712 --> 00:10:08,046 that the voice of God was heard. 210 00:10:11,463 --> 00:10:15,433 - This is a sacred space, the point where John receives 211 00:10:15,433 --> 00:10:19,043 his vision from God, the three fishers in the rock 212 00:10:19,043 --> 00:10:21,380 representing the trinity and out of this 213 00:10:21,380 --> 00:10:26,380 bursting the light and these amazing visions of the world. 214 00:10:26,646 --> 00:10:31,063 (singing in foreign language) 215 00:10:31,063 --> 00:10:34,108 It's moving, thinking about a man suffering persecution 216 00:10:34,108 --> 00:10:37,101 but being inspired to write down his dreams. 217 00:10:37,101 --> 00:10:40,113 Yet this book is not the scribblings of a man 218 00:10:40,113 --> 00:10:42,103 overwhelmed by religious experience, 219 00:10:42,103 --> 00:10:46,511 it is an exquisite literary and ornate text. 220 00:10:46,511 --> 00:10:49,731 But is John really writing down the word of God 221 00:10:49,731 --> 00:10:52,766 or is he trying to communicate something else? 222 00:10:57,593 --> 00:11:00,423 - What happens is people like John write 223 00:11:00,423 --> 00:11:04,083 as a persecuted minority, as a group that feel threatened 224 00:11:04,083 --> 00:11:06,694 by this great huge Roman Empire, 225 00:11:06,694 --> 00:11:08,523 so what it does is it uses symbols and signs 226 00:11:08,523 --> 00:11:12,273 and picture language to try and repaint the picture 227 00:11:12,273 --> 00:11:14,263 of the world that they're living in. 228 00:11:14,263 --> 00:11:18,213 There's something rather reassuring to those 229 00:11:18,213 --> 00:11:19,046 that are reading them. 230 00:11:19,046 --> 00:11:22,413 If you read a book and you understand the symbol, 231 00:11:22,413 --> 00:11:25,153 you understand the sign, you go ah-ha, I've got it 232 00:11:25,153 --> 00:11:26,823 and that's partly what John's trying to do there, 233 00:11:26,823 --> 00:11:28,213 you're supposed to recognize these things. 234 00:11:28,213 --> 00:11:31,183 You go through and you say, oh yes, I see that in our lives. 235 00:11:31,183 --> 00:11:33,833 - Help me work through some of the common assumptions. 236 00:11:33,833 --> 00:11:38,024 - Usually in Revelation, when you're getting talk about 666, 237 00:11:38,024 --> 00:11:41,133 about the number of the beast, about the whore of Babylon, 238 00:11:41,133 --> 00:11:42,693 it's Rome that's in view. 239 00:11:42,693 --> 00:11:44,473 So, he calls Rome Babylon, 240 00:11:44,473 --> 00:11:46,883 'cause Babylon was a great empire of the past. 241 00:11:46,883 --> 00:11:50,413 He uses the number 666, which probably is a symbol 242 00:11:50,413 --> 00:11:53,162 of the Emperor Nero, the notorious Roman emperor 243 00:11:53,162 --> 00:11:55,671 in the 60's of the first century 244 00:11:55,671 --> 00:11:57,410 and the whore of Babylon again, it's a representative 245 00:11:57,410 --> 00:12:00,563 of that great Roman Empire that people saw 246 00:12:00,563 --> 00:12:02,883 as being so oppressive and being something 247 00:12:02,883 --> 00:12:04,803 that they had to kind of fight against. 248 00:12:04,803 --> 00:12:07,943 - What's the danger of reading it literally? 249 00:12:07,943 --> 00:12:10,770 - It isn't a book that is giving you a literal, 250 00:12:10,770 --> 00:12:14,313 detailed picture of exactly how things will be. 251 00:12:14,313 --> 00:12:17,630 So, when in Revelation it talks about when the new heaven 252 00:12:17,630 --> 00:12:18,993 and the new Earth arise. 253 00:12:18,993 --> 00:12:21,392 You'll be nuts if you try to kinda work out the exact date 254 00:12:21,392 --> 00:12:23,323 when this thing's going to happen, 255 00:12:23,323 --> 00:12:24,683 what happens is you warp it 256 00:12:24,683 --> 00:12:26,003 and you try and make it work 257 00:12:26,003 --> 00:12:28,093 for whatever your own particular agenda is. 258 00:12:28,093 --> 00:12:30,323 And that's always a problem. 259 00:12:30,323 --> 00:12:31,991 - [Robert] It's this clash of interpretations 260 00:12:31,991 --> 00:12:34,943 that has encouraged centuries of arguments 261 00:12:34,943 --> 00:12:36,236 about the book's meaning. 262 00:12:37,163 --> 00:12:41,503 Prophecy versus allegory, believing that every word is true 263 00:12:41,503 --> 00:12:43,163 and that faith alone will save us, 264 00:12:43,163 --> 00:12:44,736 as I was taught as a child 265 00:12:44,736 --> 00:12:48,280 or using the stories in Revelation to provoke change 266 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,793 for the betterment of society. 267 00:12:50,793 --> 00:12:53,236 This is the reading that excites me today. 268 00:12:55,543 --> 00:12:58,613 But what happens when the prophetic reading 269 00:12:58,613 --> 00:13:00,236 is taken to the extreme. 270 00:13:01,713 --> 00:13:05,124 In February 1993, American federal authorities 271 00:13:05,124 --> 00:13:08,213 were involved in an attack on a small Christian sect 272 00:13:08,213 --> 00:13:11,532 called the Branch Davidians holed up in Waco Texas. 273 00:13:11,532 --> 00:13:14,281 The group was led by the messianic David Koresh 274 00:13:14,281 --> 00:13:18,043 who tried to spread his message throughout the world. 275 00:13:18,043 --> 00:13:20,583 - His tongue is the pen of the (indistinct). 276 00:13:20,583 --> 00:13:22,843 So, how's God gonna talk to men in the latter days? 277 00:13:22,843 --> 00:13:23,733 (indistinct) 278 00:13:23,733 --> 00:13:25,128 And who's gonna bring that book? 279 00:13:25,128 --> 00:13:25,961 - [Audience] God. 280 00:13:25,961 --> 00:13:27,464 - So there'll be no excuses! 281 00:13:27,464 --> 00:13:29,903 - [Robert] Koresh believed the events unleashed 282 00:13:29,903 --> 00:13:32,206 by the opening of the seven seals in Revelation 283 00:13:32,206 --> 00:13:34,699 were taking place in the world around him. 284 00:13:34,699 --> 00:13:37,388 Even the attack could be seen as a sign 285 00:13:37,388 --> 00:13:39,497 that the end was coming. 286 00:13:39,497 --> 00:13:44,497 I remember watching the events unfold in 1993 on television 287 00:13:44,648 --> 00:13:47,890 and wondering to myself, how could the Book of Revelation 288 00:13:47,890 --> 00:13:51,463 lead to such catastrophic consequences? 289 00:13:51,463 --> 00:13:54,776 I'm about to meet a man I'm hoping will provide answers. 290 00:13:56,143 --> 00:13:58,283 Livingston Vegan was a British member 291 00:13:58,283 --> 00:14:00,335 of the Branch Davidians who was at Waco 292 00:14:00,335 --> 00:14:04,263 as the events unfolded and the follower of David Koresh. 293 00:14:04,263 --> 00:14:05,808 So, what was David Koresh's understanding 294 00:14:05,808 --> 00:14:07,065 of the Book of Revelation. 295 00:14:07,065 --> 00:14:10,933 - The thing was David had an experience in 1985 296 00:14:10,933 --> 00:14:15,933 on a visit to Jerusalem where I'll put it just directly 297 00:14:17,733 --> 00:14:20,556 here Robert, he was visited by an angel. 298 00:14:20,556 --> 00:14:23,047 He had an illumination. 299 00:14:23,047 --> 00:14:27,976 And that experience was what was the basis 300 00:14:27,976 --> 00:14:31,993 for everything that followed. 301 00:14:31,993 --> 00:14:33,653 - [Robert] Clarify that for me. 302 00:14:33,653 --> 00:14:36,883 He was visited by an angel and the angel 303 00:14:36,883 --> 00:14:40,903 showed him that revelation was coming to pass, we were. 304 00:14:40,903 --> 00:14:43,233 - That's right, the events, the prophecies spoken of 305 00:14:43,233 --> 00:14:44,312 in the Book of Revelation. 306 00:14:44,312 --> 00:14:48,393 - [Robert] How should I understand Revelation and see 307 00:14:48,393 --> 00:14:49,783 this moment in history? 308 00:14:49,783 --> 00:14:53,942 - At this stage, we're going through what is the judgment. 309 00:14:53,942 --> 00:14:57,143 This has to do with the book seal, the seven seals 310 00:14:57,143 --> 00:14:59,572 and the information that was contained in there. 311 00:14:59,572 --> 00:15:04,572 - A 51 day siege followed the authorities' assault 312 00:15:04,573 --> 00:15:07,963 at Waco ending in a blazing inferno. 313 00:15:07,963 --> 00:15:11,163 Livingston Vegan's wife and mother were amongst those 314 00:15:11,163 --> 00:15:12,423 who died. 315 00:15:12,423 --> 00:15:15,883 How did you feel when you saw loved ones, 316 00:15:15,883 --> 00:15:19,046 people you knew then being slaughtered? 317 00:15:23,570 --> 00:15:26,906 - Robert, this really wasn't about feelings. 318 00:15:31,203 --> 00:15:32,636 - [Robert] It was about prophecy. 319 00:15:33,503 --> 00:15:35,586 - Yes, essentially and faith. 320 00:15:36,743 --> 00:15:38,733 Come on, when you saw Christ on the cross, 321 00:15:38,733 --> 00:15:41,225 father forgive them for they know not what they do 322 00:15:41,225 --> 00:15:44,806 or it wasn't about his feelings. 323 00:15:45,721 --> 00:15:50,721 Now sure it hurt that our loved ones were killed 324 00:15:54,143 --> 00:15:59,143 but the point about this is that that should not overwhelm 325 00:15:59,163 --> 00:16:01,823 or override our faith in God. 326 00:16:01,823 --> 00:16:05,523 We had hoped that our attackers would at least hear us, 327 00:16:05,523 --> 00:16:08,153 because really the message was about salvation. 328 00:16:08,153 --> 00:16:09,743 - When I read the Book of Revelation, 329 00:16:09,743 --> 00:16:13,793 I see it as a book to inspire me to inspire every age 330 00:16:13,793 --> 00:16:17,833 to resist tyranny and empire. 331 00:16:17,833 --> 00:16:22,173 - It could, it could, but then that would be interpretation, 332 00:16:22,173 --> 00:16:23,323 not fulfillment. 333 00:16:23,323 --> 00:16:28,323 When you saw Waco and the people that were there, 334 00:16:28,953 --> 00:16:32,113 would you conclude that they were inspired by the word? 335 00:16:32,113 --> 00:16:33,268 - [Robert] I don't know because- 336 00:16:33,268 --> 00:16:34,101 - [Livingston] Hold on, hold on, hold on, 337 00:16:34,101 --> 00:16:37,304 do you think that in their thinking, they were inspired? 338 00:16:37,304 --> 00:16:39,103 - Yes. - Okay 339 00:16:39,103 --> 00:16:42,350 and in their thinking, they were resisting tyranny? 340 00:16:42,350 --> 00:16:44,703 - No. 341 00:16:44,703 --> 00:16:46,496 - So, when the government came against us the way 342 00:16:46,496 --> 00:16:49,378 that they did, we weren't resisting tyranny. 343 00:16:49,378 --> 00:16:52,093 - Well, you have to, well only you can tell me. 344 00:16:52,093 --> 00:16:53,413 - No, no, no, hold on, hold on, the government 345 00:16:53,413 --> 00:16:56,893 came against us with tanks, helicopters to kill us. 346 00:16:56,893 --> 00:16:57,726 - Why? 347 00:16:57,726 --> 00:17:00,543 - No, it's not why, but the question I'm asking here is 348 00:17:00,543 --> 00:17:02,496 don't you think we were resisting tyranny? 349 00:17:02,496 --> 00:17:05,223 Don't you think that we were following our conscience 350 00:17:05,223 --> 00:17:06,208 and our faith? 351 00:17:06,208 --> 00:17:07,763 - Yes. 352 00:17:07,763 --> 00:17:10,583 Do you think people have completely misunderstood what- 353 00:17:10,583 --> 00:17:15,571 - Absolutely but then God doesn't judge them for that. 354 00:17:15,571 --> 00:17:17,953 - I understand why the Branch Davidians 355 00:17:17,953 --> 00:17:19,961 would have felt persecuted by the authorities 356 00:17:19,961 --> 00:17:22,053 and I do respect Livington Vegan for holding fast 357 00:17:22,053 --> 00:17:26,311 to what he believes, despite all he's been through. 358 00:17:26,311 --> 00:17:30,928 But it shows me how dangerous Revelation can be 359 00:17:30,928 --> 00:17:32,986 when it's read literally. 360 00:17:34,344 --> 00:17:35,353 (dramatic music) 361 00:17:35,353 --> 00:17:36,993 It's hard to imagine the tragic events in Waco 362 00:17:36,993 --> 00:17:38,713 taking place in Britain. 363 00:17:38,713 --> 00:17:41,033 We celebrate our faith more privately. 364 00:17:41,033 --> 00:17:43,663 But it seems to me from the very beginning, 365 00:17:43,663 --> 00:17:47,583 America has broadcast a powerful commitment to God, 366 00:17:47,583 --> 00:17:49,463 as every dollar bill reminds us. 367 00:17:49,463 --> 00:17:52,803 In America, it's in God they trust. 368 00:17:52,803 --> 00:17:55,380 - [Narrator] And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 369 00:17:55,380 --> 00:17:57,603 "Now has come salvation and strength 370 00:17:57,603 --> 00:18:01,073 for the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ 371 00:18:01,073 --> 00:18:03,953 for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, 372 00:18:03,953 --> 00:18:07,093 which accused him before our God day and night 373 00:18:07,093 --> 00:18:09,473 and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb 374 00:18:09,473 --> 00:18:11,236 and by the word of their testimony. 375 00:18:12,573 --> 00:18:15,723 - [Robert] In 1620, a small group of Christian separatists 376 00:18:15,723 --> 00:18:17,833 known as the pilgrim fathers left Britain 377 00:18:17,833 --> 00:18:20,393 in search of a world in which they could practice 378 00:18:20,393 --> 00:18:22,857 their zealous form of Protestantism. 379 00:18:22,857 --> 00:18:25,993 At the heart of their faith was an absolute belief 380 00:18:25,993 --> 00:18:28,623 in the word of the Bible and a commitment 381 00:18:28,623 --> 00:18:32,526 to build a pure, new world worthy of God's presence. 382 00:18:33,489 --> 00:18:38,413 - The American puritans had a sense that God had somehow 383 00:18:38,413 --> 00:18:41,453 chosen them for a special purpose, 384 00:18:41,453 --> 00:18:45,083 to create here on Earth a divine model 385 00:18:45,083 --> 00:18:47,213 of what human society could be 386 00:18:47,213 --> 00:18:51,413 if people truly followed the word of God. 387 00:18:51,413 --> 00:18:53,223 - What did they find, text in the Bible 388 00:18:53,223 --> 00:18:55,603 to give them this sense that they were here, 389 00:18:55,603 --> 00:18:58,723 God had called them and something new was to take place? 390 00:18:58,723 --> 00:19:00,743 - Well, they found texts throughout the Bible. 391 00:19:00,743 --> 00:19:03,391 The Book of Revelation provided a model 392 00:19:03,391 --> 00:19:07,096 for what the Puritans in an ideal sense 393 00:19:07,096 --> 00:19:09,423 believe that they could achieve. 394 00:19:09,423 --> 00:19:12,512 The beautiful passage, there will be no more tears, 395 00:19:12,512 --> 00:19:14,813 God shall wipe away their tears, 396 00:19:14,813 --> 00:19:17,423 it's a very inspiring passage. 397 00:19:17,423 --> 00:19:21,346 So, the Book of Revelation provided both an inspiration 398 00:19:21,346 --> 00:19:25,439 of a glorious future but also the most frightening 399 00:19:25,439 --> 00:19:29,883 kind of warnings of what would happen to those 400 00:19:29,883 --> 00:19:34,786 who did not follow Christ and fell into wickedness. 401 00:19:36,173 --> 00:19:38,953 - [Robert] Just 70 years after the Puritans arrived, 402 00:19:38,953 --> 00:19:41,933 the wickedness they feared did appear in their midst. 403 00:19:41,933 --> 00:19:46,933 In 1692, 20 people were executed in Salem Massachusetts 404 00:19:47,327 --> 00:19:50,613 for alleged witchcraft offenses. 405 00:19:50,613 --> 00:19:54,976 The new world had become corrupted by the presence of Satan. 406 00:19:57,153 --> 00:20:01,213 - Satan was believed to use human agents 407 00:20:01,213 --> 00:20:05,763 to achieve his purposes, then if you add on to that a belief 408 00:20:05,763 --> 00:20:08,263 in witchcraft, that human beings 409 00:20:08,263 --> 00:20:11,972 can sell out to the other side, go to the dark side, 410 00:20:11,972 --> 00:20:16,972 this creates a climate of potentially of intense suspicion 411 00:20:17,843 --> 00:20:22,023 and fear, not only at some abstract supernatural power 412 00:20:22,023 --> 00:20:23,976 but at one's own neighbors. 413 00:20:24,843 --> 00:20:27,113 - [Robert] The witchcraft hysteria began at the home 414 00:20:27,113 --> 00:20:30,173 of the Reverend Samuel Paris, when his daughter and niece 415 00:20:30,173 --> 00:20:32,673 began exhibiting strange behavior. 416 00:20:32,673 --> 00:20:35,353 Unable to cure them, a local doctor declared 417 00:20:35,353 --> 00:20:38,420 that they were under the evil hand. 418 00:20:38,420 --> 00:20:41,724 - The Reverend Samuel Paris preached a powerful sermon 419 00:20:41,724 --> 00:20:45,713 in Salem village in September 1692 at the height 420 00:20:45,713 --> 00:20:46,943 of the outbreak. 421 00:20:46,943 --> 00:20:50,776 He chose his text from the Book of Revelation, chapter 17. 422 00:20:52,083 --> 00:20:57,083 Here is the lamb shall make war and the lamb shall triumph. 423 00:20:58,163 --> 00:21:01,445 And he elaborated the meaning of that. 424 00:21:01,445 --> 00:21:04,446 There are only two forces in the world, 425 00:21:05,559 --> 00:21:06,973 the lamb and the dragon, 426 00:21:06,973 --> 00:21:11,973 Christ and Satan, you must be on one side or the other. 427 00:21:12,123 --> 00:21:15,696 - So where was Revelation in the contemporary America? 428 00:21:16,638 --> 00:21:19,423 - The post-911 context, I think was one 429 00:21:19,423 --> 00:21:22,737 in which prophetic apocalyptic world views 430 00:21:22,737 --> 00:21:26,393 tended to be particularly attractive. 431 00:21:26,393 --> 00:21:30,333 The opinion polls I've seen tend to show about 30 to 40% 432 00:21:30,333 --> 00:21:34,583 of people when asked say that the world will end 433 00:21:34,583 --> 00:21:38,123 in a battle with Armageddon between Jesus Christ 434 00:21:38,123 --> 00:21:38,956 and the anti-Christ. 435 00:21:38,956 --> 00:21:41,253 Now that doesn't mean that 40% of Americans 436 00:21:41,253 --> 00:21:44,023 are going around day in and day out obsessed with this, 437 00:21:44,023 --> 00:21:46,392 this is sort of in the back of people's minds 438 00:21:46,392 --> 00:21:51,392 but it can surge forward under proper circumstances. 439 00:21:51,673 --> 00:21:54,553 - It's amazing to think that over three centuries later, 440 00:21:54,553 --> 00:21:56,763 the battle between the dragon and the lamb 441 00:21:56,763 --> 00:21:58,166 is still taking place. 442 00:21:58,166 --> 00:22:01,423 Many Americans believe they have a God-given mission 443 00:22:01,423 --> 00:22:03,573 to create the new Jerusalem. 444 00:22:03,573 --> 00:22:06,454 The battle in Salem between good and evil 445 00:22:06,454 --> 00:22:09,355 is now being played out on a global stage 446 00:22:09,355 --> 00:22:14,355 and America has cast itself on the side of good or God. 447 00:22:16,403 --> 00:22:20,223 It's an alliance that has huge consequences for us all. 448 00:22:20,223 --> 00:22:22,447 - [President Bush] I know we can overcome evil 449 00:22:22,447 --> 00:22:24,090 with greater good. 450 00:22:24,090 --> 00:22:25,039 - [Man] Evil empire. 451 00:22:25,039 --> 00:22:26,083 - [President Clinton] Thank you and God bless you all. 452 00:22:26,083 --> 00:22:28,000 - [Man] God bless you and God bless America. 453 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,160 - [President Reagan] The struggle between right and wrong 454 00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:31,993 and good and evil. 455 00:22:31,993 --> 00:22:32,826 - [President Obama] We can heal this nation, 456 00:22:32,826 --> 00:22:34,811 we can repair the world, God bless you. 457 00:22:34,811 --> 00:22:38,733 - [President Bush] Evil is real and it must be opposed. 458 00:22:38,733 --> 00:22:39,566 God is near. 459 00:22:39,566 --> 00:22:40,789 - [President Reagan] And one day with God's help. 460 00:22:40,789 --> 00:22:42,712 - So help you God. - So help me God. 461 00:22:42,712 --> 00:22:46,828 - [Robert] To see faith in Revelation at work today, 462 00:22:46,828 --> 00:22:50,113 I'm on my way to Richland Creek Community Church 463 00:22:50,113 --> 00:22:51,543 in North Carolina. 464 00:22:51,543 --> 00:22:54,523 - And we have seen the power of this book 465 00:22:54,523 --> 00:22:58,453 as it unveils to us Jesus Christ. 466 00:22:58,453 --> 00:23:02,703 This book is the revelation of Jesus Christ. 467 00:23:02,703 --> 00:23:05,523 It is not a difficult book to follow. 468 00:23:05,523 --> 00:23:07,254 The only time it becomes difficult 469 00:23:07,254 --> 00:23:10,413 is when you try to allegorize or spiritualize 470 00:23:10,413 --> 00:23:14,993 all these things and insert your own meanings into the text. 471 00:23:14,993 --> 00:23:18,096 - So, you read the Book of Revelation literally, why? 472 00:23:18,096 --> 00:23:20,603 - Well, I think God's word is to be taken literally. 473 00:23:20,603 --> 00:23:22,483 He's not trying to confuse people, 474 00:23:22,483 --> 00:23:24,073 he's not trying to deceive people. 475 00:23:24,073 --> 00:23:27,443 This is actually the very breathe of God on paper. 476 00:23:27,443 --> 00:23:30,049 If we just take God's word for what it says, 477 00:23:30,049 --> 00:23:32,401 we're gonna get an understanding of his heartbeat, 478 00:23:32,401 --> 00:23:36,293 his love for people and the fact that he's coming again. 479 00:23:36,293 --> 00:23:37,711 - My opinion would be that you're wrong 480 00:23:37,711 --> 00:23:41,280 in reading it literally because it's actually a book of code 481 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,563 and symbols and about the first century. 482 00:23:44,563 --> 00:23:45,663 How do you respond to that? 483 00:23:45,663 --> 00:23:47,413 - Well, there's nothing in the Bible that would seem 484 00:23:47,413 --> 00:23:48,993 to indicate that we should read it in code. 485 00:23:48,993 --> 00:23:51,353 God's saying, hey, believe what I'm saying 486 00:23:51,353 --> 00:23:52,753 about these events, they're actually 487 00:23:52,753 --> 00:23:55,273 gonna go down the way it's described right there 488 00:23:55,273 --> 00:23:56,106 in the book. 489 00:23:56,106 --> 00:23:58,603 And God is giving us a time table, setting us up 490 00:23:58,603 --> 00:24:00,103 for his literal return. 491 00:24:00,103 --> 00:24:02,333 - As a Bible-believing Christian, 492 00:24:02,333 --> 00:24:04,643 as a man who loves the Lord, loves your congregation, 493 00:24:04,643 --> 00:24:07,413 what do you make of the image of God in Revelation? 494 00:24:07,413 --> 00:24:08,483 - I think that's a great question 495 00:24:08,483 --> 00:24:10,643 because I think people wanna picture God 496 00:24:10,643 --> 00:24:12,654 as a God of love and a God of hope 497 00:24:12,654 --> 00:24:16,359 and he's all those things but he's also a God of wrath 498 00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:20,363 for those who are opposed to him and opposed to his way. 499 00:24:20,363 --> 00:24:22,398 He warns us about the judgment that's coming. 500 00:24:22,398 --> 00:24:24,943 So, we can't say that God hasn't been fair. 501 00:24:24,943 --> 00:24:26,373 - [Robert] If you read it literally, 502 00:24:26,373 --> 00:24:29,333 you end up with a timeline for the end of the world 503 00:24:29,333 --> 00:24:34,333 and I think that literal reading promotes pacifity 504 00:24:34,553 --> 00:24:37,922 and complicity as opposed to resistance and fighting 505 00:24:37,922 --> 00:24:39,723 for a more just order. 506 00:24:39,723 --> 00:24:42,223 That's why your interpretation worries me. 507 00:24:42,223 --> 00:24:43,056 - Hmm-hmm. 508 00:24:46,050 --> 00:24:50,181 I've already said what I had to say about it, so. 509 00:24:50,181 --> 00:24:54,913 Look, the Bible is to be taken at face value 510 00:24:54,913 --> 00:24:58,323 and when you say it's simplistic, I agree with that. 511 00:24:58,323 --> 00:25:01,288 He literally is coming again, he literally is 512 00:25:01,288 --> 00:25:03,673 going to fight the battle at Armageddon. 513 00:25:03,673 --> 00:25:06,573 He literally is going to make all things new, 514 00:25:06,573 --> 00:25:08,793 a new heavens and a new Earth. 515 00:25:08,793 --> 00:25:11,281 - In this part of the U.S., in North Carolina, 516 00:25:11,281 --> 00:25:14,297 would you support political candidates 517 00:25:14,297 --> 00:25:18,069 who were unChristian, who didn't read the Bible 518 00:25:18,069 --> 00:25:19,693 in the way that you read it? 519 00:25:19,693 --> 00:25:22,433 - Well, me personally, I would love to support a candidate 520 00:25:22,433 --> 00:25:25,387 who holds to the teachings found in God's word 521 00:25:25,387 --> 00:25:27,663 because there you're gonna have a candidate 522 00:25:27,663 --> 00:25:31,073 who ascribes that which is right defined by God, 523 00:25:31,073 --> 00:25:32,113 not by man. 524 00:25:32,113 --> 00:25:34,753 And so the moral attributes of that candidate 525 00:25:34,753 --> 00:25:38,993 are reflected in his adherence to the word of God. 526 00:25:38,993 --> 00:25:40,582 - Pastor Simms' teaching of Revelation 527 00:25:40,582 --> 00:25:42,792 is very familiar to me. 528 00:25:42,792 --> 00:25:45,713 But I'm no longer seduced by the book's power 529 00:25:45,713 --> 00:25:47,717 to prey on my darkest fears. 530 00:25:47,717 --> 00:25:51,935 Where in his reading is that hopeful message of resistance 531 00:25:51,935 --> 00:25:55,520 that I now believe is fundamental to a true understanding 532 00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,563 of the book. 533 00:25:57,563 --> 00:26:01,274 In April, 1981, a London community was torn apart 534 00:26:01,274 --> 00:26:04,243 as residents took to the streets to protest 535 00:26:04,243 --> 00:26:06,123 against racial harassment. 536 00:26:06,123 --> 00:26:09,053 Riots spreads through Brixton and over two days, 537 00:26:09,053 --> 00:26:11,733 more than 350 people were injured 538 00:26:11,733 --> 00:26:13,840 and houses and shops burned. 539 00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,503 When the rioting took place, I was 16 and living 540 00:26:16,503 --> 00:26:17,393 in the Midlands. 541 00:26:17,393 --> 00:26:18,443 I remember going to church 542 00:26:18,443 --> 00:26:21,483 to hear my pastor praise the Pentecostal youth of Brixton 543 00:26:21,483 --> 00:26:23,923 for not being involved in the rioting. 544 00:26:23,923 --> 00:26:25,801 As far as he was concerned, the suffering 545 00:26:25,801 --> 00:26:28,543 was not part of God's plan and they didn't need 546 00:26:28,543 --> 00:26:30,908 to be involved in the affairs of this world 547 00:26:30,908 --> 00:26:33,543 because their salvation was assured. 548 00:26:33,543 --> 00:26:35,408 I had a big problem with that. 549 00:26:35,408 --> 00:26:39,583 If racism and social inequality were part of God's plan, 550 00:26:39,583 --> 00:26:41,789 then perhaps the plan was flawed. 551 00:26:41,789 --> 00:26:45,063 I was realizing that the Bible and the Book of Revelation 552 00:26:45,063 --> 00:26:48,274 in particular could be profoundly political. 553 00:26:48,274 --> 00:26:52,449 In the 17th century, as the Puritans in America 554 00:26:52,449 --> 00:26:54,483 were building their new world, 555 00:26:54,483 --> 00:26:56,963 Christians here were living a world of political 556 00:26:56,963 --> 00:27:00,353 and religious chaos in the aftermath of the Civil War. 557 00:27:00,353 --> 00:27:03,820 The old authoritarian order had been swept away. 558 00:27:03,820 --> 00:27:08,253 In 1649, a small group of men and women 559 00:27:08,253 --> 00:27:11,003 led by radical Christian, Gerrard Winstanley 560 00:27:11,003 --> 00:27:13,886 occupied some common land near Weybridge in Surrey. 561 00:27:13,886 --> 00:27:18,173 This is St. George's Hill, a private estate, 562 00:27:18,173 --> 00:27:20,253 gated community with it's own golf course 563 00:27:20,253 --> 00:27:22,053 and just about everything else. 564 00:27:22,053 --> 00:27:23,333 But it's also the unlikely setting 565 00:27:23,333 --> 00:27:25,159 of the Digger's revolutionary movement. 566 00:27:25,159 --> 00:27:27,533 Inspired by the Book of Revelation, 567 00:27:27,533 --> 00:27:30,873 they seized these pastures in order to build their vision 568 00:27:30,873 --> 00:27:31,829 of the new world. 569 00:27:31,829 --> 00:27:35,254 I'm not sure this is what they had in mind. 570 00:27:35,254 --> 00:27:39,883 Like John on Patmos, Winstanley believed he had 571 00:27:39,883 --> 00:27:43,157 received divine vision and God had instructed him to act. 572 00:27:43,157 --> 00:27:45,953 What did god tell him to do? 573 00:27:45,953 --> 00:27:47,877 - He believed that God called him 574 00:27:47,877 --> 00:27:52,793 to gather people together to basically to eat together, 575 00:27:52,793 --> 00:27:54,671 to share bread together, to work together 576 00:27:54,671 --> 00:27:59,671 for the common good and his interpretation of that 577 00:28:00,053 --> 00:28:02,413 was then to see the common lands 578 00:28:02,413 --> 00:28:04,945 which were very poorly utilized and unused 579 00:28:04,945 --> 00:28:07,113 and he got off his backside, went up into the hill 580 00:28:07,113 --> 00:28:11,003 with a group of people and started digging the common land. 581 00:28:11,003 --> 00:28:12,927 - What was the role of the Book of Revelation 582 00:28:12,927 --> 00:28:14,692 in the life of the Diggers? 583 00:28:14,692 --> 00:28:17,061 - Well, the book of Revelation was incredibly important 584 00:28:17,061 --> 00:28:21,622 because you put yourself in his place in the 17th century, 585 00:28:21,622 --> 00:28:25,503 the king has been executed, the Church of England 586 00:28:25,503 --> 00:28:27,613 is dissolved, the bishops have gone, 587 00:28:27,613 --> 00:28:30,236 everything is up for grabs, the world is turned upside down. 588 00:28:30,236 --> 00:28:33,163 And he really believed this was the time 589 00:28:33,163 --> 00:28:35,283 which the Book of Revelation was written about. 590 00:28:35,283 --> 00:28:37,653 It was the time that the new order was coming in, 591 00:28:37,653 --> 00:28:39,943 so he didn't see the Book of Revelation as this book 592 00:28:39,943 --> 00:28:41,353 dealing with the end of the war 593 00:28:41,353 --> 00:28:44,199 but he saw it as the beginning of a whole new society, 594 00:28:44,199 --> 00:28:47,547 a new order which God was going to bring in. 595 00:28:47,547 --> 00:28:50,911 - But the world God had instructed Winstanley to create 596 00:28:50,911 --> 00:28:52,653 couldn't survive. 597 00:28:52,653 --> 00:28:55,273 This radical social movement threatened the power 598 00:28:55,273 --> 00:28:57,523 of the authorities and within months, 599 00:28:57,523 --> 00:28:59,988 the Diggers were thrown off St. George's Hill. 600 00:28:59,988 --> 00:29:04,874 The Diggers' dream of a utopian world had failed 601 00:29:04,874 --> 00:29:08,633 but for a brief moment, the persecuted had found a voice 602 00:29:08,633 --> 00:29:10,323 in the words of their Bible. 603 00:29:10,323 --> 00:29:13,405 They were following John's call to resist their oppressors 604 00:29:13,405 --> 00:29:17,293 but this time, though the battle was not between empires 605 00:29:17,293 --> 00:29:21,043 and religious faith but between authoritarian rule 606 00:29:21,043 --> 00:29:22,956 and the need for social justice. 607 00:29:24,543 --> 00:29:27,743 In the late 18th century, a new profit stepped forward 608 00:29:27,743 --> 00:29:29,903 to champion the oppressed and once more 609 00:29:29,903 --> 00:29:32,089 it was Revelation that showed the way. 610 00:29:32,089 --> 00:29:36,053 William Blake, renowned artist, poet and visionary 611 00:29:36,053 --> 00:29:38,393 was commissioned to illustrate the book. 612 00:29:38,393 --> 00:29:42,433 Though Blake was born just over 100 years 613 00:29:42,433 --> 00:29:45,443 after the Diggers' revolt, he grew up in a world 614 00:29:45,443 --> 00:29:48,173 of radical Christian thought which echoed that 615 00:29:48,173 --> 00:29:49,700 of Winstanley. 616 00:29:49,700 --> 00:29:54,373 His parents were dissenters, part of a Christian sect 617 00:29:54,373 --> 00:29:57,223 which had separated from the established church. 618 00:29:57,223 --> 00:29:59,923 And Blake grew to oppose the idea of a theology 619 00:29:59,923 --> 00:30:02,824 that oppressed man and permitted injustice. 620 00:30:02,824 --> 00:30:06,743 I'm going to see his illustration of chapters four and five 621 00:30:06,743 --> 00:30:09,703 from the Book of Revelation in which John sees heaven 622 00:30:09,703 --> 00:30:10,896 for the first time. 623 00:30:12,013 --> 00:30:15,763 When I look at this I see God enthroned in heaven 624 00:30:15,763 --> 00:30:19,743 and everyone paying homage, what am I missing? 625 00:30:19,743 --> 00:30:21,383 - I think the most important thing to say 626 00:30:21,383 --> 00:30:24,083 is that he has understood what is there in the Bible 627 00:30:24,083 --> 00:30:26,783 and was actually expressing what's there in the text. 628 00:30:26,783 --> 00:30:30,226 Blake gets one to kinda focus on the central image of God 629 00:30:30,226 --> 00:30:33,253 and we would pardoned, I think, for missing fact 630 00:30:33,253 --> 00:30:37,863 that the most important image is right there at the bottom 631 00:30:37,863 --> 00:30:39,758 just below the feet of the almighty 632 00:30:39,758 --> 00:30:44,758 what looks like a dead animal and it's there 633 00:30:45,063 --> 00:30:47,200 in the Book of Revelation chapter five 634 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:51,733 that John sees, after he's seen the almighty, 635 00:30:51,733 --> 00:30:53,893 he sees a lamb that is slain. 636 00:30:53,893 --> 00:30:57,593 And the lamb who's slain is a symbol of Christ, 637 00:30:57,593 --> 00:31:00,513 the one who identifies with the meek and lowly. 638 00:31:00,513 --> 00:31:03,733 And so the meek and lowly are drawn into this picture 639 00:31:03,733 --> 00:31:05,713 identifying with the lamb who is slain, 640 00:31:05,713 --> 00:31:07,043 who is the key to history. 641 00:31:07,043 --> 00:31:09,695 - Is Blake is telling us that the lamb symbolizes 642 00:31:09,695 --> 00:31:12,166 the common person, is he also telling us 643 00:31:12,166 --> 00:31:14,415 that the common person has incredible power 644 00:31:14,415 --> 00:31:17,515 to change their world, to bring about the new heaven? 645 00:31:17,515 --> 00:31:21,153 - I've absolutely no doubt at all that he is doing that. 646 00:31:21,153 --> 00:31:24,263 What he wants to do is to say, look, realize who you are, 647 00:31:24,263 --> 00:31:26,879 realize that divine image is already there in you 648 00:31:26,879 --> 00:31:29,697 and if you've got that then you will be empowered, 649 00:31:29,697 --> 00:31:32,876 not only to be better persons for yourself 650 00:31:32,876 --> 00:31:35,713 but also in relating to other people. 651 00:31:35,713 --> 00:31:38,873 - So, we have here in Blake's depiction of Revelation, 652 00:31:38,873 --> 00:31:41,250 a manifesto for social change, is that correct? 653 00:31:41,250 --> 00:31:44,763 - I think in every work that Blake did 654 00:31:44,763 --> 00:31:47,443 was in a sense a manifesto for social change 655 00:31:47,443 --> 00:31:49,423 and how it is that humans need to change in order 656 00:31:49,423 --> 00:31:50,323 to bring it about. 657 00:31:51,199 --> 00:31:52,153 (slow music) 658 00:31:52,153 --> 00:31:55,235 - To me, the battle that affected my life the most directly 659 00:31:55,235 --> 00:31:58,476 was waged in America in the 1960's. 660 00:32:02,576 --> 00:32:06,133 On the 31st of July, 1966, 661 00:32:06,133 --> 00:32:08,053 the Black Liberation Theology Movement 662 00:32:08,053 --> 00:32:10,003 hit the streets of America 663 00:32:10,003 --> 00:32:11,951 when 51 African-American pastors 664 00:32:11,951 --> 00:32:16,163 took out a full page advertisement in the New York Times, 665 00:32:16,163 --> 00:32:20,587 demanding an end to racism and racial segregation. 666 00:32:20,587 --> 00:32:24,761 When American leaders are forced by American people 667 00:32:24,761 --> 00:32:28,488 to quit misusing and abusing American power, 668 00:32:28,488 --> 00:32:32,573 then will the cry for black power become inaudible, 669 00:32:32,573 --> 00:32:36,303 for the framework in which all power in America operates 670 00:32:36,303 --> 00:32:39,453 would include the power and experience of black men 671 00:32:39,453 --> 00:32:42,253 as well as those of white men. 672 00:32:42,253 --> 00:32:44,303 I can't imagine the impact that this must have had 673 00:32:44,303 --> 00:32:45,603 on American society. 674 00:32:45,603 --> 00:32:47,993 I mean, just picture it, the Church is calling 675 00:32:47,993 --> 00:32:51,414 for all Americans to stand firm and resist white racism. 676 00:32:51,414 --> 00:32:55,523 It seems to me that this is what the Book of Revelation 677 00:32:55,523 --> 00:32:57,633 might have sounded like, if it were written 678 00:32:57,633 --> 00:32:59,621 in the 20th century. 679 00:32:59,621 --> 00:33:02,313 Professor James Cone was a pioneer 680 00:33:02,313 --> 00:33:04,503 of the New Black Liberation theology. 681 00:33:04,503 --> 00:33:07,243 - The key thing about the Book of Revelation 682 00:33:07,243 --> 00:33:10,263 and the oppressed is that John himself 683 00:33:10,263 --> 00:33:14,642 and the Christian churches that he is writing to 684 00:33:14,642 --> 00:33:18,453 in the Book of Revelations are living 685 00:33:18,453 --> 00:33:23,453 under a similar situation that blacks perceive themselves 686 00:33:24,403 --> 00:33:25,706 to be living under. 687 00:33:26,543 --> 00:33:29,193 - Black people didn't have to go to seminary to know 688 00:33:29,193 --> 00:33:31,163 that the Bible spoke to them. 689 00:33:31,163 --> 00:33:32,885 They didn't have to go to the university to know 690 00:33:32,885 --> 00:33:37,885 that that situation was analogous to the poor and the weak 691 00:33:38,583 --> 00:33:40,423 and the hapless within the Bible. 692 00:33:40,423 --> 00:33:43,302 - [Robert] So, in the 1960's, who was the beast 693 00:33:43,302 --> 00:33:45,143 for black America? 694 00:33:45,143 --> 00:33:47,513 - Who was the beast in the black community 695 00:33:47,513 --> 00:33:50,009 as they saw it, white supremacy, white power, 696 00:33:50,009 --> 00:33:54,144 the U.S. government which refused to acknowledge 697 00:33:54,144 --> 00:33:56,863 their right of citizenship. 698 00:33:56,863 --> 00:34:01,863 We were fighting for the right to vote in the 1960's. 699 00:34:02,593 --> 00:34:03,943 - [Robert] Was America Babylon? 700 00:34:03,943 --> 00:34:05,930 - Yes, America was Babylon, it's the beast. 701 00:34:05,930 --> 00:34:10,683 We felt we were living in Babylon. 702 00:34:10,683 --> 00:34:14,511 - [Robert] So within the 1960's struggle, black power 703 00:34:14,511 --> 00:34:18,983 is not that far removed from the new heaven. 704 00:34:18,983 --> 00:34:21,853 - I mean, you have to shout it when you've been denied it 705 00:34:21,853 --> 00:34:25,403 more than 350 years, you have to shout it, 706 00:34:25,403 --> 00:34:27,223 you have to go crazy about it. 707 00:34:27,223 --> 00:34:30,113 And that's what's happening within John's vision, 708 00:34:30,113 --> 00:34:33,321 people are going crazy about the new heaven 709 00:34:33,321 --> 00:34:34,336 and the new Earth. 710 00:34:34,336 --> 00:34:35,791 I lived during the 1960's. 711 00:34:35,791 --> 00:34:40,791 The vision of a new America, a new Jerusalem 712 00:34:42,673 --> 00:34:47,673 was prominent and powerful during that time. 713 00:34:47,813 --> 00:34:50,224 King spoke of it as his dream. 714 00:34:50,224 --> 00:34:54,313 He spoke of it as the beloved community, 715 00:34:54,313 --> 00:34:56,203 that's the new Jerusalem. 716 00:34:56,203 --> 00:34:59,284 There he is preaching, I've been on the mountaintop, 717 00:34:59,284 --> 00:35:04,163 I've seen the other side, I was there. 718 00:35:04,163 --> 00:35:06,554 We believed that it was going to come. 719 00:35:06,554 --> 00:35:10,165 And in some sense, some people would say Barack Obama 720 00:35:10,165 --> 00:35:13,043 is the realization of that. 721 00:35:13,043 --> 00:35:14,847 - [Robert] So is America still the beast? 722 00:35:14,847 --> 00:35:18,543 - I don't know, I don't know, I don't know whether America 723 00:35:18,543 --> 00:35:19,583 is the beast, there are a lot of beasts 724 00:35:19,583 --> 00:35:20,943 in the world though. 725 00:35:20,943 --> 00:35:22,488 America is not the only beast. 726 00:35:22,488 --> 00:35:24,983 But it's a big old beast out there. 727 00:35:24,983 --> 00:35:29,983 - That's amazing, Professor Cone has spent his whole life 728 00:35:30,223 --> 00:35:32,720 using Revelation to fight injustice. 729 00:35:32,720 --> 00:35:35,483 I've never heard anything like that growing up 730 00:35:35,483 --> 00:35:39,296 in the Church and definitely not from a Pentecostal pulpit. 731 00:35:39,296 --> 00:35:43,573 Today, the Book of Revelation is still being used 732 00:35:43,573 --> 00:35:46,303 to fight injustice and it's been taken right 733 00:35:46,303 --> 00:35:48,126 into the heart of the community. 734 00:35:49,883 --> 00:35:53,303 In the early 1990's, stories of gang warfare 735 00:35:53,303 --> 00:35:56,543 and drug-related violence dominated the headlines 736 00:35:56,543 --> 00:35:58,763 of Boston's newspapers. 737 00:35:58,763 --> 00:36:00,523 Within the largely poor Latino 738 00:36:00,523 --> 00:36:03,093 and African-American neighborhoods of the city, 739 00:36:03,093 --> 00:36:05,446 youth crime was spiraling out of control. 740 00:36:08,273 --> 00:36:11,516 In 1992, after a gang shooting at a funeral, 741 00:36:11,516 --> 00:36:14,033 a group of church ministers banded together 742 00:36:14,033 --> 00:36:15,583 to tackle the problem. 743 00:36:15,583 --> 00:36:18,426 What the police couldn't solve, the Church would. 744 00:36:18,426 --> 00:36:22,154 The Reverend Eugene Rivers, a Pentecostal minister 745 00:36:22,154 --> 00:36:25,761 was the founding member of the 10 Point Coalition. 746 00:36:25,761 --> 00:36:29,343 - One of the ways that we have taken some 747 00:36:29,343 --> 00:36:32,113 of the theological themes in Revelation, 748 00:36:32,113 --> 00:36:34,068 some of the images and symbols 749 00:36:34,068 --> 00:36:37,593 is to talk about the nature of the beast. 750 00:36:37,593 --> 00:36:42,593 The image of a source of evil that exists in the cosmos, 751 00:36:44,213 --> 00:36:49,213 in the world, whose bidding I may unwittingly do 752 00:36:49,778 --> 00:36:51,973 by acts of evil. 753 00:36:51,973 --> 00:36:54,783 When I go to prisons, dudes respond to that, 754 00:36:54,783 --> 00:36:56,202 oh yeah, oh yeah. 755 00:36:56,202 --> 00:36:59,603 Dude, don't disrespect yourself, don't do the work 756 00:36:59,603 --> 00:37:02,263 of the beast by disrespecting yourself. 757 00:37:02,263 --> 00:37:04,430 Ah, I'm telling you, oh man, cats, whew! 758 00:37:04,430 --> 00:37:08,397 So the image of the beast now must be reinterpreted 759 00:37:08,397 --> 00:37:11,644 for a generation of young people 760 00:37:11,644 --> 00:37:13,772 who do not understand the nature 761 00:37:13,772 --> 00:37:17,993 of the evil and the systems against them. 762 00:37:17,993 --> 00:37:19,750 - [Robert] The Ten Point Coalition began working 763 00:37:19,750 --> 00:37:23,193 within the communities to combat a culture violence 764 00:37:23,193 --> 00:37:24,823 amongst the youth. 765 00:37:24,823 --> 00:37:28,313 Today, the police actively seek their help. 766 00:37:28,313 --> 00:37:30,533 - As law enforcement, we have a law enforcement aspect 767 00:37:30,533 --> 00:37:32,673 down pat, boom, we can knock them out 768 00:37:32,673 --> 00:37:35,813 but there's apart of it that we can't take on. 769 00:37:35,813 --> 00:37:38,143 We can offer a certain amount of degree to that effect 770 00:37:38,143 --> 00:37:40,283 as far as law enforcement but I think clergy 771 00:37:40,283 --> 00:37:42,623 has to really solidify the deal. 772 00:37:42,623 --> 00:37:45,463 - The book is subversive, from Genesis to Revelation, 773 00:37:45,463 --> 00:37:46,703 it's subversive. 774 00:37:46,703 --> 00:37:49,668 And there is subversive, radically egalitarian content 775 00:37:49,668 --> 00:37:54,083 that is emancipatory, that is reconciling right, 776 00:37:54,083 --> 00:37:57,709 all of which the Church ignores 777 00:37:57,709 --> 00:38:00,146 because it's just very uncomfortable. 778 00:38:01,143 --> 00:38:04,143 - For more than two millennia, apocalyptic writings 779 00:38:04,143 --> 00:38:06,203 has come out of times of great social 780 00:38:06,203 --> 00:38:07,563 and political upheaval. 781 00:38:07,563 --> 00:38:11,863 Those moments when the establishment is held in suspicion 782 00:38:11,863 --> 00:38:13,944 and the oppressed find their voice. 783 00:38:13,944 --> 00:38:18,773 Today, more than ever before, a crisis threatens 784 00:38:18,773 --> 00:38:23,087 to engulf us all and surprising, the Book of Revelation 785 00:38:23,087 --> 00:38:27,756 may hold the key to understanding how we deal with it. 786 00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,217 (dark music) 787 00:38:33,702 --> 00:38:37,853 - [Narrator] And I saw a new heaven and a new Earth. 788 00:38:37,853 --> 00:38:41,082 For the first heaven and the first Earth were passed away. 789 00:38:41,082 --> 00:38:43,183 On the throne said, "Behold I make all things new." 790 00:38:43,183 --> 00:38:45,317 And he showed me a pure river or water of life, 791 00:38:45,317 --> 00:38:49,188 clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God 792 00:38:49,188 --> 00:38:50,736 and of the lamb. 793 00:38:55,303 --> 00:38:57,739 - 2,000 years ago on the island of Patmos, 794 00:38:57,739 --> 00:39:01,503 John wrote of the battle between good and evil. 795 00:39:01,503 --> 00:39:05,113 The Christian faith faced the enemy of the Roman Empire. 796 00:39:05,113 --> 00:39:09,394 Today, the battle continues but it is the Earth itself 797 00:39:09,394 --> 00:39:11,106 that is now at stake. 798 00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,653 In the face of impending disaster, 799 00:39:19,653 --> 00:39:21,683 brought about by climate change, 800 00:39:21,683 --> 00:39:24,083 it's easy to see why environmental protestors 801 00:39:24,083 --> 00:39:26,639 use apocalyptic images from the Book of Revelation 802 00:39:26,639 --> 00:39:28,646 to shock us into acting. 803 00:39:32,043 --> 00:39:35,303 When I was growing up, my vision of the end of the world 804 00:39:35,303 --> 00:39:37,123 was the nuclear bomb. 805 00:39:37,123 --> 00:39:40,030 I'd never envisage that my children's generation 806 00:39:40,030 --> 00:39:42,336 would face an even greater threat. 807 00:39:43,373 --> 00:39:45,913 - There's only so much the Earth can take, 808 00:39:45,913 --> 00:39:48,826 so we have to be preserving the world now 809 00:39:48,826 --> 00:39:50,898 for future generations. 810 00:39:50,898 --> 00:39:54,993 - I think probably like kinda destroy ourselves in a sense. 811 00:39:54,993 --> 00:39:57,283 - How do we even know that the world is dying, 812 00:39:57,283 --> 00:39:59,133 how do we know that it's not just meant to happen. 813 00:39:59,133 --> 00:40:01,003 Animals die all the time and they become extinct, 814 00:40:01,003 --> 00:40:02,640 what if it's just our turn to become extinct. 815 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:06,283 - The Book of Revelation is a book that says 816 00:40:06,283 --> 00:40:09,573 you must fight to save the world. 817 00:40:09,573 --> 00:40:12,823 Is it right to read the Book of Revelation that way? 818 00:40:12,823 --> 00:40:15,883 - Maybe it's about pollution and whatever's happening now, 819 00:40:15,883 --> 00:40:18,723 but I think it's like what we need to be prepared for 820 00:40:18,723 --> 00:40:20,833 whatever's gonna happen to us in the future. 821 00:40:20,833 --> 00:40:22,493 - It's not necessarily about climate change 822 00:40:22,493 --> 00:40:26,403 but it shows that everything's not set in sandstone, 823 00:40:26,403 --> 00:40:29,013 we're not powerless and we shouldn't overlook it all. 824 00:40:29,013 --> 00:40:30,773 - When it was written, 825 00:40:30,773 --> 00:40:32,688 they didn't know what was going to happen, 826 00:40:32,688 --> 00:40:35,853 so how could it possibly be about climate change? 827 00:40:35,853 --> 00:40:39,703 - John is writing about anything that creates tyranny, 828 00:40:39,703 --> 00:40:42,083 disaster, believers have to resist. 829 00:40:42,083 --> 00:40:44,463 Can I use that in the future and apply it to climate change, 830 00:40:44,463 --> 00:40:45,296 the Book of Revelation? 831 00:40:45,296 --> 00:40:46,349 - I wouldn't say climate change was tyranny 832 00:40:46,349 --> 00:40:51,349 but you could but I don't, I think it's a crazy man 833 00:40:54,303 --> 00:40:57,334 writing from a cave thousands of years ago. 834 00:40:57,334 --> 00:41:01,223 - It may well be the ramblings of a crazy man 835 00:41:01,223 --> 00:41:04,994 writing from a cave but the message that he's given 836 00:41:04,994 --> 00:41:08,583 to stop people being lazy and to take up action 837 00:41:08,583 --> 00:41:13,583 against oppression and tyranny and all forms of it 838 00:41:14,083 --> 00:41:15,476 is a really good message. 839 00:41:17,113 --> 00:41:18,363 - [Robert] And it seems that the Church 840 00:41:18,363 --> 00:41:21,053 is uniting behind this message. 841 00:41:21,053 --> 00:41:23,813 Thousands of Christians believe as I do, 842 00:41:23,813 --> 00:41:26,363 that we have a duty to save the planet 843 00:41:26,363 --> 00:41:27,858 and that by making ourselves heard, 844 00:41:27,858 --> 00:41:31,666 we can bring about a change that will preserve our world. 845 00:41:33,153 --> 00:41:35,943 - It looks in the last few decades, particularly 846 00:41:35,943 --> 00:41:37,603 in perhaps the last few millennia 847 00:41:37,603 --> 00:41:40,463 as if the human race has on the whole 848 00:41:40,463 --> 00:41:43,563 not been very good news for the rest of creation. 849 00:41:43,563 --> 00:41:46,743 We depend on the health of the world around us. 850 00:41:46,743 --> 00:41:49,570 And because of that, the health of the world around us 851 00:41:49,570 --> 00:41:53,236 and our own longterm health are not two things but one. 852 00:41:54,243 --> 00:41:55,536 Let's not lose sight. 853 00:41:57,133 --> 00:41:59,423 - Revelation says we are living in the last days. 854 00:41:59,423 --> 00:42:01,263 Revelation time. 855 00:42:01,263 --> 00:42:03,933 - [Robert] Why is the Book of Revelation appealing 856 00:42:03,933 --> 00:42:06,843 to the Green Movement and environmentalists? 857 00:42:06,843 --> 00:42:08,827 - Because the Book of Revelation comes out of a situation 858 00:42:08,827 --> 00:42:12,933 where people are at their wit's end, 859 00:42:12,933 --> 00:42:14,256 they don't know where to look 860 00:42:14,256 --> 00:42:18,820 and they're faced with an incredibly powerful 861 00:42:18,820 --> 00:42:23,820 and oppressive regime, the Roman regime 862 00:42:24,473 --> 00:42:29,473 and the book talks about the possibilities of hope there 863 00:42:29,723 --> 00:42:31,565 and it's a situation which is analogist 864 00:42:31,565 --> 00:42:34,063 with the situation that we face today. 865 00:42:34,063 --> 00:42:38,033 So it calls for a different way of organizing our economy, 866 00:42:38,033 --> 00:42:42,113 a different way of organizing our whole society in fact. 867 00:42:42,113 --> 00:42:44,383 Do we really care about climate change, 868 00:42:44,383 --> 00:42:45,983 does it affect our behavior? 869 00:42:45,983 --> 00:42:48,913 If it doesn't, are we actually complicit 870 00:42:48,913 --> 00:42:50,893 with the ongoing destruction. 871 00:42:50,893 --> 00:42:53,833 The question is where we stand in relation 872 00:42:53,833 --> 00:42:56,233 to the future is exactly the prophetic question. 873 00:42:57,685 --> 00:43:00,653 - It seems to me the environmentalist movement 874 00:43:00,653 --> 00:43:04,113 are using the cataclysmic, apocalyptic visions 875 00:43:04,113 --> 00:43:08,453 in Revelation to inspire us to fight for heaven on Earth. 876 00:43:08,453 --> 00:43:10,643 Now whether we're frightened into doing that 877 00:43:10,643 --> 00:43:13,073 or inspired, they don't really care, 878 00:43:13,073 --> 00:43:14,803 so long as we act. 879 00:43:14,803 --> 00:43:17,153 - We're here because God's creation is under threat 880 00:43:17,153 --> 00:43:18,963 because of climate change. 881 00:43:18,963 --> 00:43:20,843 We live in a unique point in history 882 00:43:20,843 --> 00:43:22,363 where if we're not careful, 883 00:43:22,363 --> 00:43:25,273 we're gonna throw the whole of the planet into imbalance. 884 00:43:25,273 --> 00:43:27,463 - What do you find within the Book of Revelation 885 00:43:27,463 --> 00:43:30,866 to help make sense of your environmental campaign? 886 00:43:30,866 --> 00:43:32,803 - It's a crazy book, isn't it? 887 00:43:32,803 --> 00:43:36,253 And sometimes people say, oh all the wild weather, 888 00:43:36,253 --> 00:43:38,843 oh, it's not climate change, it's all been foretold. 889 00:43:38,843 --> 00:43:40,443 The question is agency. 890 00:43:40,443 --> 00:43:43,913 Who's changing the climate, is it God or is it us? 891 00:43:43,913 --> 00:43:45,303 I believe in free will. 892 00:43:45,303 --> 00:43:47,213 If we are going to burn fossil fuels 893 00:43:47,213 --> 00:43:50,123 and destabilize the planet, it has nothing to do with God. 894 00:43:50,123 --> 00:43:52,916 God might be weeping while we do this. 895 00:43:52,916 --> 00:43:55,836 If there is a beast in the subject of climate change, 896 00:43:55,836 --> 00:43:57,243 it's the beast in all of us, 897 00:43:57,243 --> 00:44:00,016 it's the beast that is consumption. 898 00:44:00,016 --> 00:44:04,313 The fact that we are taking up resources 899 00:44:04,313 --> 00:44:06,163 which took millions and millions of years 900 00:44:06,163 --> 00:44:08,073 to be formed in the Earth's crust 901 00:44:08,073 --> 00:44:10,615 and are using them at an extraordinary rate, it's. 902 00:44:10,615 --> 00:44:13,863 You know when you look at the message of getting people 903 00:44:13,863 --> 00:44:16,353 animated against Hitler, against the threat of invasion, 904 00:44:16,353 --> 00:44:18,233 you can point to an external enemy, 905 00:44:18,233 --> 00:44:19,913 this time the enemy is within, 906 00:44:19,913 --> 00:44:21,603 it's our own patents of living. 907 00:44:21,603 --> 00:44:23,373 It's not an external beast. 908 00:44:23,373 --> 00:44:25,193 I think there's a beast of consumption 909 00:44:25,193 --> 00:44:26,723 which is within and I think that's the one 910 00:44:26,723 --> 00:44:27,893 we have to concentrate on. 911 00:44:27,893 --> 00:44:31,173 - Western civilization oscillates between two models. 912 00:44:31,173 --> 00:44:34,097 It oscillates between this Book of Revelation horror story 913 00:44:34,097 --> 00:44:37,873 and it oscillates between the end of the Book of Revelation 914 00:44:37,873 --> 00:44:41,514 which has this astonishingly beautiful image 915 00:44:41,514 --> 00:44:44,143 of the city of God coming down out of heaven 916 00:44:44,143 --> 00:44:47,153 in which everyone lives in peace, the waters are there, 917 00:44:47,153 --> 00:44:49,103 the trees over the healing of the nations. 918 00:44:49,103 --> 00:44:52,593 So, we've swung, we swing between apocalypse, 919 00:44:52,593 --> 00:44:55,902 scare everybody, terrify them into behaving properly 920 00:44:55,902 --> 00:44:57,788 and utopia. 921 00:44:57,788 --> 00:44:58,621 (slow music) 922 00:44:58,621 --> 00:45:00,543 - [Robert] It's easy to read the Book of Revelation 923 00:45:00,543 --> 00:45:02,393 and be seduced by it. 924 00:45:02,393 --> 00:45:04,395 All those images of blood and vengeance 925 00:45:04,395 --> 00:45:06,479 could have come straight from Hollywood 926 00:45:06,479 --> 00:45:08,733 and just like watching a horror film, 927 00:45:08,733 --> 00:45:11,603 we love the power that those terrifying images have. 928 00:45:11,603 --> 00:45:14,613 And that's why so few people remember the world 929 00:45:14,613 --> 00:45:15,696 at the end. 930 00:45:15,696 --> 00:45:19,325 If you get all the way through the 66 books in the Bible, 931 00:45:19,325 --> 00:45:22,229 you get back to where you started on page one, 932 00:45:22,229 --> 00:45:27,229 a glorious untainted world created by God. 933 00:45:27,263 --> 00:45:28,913 - The Book of Revelations speaks to everybody. 934 00:45:28,913 --> 00:45:33,913 It just doesn't say the same message to everybody. 935 00:45:34,413 --> 00:45:39,183 It doesn't always say the message that you want to hear 936 00:45:39,183 --> 00:45:41,533 but it does speak to all people. 937 00:45:41,533 --> 00:45:43,549 Really it's a book of pictures, it's a book of images, 938 00:45:43,549 --> 00:45:45,753 it's a book that's evoking something 939 00:45:45,753 --> 00:45:47,353 to try and get a response out of people, 940 00:45:47,353 --> 00:45:50,134 not something that's going to give you a detailed plan 941 00:45:50,134 --> 00:45:52,433 for how the world is going to be forevermore. 942 00:45:52,433 --> 00:45:54,799 - The literal meaning makes most sense, 943 00:45:54,799 --> 00:45:57,369 it helps us to understand chronologically 944 00:45:57,369 --> 00:46:00,033 and it leaves no room for misinterpretation 945 00:46:00,033 --> 00:46:02,333 by a man inserting his own opinions there. 946 00:46:02,333 --> 00:46:04,506 The text is meant to be taken literally. 947 00:46:06,373 --> 00:46:09,113 - I am now convinced that the last book of the Bible 948 00:46:09,113 --> 00:46:12,568 is the most misunderstood piece of writing in history. 949 00:46:12,568 --> 00:46:14,490 Today, I simply cannot except 950 00:46:14,490 --> 00:46:17,253 that terrifying literal interpretation 951 00:46:17,253 --> 00:46:19,318 that was taught to the boy in the Pentecostal Church. 952 00:46:19,318 --> 00:46:22,313 Everything that I've discovered and learned 953 00:46:22,313 --> 00:46:24,453 has proven that the Book of Revelation 954 00:46:24,453 --> 00:46:27,502 is best not and probably should not be read as a guidebook 955 00:46:27,502 --> 00:46:29,453 to the end of the Earth. 956 00:46:29,453 --> 00:46:31,983 Instead, I'm with those revolutionaries 957 00:46:31,983 --> 00:46:33,673 from the early Christians onwards 958 00:46:33,673 --> 00:46:36,373 who are inspired by it's message to the oppressed 959 00:46:36,373 --> 00:46:37,658 and persecuted. 960 00:46:37,658 --> 00:46:40,817 Today, 2,000 years on from John having his vision, 961 00:46:40,817 --> 00:46:45,817 I believe his message still speaks to all of us committed 962 00:46:46,897 --> 00:46:50,934 to building the new heaven and the new Earth. 963 00:46:50,934 --> 00:46:53,851 (spiritual music)