Abstract
Although John condemns the Roman Empire’s extravagance (Rev. 18), he fails to question the opulent materials used to construct the heavenly city (21:18–21). While God tortures those who have entered into trade agreements with Rome (16:2), the New Jerusalem follows the same pattern as the heavenly economic system (21:24). Moreover, after the heavenly commander has destroyed the global city—that is, the Roman Empire (19:15–21)—God establishes the holy city as the new global city (21:24–26). Decolonial theorist Walter D. Mignolo argues that “de-Westernization doesn’t question the ‘nature’ of the world economy, capitalism.” Similarly, in Revelation, de-Romanization does not question the nature of the world economy either. This article offers a reading of Revelation 21 from the perspectives of decolonial theory and the Taiwanese context. It argues that rather than pursuing a liberated economic system, the Empire of God imitates the same oppressive system as that implemented by the Roman Empire.
Introduction
Although John, the author of Revelation, condemns the Roman Empire’s proclivity for extravagance (Rev. 18), he fails to question the opulent materials used to construct the heavenly city (21:18–21). While the angel of God tortures those who have entered into trade agreements with the Roman Empire (16:2), the New Jerusalem follows the same pattern as the heavenly economic system, which is based on international trade agreements: “and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (21:24). Moreover, after the heavenly commander has destroyed the global city—the Roman Empire—and its affiliated nations (19:15–21), God establishes the holy city as the new global city (21:24–26). The leading decolonial theorist1 Walter D. Mignolo argues that “de-Westernization doesn’t question the ‘nature’ of the world economy, capitalism.”2 Similarly, the de-Romanization described in Revelation does not question the nature of the world economy either.
The point I am driving at is that de-Westernization uncoupled capitalism from liberalism and neoliberalism and usurped it to advance de-Western liberation. … The end result was uncoupling capitalism from liberalism (and later on neoliberalism) to manage the economy in China’s own way. “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics” was a sarcastic comment in Western media.5
He further asserts that “de-Westernization seeks to delink from the political and economic dictates of Western institutions in order to dispute the control and management by the [colonial matrix of power].”6 Despite the differences between Chinese and US capitalism, Mignolo points out that all forms of capitalism pursue the accumulation of wealth: “You can say that U.S. capitalism is not the same as European or Chinese capitalism, but the fact remains that the differences are superficial, not of the deep structure; the economic rules and principles continue to be oriented to the horizon of accumulation of wealth, which anchors the power of decisions.”7 Given that “de-Westernization doesn’t question the ‘nature’ of the world economy, capitalism,”8 several countries are affected by Chinese capitalism.
Taiwan, a Pacific Island and my home country, is located—geopolitically speaking—at the border between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (prc)9 and is thus affected by US–prc economic competition. In a bid to defeat its economic rival, the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) began shifting toward capitalist policies after the 1970s. The prc’s capitalist approach prevents Taiwan from engaging in trade relationships with other countries, particularly the United States, due to the prc’s incessant attempts to colonize Taiwan and the United States’ military and economic rivalry with the prc. Thus, rather than liberating itself from the West’s economic system, the prc competes against the United States through the same economic system—capitalism. By reading Revelation 21 in this context, this article argues that rather than pursuing a liberated economic system, the Empire of God emulates the same oppressive system used by its adversary—the Roman Empire.
Reading Strategy
Isn’t much, or most, of the foregoing already the focus of postcolonial studies, including postcolonial theory, and even of postcolonial biblical criticism where it leans into postcolonial studies and postcolonial theory? Why invoke the term “decolonial,” together with the other terms tethered to it, as though to limn out a different analytic space in which to ponder colonialisms and their products?10
Moore’s question is also applicable to the subject matter of this article. Empire-critical and postcolonial biblical works have long engaged in the topic of “empire” in Revelation. How can a Taiwanese decolonial reading fit into this conversation? Does it “limn out a different analytic space in which to ponder colonialisms and their products?” Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther’s empire-critical foundational work, Unveiling Empire, approached Revelation as an instance of anti-imperial discourse against the Roman Empire.11 Meanwhile, however, in line with Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of “colonial ambivalence,” postcolonial readings have not always been satisfied with purely liberationist readings of Revelation. For example, in Moore’s early postcolonial work, he argued that “Revelation, though passionately resistant to Roman imperial ideology, paradoxically and persistently reinscribes its terms.”12
Like the two abovementioned approaches, a decolonial reading also aims to deal with the issue of empire as it arises in the biblical texts. However, based ultimately on Mignolo’s decolonial theory, I, as a decolonial reader, am dissatisfied with both the liberationist approach adopted by empire-critical scholars and the concept of colonial ambivalence embraced by postcolonial scholars. The notion of “modernity/coloniality” is among Mignolo’s core ideas. He explains that “‘modernity’ is a complex narrative whose point of origination was Europe; a narrative that builds Western civilization by celebrating its achievements while hiding at the same time its darker side, ‘coloniality.’ Coloniality, in other words, is constitutive of modernity—there is no modernity without coloniality.”13 Thus, “the task of decolonial thinking is that of unveiling the rhetoric and promises of modernity, showing its darker side.”14 In approaching Revelation from this perspective, I aim to unveil the promises of the New Jerusalem, showing its darker side. As a decolonial reader, I refuse to consider Revelation as an anti-imperial narrative in the same way that empire-critical work does. In contrast to postcolonial approaches, I do not suggest that anti- and pro-imperial discourses paradoxically coexist in Revelation. Rather, reading Revelation through a decolonial lens, I suggest that the conquest of the Roman Empire—the so-called anti-imperial discourse—should be regarded as the means by which God’s Empire can accumulate excessive wealth, as I shall explain later. This should be understood as coloniality—the darker side of the heavenly city. As Mignolo emphasizes, “Modernity/coloniality are two sides of the same coin,”15 and thus, this concept should not be recognized as colonial ambivalence. As a Taiwanese reader who has witnessed the prc’s use of the Belt and Road Initiative and the discourse surrounding so-called “China’s peaceful rise” to conceal its darker side—economic and military oppression against other countries—illuminating the darker side of the New Jerusalem become the point of entry to my reading of Revelation, which is distinct from empire-critical and postcolonial biblical work.16
The City of Gemstones
Capitalist accumulation envisions obtaining the object that would provide the ultimate satisfaction for the desiring subject.
—todd mcgowan, Capitalism and Desire
Your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you; The wealth of the nations shall come to you.
—isaiah 60:517
Fred Magdoff remarks that capitalist economies are “based on the profit motive and accumulation of capital without end.” The rationale of capitalism is to maximise profits among the economic elite by creating wants and needs in people for market goods and services whether or not the desires mediated by the need-making system can be fulfilled.19
Capitalism commands accumulation as an end that the subject can never reach, and this command holds in all aspects of the capitalist system—production, distribution, and consumption. The producer must produce more in order to earn more money, the distributor must distribute more in order to maximize profit, and the consumer must consume more in order to find the truly satisfying object. In each case, the failure to accumulate enough is inscribed in the system and is the source of the satisfaction that the system offers.20
While ultimate satisfaction remains perpetually unattainable, people nonetheless continue to accumulate goods in a bid to avoid a sense of failure.21 Moreover, capitalism entices consumers to purchase more commodities than they need in the belief that they will attain ultimate satisfaction if they purchase the right objects. However, capitalist consumers often experience a sense of disappointment immediately after they purchase a new item.22 Of course, were this article to argue that “capitalism”23 existed in the Roman Empire or in John’s mind, such an argument would be historically anachronistic. However, the tendency to accumulate is undeniably present in both empires.24 Thus, in alignment with McGowan’s critique of capitalism, the paragraphs that follow will discuss the heavenly city’s harmful accumulation—a kind of proto-capitalism that emulates the Roman Empire’s economic system.
Clearly the expensive adornments of the harlot (17:4; 18:16) represent symbolically the imports listed in 18:12–13, the wealth of Rome (18:17a). The luxuries Rome imports are like the extravagant lifestyle which a rich courtesan maintains at the expense of her clients. They are the price which the kings of the earth have paid for the favours of the harlot (17:2; 18:3). But we must assume that while it is the kings who associate with the harlot—bringing their lands under her dominion and ruling in collaboration with her—the price is actually paid by their peoples. In the case of some of the items of merchandise, the trade was probably perceived by most provincials who, like John, did not benefit from it as directly exploitative, drawing resources to Rome which were needed in the provinces (such as wheat and slaves) or using local labour to extract expensive products at little benefit to local people (for example, marble). We shall later find evidence that anti-Roman sentiment in Asia Minor perceived the slave trade in that way …. But the trade with the east cannot have been seen as part of Rome’s exploitation of the empire in that way. Rather the point will be that the wealth Rome squanders on luxuries from all over the world was obtained by conquest, plunder and taxation of the provinces.25
As John notes in Revelation 18, the Roman Empire imported luxury goods by means of taxation, domination, and trade.26 More recently, Rohun Park has critiqued the Roman Empire’s economic system from the perspective of the South Korean context, asserting that “A prolonged monopolization of resources will also end with the fall of Babylon.”27 He believes that the oppressive accumulation of resources will end after the Empire of God has destroyed the Roman Empire. Barbara R. Rossing has similarly compared the New Jerusalem to Rome, arguing, “Like the bride of Rev 19:7–9, the new city is defined in contrasting parallelism to evil Babylon. New Jerusalem is the antithesis of toxic Babylon/Rome’s imperialism, violence, unfettered commerce, and injustice.”28
The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.
21:18–21
The New Jerusalem is also “exceedingly large,”30 suggesting that the Empire of God accumulated countless gemstones for the purpose of constructing this heavenly city. Robert M. Royalty highlights, “The jewels, crystal, gold, and pearls of the New Jerusalem show that this city is very wealthy, wealthier even than the destroyed city of Babylon.”31 Lynn R. Huber and Gail R. O’Day also point out, “The New Jerusalem’s opulent appearance may seem ostentatious and even hypocritical, given the earlier critique of Rome’s love of luxury and its participation in commerce (Rev 18) …. According to John’s vision, wealth is not a problem when it is in the city of God.”32 Royalty, Huber, and O’Day clearly have in mind the depiction of Rome’s wealth in Revelation 18 as they read Revelation 21’s description of the heavenly city’s luxury. These scholars acknowledge the fact that the New Jerusalem is even more luxurious than the extravagant earthly city of Rome, suggesting that the heavenly city is not simply “the antithesis of toxic Babylon/Rome’s imperialism.”33 Rather, I shall argue that the heavenly city replaces Rome, becoming the new megacity. This is the darker side of the New Jerusalem, as I shall elaborate later. Building on the above scholars’ critiques of the New Jerusalem’s extravagance, a decolonial reading would further examine the ethical issues that underlie the Empire of God’s accumulation of wealth. To borrow from Mignolo, I argue that in the heavenly city, “the economic rules and principles continue to be oriented to the horizon of accumulation of wealth, which anchors the power of decisions.”34
Here, I read the metaphor of the heavenly city neoliterally to unpack its inherent socioeconomic ideology.35 This approach prompts several questions:36 Where do these gemstones come from? Does the Empire of God purchase them? Do “the armies of heaven” (19:14) pillage them from the Roman Empire? Does God’s Empire contain mines from which precious stones may be extracted? While many scholars have sought to discover how the Roman Empire imports luxury goods in Revelation 18:12–13, they have not questioned how the Empire of God accumulates these luxury goods.37 However, the most critical question is why the Empire of God chooses to build a city of gemstones rather than assisting those who have survived the eschatological world wars to rebuild their hometowns.
Labor shortage will emerge as a grave problem in the aftermath of the devastating world wars of Revelation. According to Revelation 6:8, one-quarter of the world’s population dies at the beginning of this series of wars, and Revelation 9:15–18 reports that one-third of the survivors die.38 If numerous laborers or slaves—every follower of God and the Lamb in Revelation is explicitly described as a slave (δοῦλος—1:1; 2:20; 6:11; 7:3; 10:7; 11:8; 15:3; 19:2, 5; 22:3, 6)—are used to build this extravagant city,39 the other nations will struggle to find laborers to rebuild their cities and towns. While John criticizes the luxury of the Roman Empire in Revelation, he overlooks the New Jerusalem’s extravagance and the harm it causes to other nations, who, in addition, must bring it tribute (21:24–26).40
The “bodies and human souls” … certainly refers to slaves. The addition of “human souls” could be positive, emphasizing that they were not mere cattle but human beings…, or it could be negative, stressing that they were mere “human livestock” … On the basis of its place in the list (after cattle and sheep), the phrase more likely carries the negative connotation, for the Romans imported in credible numbers of slaves (estimated at 10 million, or close to 20 percent of the population of the Roman Empire), and the rich based their status somewhat on how many slaves they owned. Slaves were obtained through war, debt, parents selling their children for money, kidnapping, as punishment for criminals, or unwanted children exposed to the elements and left to die (common in the ancient world). While in the first century B.C., war produced the greatest number of slaves, during the Pax Romana, the others were the primary sources. Asia Minor was a primary source of wheat and slaves for Rome, heightening the sense that the list emphasized items that reflected not only the Romans’ lust for consumer goods but also their consequent exploitation and plundering of the other nations in the empire.41
Since the king is there, it is natural that οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ (…, his slaves will worship and serve him). The entire book is written to God’s “slaves” (1:1). It is his “slaves” who are “sealed” in 7:3, and God avenges their blood in 19:2. God’s “slaves the prophets” are shown what “must soon take place” (22:6) and along with the saints are to be rewarded at the eschaton (11:18). Close parallels to this passage are 19:5, where “you his slaves” are called on to “praise our God,” and 7:15, where the victorious saints “are before the throne of God, and they worship … him day and night in his temple.42
However, beyond the Roman Empire, it is the Empire of God that wages world wars in Revelation. In Revelation, the Empire of God is the strongest, overwhelming all others. Given that “in the first century B.C., war produced the greatest number of slaves,”43 we may reasonably ask whether the Empire of God also accumulates slaves through wars.
In the aftermath of the world wars, the New Jerusalem commandeers all resources, including food and water. As the world wars begin, people suffer from famine and raging inflation (6:5–6).44 The heavenly weapon of mass destruction—the rider on a pale horse, called Death (6:8)—then destroys one-third of the earth, trees, the sea and creatures living in it, ships, rivers, water, the sun, the moon, and even the stars (8:7–12). For this reason, “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (21:1). As Revelation concludes, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1) and thereafter immediately turns to describing the wealth of the New Jerusalem without introducing the situation of the new heaven and the new earth. John’s report (21–22) merely makes the reader aware that the New Jerusalem is wealthy and beautiful while leaving several questions about the new heaven and the earth outside of the wealthy city unaddressed. This new world should be understood as the world as it is after the devastating world wars rather than God’s new creation.45 Unlike the scenario described in Isaiah 65:17,46 God does not create a new world or restore the old world in Revelation 21:147 but rather chooses to build a wealthy city—the New Jerusalem. This environmental mega-disaster leaves the land scarcely able to produce food. During this difficult time, however, the Roman Empire is still in a position to accumulate valuable food resources, such as choice flour, wheat, cattle, and sheep (18:13). The victor, the Empire of God, subsequently controls all food production. Despite the pollution of the world’s seas, rivers, and water during the wars, the New Jerusalem can still produce clean water (21:6). While most of the land is barren owing to the devastation unleashed by the heavenly weapon of mass destruction, the New Jerusalem can still produce fresh fruit every month (22:2). How does the Empire of God enjoy such an abundance of resources?
The New Jerusalem promises survivors optimism through the accumulation of gemstones and bodily necessities: “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” (21:6b). John continues, “On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (22:2b). Here, the Empire of God promises the people commodities. However, the water, fruits, and leaves are not free; rather, the cost is absolute loyalty to the Empire of God (21:7–8). The wealthy city is using the ultimate means of satisfaction—water and food—to attract all nations, which must leverage their loyalty to procure the desired goods. Should this plan succeed, the New Jerusalem will become a megacity.
However, the Empire of God fails to achieve its objectives. The heavenly “war crimes trial”48 results in the enemies who have survived the world wars being cast into the “lake that burns with fire and sulfur” (21:8). The Empire of God expects that everyone will pay the price of loyalty that is required for the accumulation of resources. However, after the war crimes trial that follows the world wars and acts of genocide, most people remain opposed to the Empire of God: “Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (22:15). This blacklist indicates that the Empire of God will never attain that which it so greatly desires—the loyalty of all nations. Despite the New Jerusalem’s abundance of food, many people refuse to submit to the Empire of God.
The New Global City
The Global Cities
[Hardt and Negri’s] argument of non-place does not consider the placeness of global cities like New York, London, and Tokyo …. Global cities like New York, London, Tokyo, Frankfurt, and Paris are important, according to Sassen, in four ways: “first, as highly concentrated command points in the organization of the world economy; second, as key locations for finance and for specialized service firms, which have replaced manufacturing as the leading economic sectors; third, as sites of production, including the production of innovations, in those leading industries; and fourth, as markets for the products and innovations produced.51
As for financial control, just compare the number and size of banks, for example, in New York, London, or Frankfurt, on the one hand, versus the ones in Bolivia, Morocco, or India, on the other …. The center of economic, political, and epistemic power is located in Europe, supported by the US and Japan. The periphery of economic, political, and epistemic power is located in underdeveloped, dependent, and non-aligned geo-political spaces.52
The use of key national currencies instead of one denationalized currency in the present global trade and payment system violates the principle of credit money. The use of dollar (supported by euro and yen) as the world currency, international unit of value, and means of transfer of value violates the principle that money creation must be placed outside the markets for goods and service—that no participant should have the privilege of seigniorage, make purchases by issuing its money.54
Wariboko, writing in the African context, argues that this hegemonic economic system causes developing countries to suffer. For example, developing countries cannot engage in international trade in their own national currencies but are obliged to purchase American dollars as a foreign exchange reserve for exchange in the global market. By contrast, these global cities can use their own national currencies to procure goods and services on the international market and even enjoy the right to issue money on the international level.55 Argentine-Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel describes the imbalance between the “global cities”56 and the rest of the world: “The one born among the pygmies will strive to become a great hunter of animals; the one born in New York will strive to become a great entrepreneur (a hunter of persons).”57
The Rising Global City in East Asia
Speaking from personal experience, I have friends from developing countries who believe that the prc is akin to a divine power capable of resisting these global cities. As the name of the prc’s military—“the People’s Liberation Army”—suggests, many people believe that the prc is engaged in the liberation of developing countries from the hegemony of US capitalism. However, since China’s economic reform during the late 1970s, the prc has mimicked the capitalist system to counter hegemonic enterprises. As mentioned above, Mignolo identifies China as the leading force of “de-Westernization” and argues that “de-Westernization seeks to delink from the political and economic dictates of Western institutions in order to dispute the control and management by the [colonial matrix of power].”58 The prc has officially proclaimed that it is working to establish the Chinese Yuan as one of the world’s dominant currencies. Moreover, many scholars maintain that Beijing has become one of these global cities.59 However, despite the prc’s claims that the Belt and Road Initiative is aimed at forging win–win deals with other countries, many nations, such as Sri Lanka, suffer as a result of these Chinese “debt traps.”60 Moreover, the Trans-Eurasia Logistics/China Railway Express allows goods to be transported from Beijing to Berlin by rail, indicating that the prc has built a strong international trade network.
Taiwan has trade agreements with very few other countries as a result of the prc flexing its economic and military muscles and forcing other countries to isolate Taiwan. Given the prc’s incessant attempts to colonize Taiwan, the country suffers as a result of being in the shadow of the prc’s economic power and is now engaged in diplomatic relations with only twelve countries.61 In 2021, after Lithuania allowed Taiwan to establish a representative office in Vilnius and to do so under the name of Taiwan rather than Taipei,62 the country’s capital, the prc took revenge by blocking Lithuanian goods at customs and imposing a series of economic sanctions on Lithuania.63 As Mignolo points out, “de-Westernization doesn’t question the ‘nature’ of the world economy, capitalism.”64 The prc does not actually aim to liberate itself or others from the hegemonic capitalist economy. Rather, Beijing desires to replace New York and become the world’s greatest capitalist global city.
The New Global City on Earth
When Revelation is read from the Taiwanese perspective, it becomes clear that the Empire of God has replaced the Roman Empire as the new global city. John, the author of Revelation, repeatedly condemns the nations that have an intimate relationship with the Roman Empire (18:3, 20:3, 8; also cf. 2:26, 16:19; 19:15), implying the Empire of God’s hatred of the global city, Rome.65 Park, like John, critiques the Roman Empire and its colonial agents: “All these colonial agents lament over their dispossession and rejection from the world they once ruled over. As God’s judgment falls on Babylon, the power and construct of imperial economy breaks apart.”66 Notably, however, the New Jerusalem also becomes a great global city after the world wars and the geo-theo-political reshaping of the entire earth that they have wrought: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (21:24). Thus, rather than resisting its system, the Empire of God replaces Rome as the global city.
From a modern perspective we might hope that the New Jerusalem is an accepting and inclusive vision, rather than a vision of a city that is off limits to those who are categorized as sinners or irredeemable, especially since some of these categories have been used to justify oppression. For John, however, the image of the New Jerusalem is about containing and comforting those who he understands as faithful and setting limits, for a container has limits, between them and the unfaithful or impure.67
In parallel, countries that fail to support China’s aggressive behavior toward Taiwan and that thereby fail to receive the prc’s seal of approval are not permitted to trade with the prc.
In Revelation, after the world wars, when people are living through horrible famine, nations cannot refuse trade with the New Jerusalem. As mentioned above, inflation and famine proliferate in the aftermath of devastating war. This might induce people to abandon money-based economies in favor of a return to barter systems (i.e., the use of food or other material resources as currency). Under the barter system, when the heavenly city accumulates unlimited food resources (21:6; 22:1–2), it can issue an unlimited world currency (food). This analysis accounts for the New Jerusalem’s ability to purchase copious quantities of gemstones for use as building materials. When the holy city’s national currency—water and fruit—become the world’s currency, heavenly citizens can buy whatever they want from other nations. By taking advantage of the world wars and the capacity for accumulation that they facilitate, the New Jerusalem replaces Rome as a new hyper-prosperous, global city.
Mignolo argues that “a capitalist economy, as we know it today, couldn’t have existed without the ‘discovery and conquest of the Americas’,” because Western people occupied and exploited massive tracts of land and labor in the Americas to support the production of commodities.68 Europeans derived abundant capital from these resources, which allowed them to control the global market.69 Reading the heavenly city from Mignolo’s perspective, the New Jerusalem defeated the Roman Empire and usurped its enormous resources, which enabled this new global city to control the global market after the world wars or the wars of conquest that it had waged.
The Armed City
These advantages, which an imperial-currency nation like the United States enjoys, are often mutually imbricated with domineering military prowess. Indeed, having a credible military capability has always been one of the requirements for a country to maintain its position as the issuer of world’s primary reserve currency. Britain emerged as the hegemonic world economy leader with the necessary military might after the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 at the end of the Napoleonic war. It was able to impose a new global order based on the sterling standard. On September 21, 1931, Britain suspended the gold backing of the sterling. After fourteen years of chaos with the United States taking up the slack left by Britain, the dollar emerged as the undisputed world currency at the end of the Second World War. Once again it had the relative economic size advantage, expansive financial market, and military might and commitment to back up the world’s number one currency, the “almighty dollar.” The hegemonic stability provided by the United States gave the prospect of long-term peace to enable entrepreneurs and investors to make long-range decisions.70
This was also the time when America openly used its military prowess to force its allies to hold the dollar as their primary reserve currency. “The German objections to holding the overhang of excessive dollars … were suppressed by the U.S. counter-threat of troop withdrawal” in the tense context of cold war conflict and a divided Germany.71
What the main drift of the twentieth century has revealed is that as the economy has become concentrated and incorporated into great hierarchies, the military has become enlarged and decisive to the shape of the entire economic structure; and, moreover, the economic and the military have become structurally and deeply interrelated, as the economy has become a seemingly permanent war economy; and military men and policies have increasingly penetrated the corporate economy.73
Following suit, Michael Beckley has claimed that “military effectiveness is primarily a product of economic development. In particular, economically developed states tend to possess more sophisticated and reliable equipment and more skilled military personnel than less developed states.”74 According to Wariboko, imperialist military–economic systems may incarnate in several versions. The power may be a “military force” to stabilize its own country, a “military threat” to dominate other countries, or a “military umbrella” that effectively keeps other countries in its shadow of influence.75 Through these different incarnations, a national military power turns its national currency into a powerful world currency.
In addition to expanding its military footprint, Beijing has announced and enforced fishing and resource-exploitation restrictions in various parts of the South China Sea, empowered its coast guard and maritime militia to interfere with the vessels of other nations, regularly allowed Chinese-flagged fishing boats to exploit endangered species in disputed areas, and made clear that it intends to disregard any legal challenges to its claims.77
In mid-2016, for instance, Beijing simply brushed aside the ruling of the arbitral tribunal that largely invalidated the nine-dash line and found that many of China’s maritime claims and activities were not in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Finally, Beijing has become more assertive in challenging foreign activity in the South China Sea by increasing its own military presence in the area.78
China’s navy has been demonstratively more aggressive at sea, seizing fishing boats, arresting sailors from other countries, and exchanging gunfire. As General Mi Zhenyu stated, China must develop a strong sea power to protect and not yield a single inch of its three million square kilometers of ocean territory. China must “build a new Chinese maritime great wall.”79
For this reason, H. Sonmez Atesoglu argues, “In light of the rapid economic and military expansion of China in recent decades, an important idea was advanced that China will become the dominant regional power in Asia.”80
After the victory over Carthage, Rome entered [a] period of rapid political and commercial growth. She had departed once and for all from the simple conditions of the Italian [city-state]; she was on the road to becoming a world power and must expand her coinage to answer to her new position. The indemnity from Carthage and the spoils of defeated enemies in East and West relieved her of any difficulty about supplies of bullion. Inflation of the coinage was inevitable, but it was inflation of the better kind, the issue of ever-increasing amounts of good money.82
Harl concludes, “Imperialism, not commerce, propelled the monetization of Roman Italy.”83
In Revelation, John appears to condemn the Roman military–economic system, writing, “Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation” (13:7). Park also points out, “With this power (patria potestas), scarcity was justified, and lands such as Palestine were invaded and appropriated. People easily lost their wealth and their access to basic resources.”84 Thus, the Roman Empire’s military might was sufficiently powerful to conquer other nations and compel them to join the Roman economic system and use the mark of the emperor (i.e., the “beast”), without which people could not engage in commerce with or within the Roman Empire (13:16–17). As mentioned above, the official coin would have the emperor’s face imprinted on it. Revelation concludes with the emperor being “thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” (19:20) by the heavenly military. While this story appears to suggest that God liberates the oppressed from oppressive imperial military–economic systems, this is not the complete picture.
Instead, the Empire of God builds another powerful imperial military–economic system. Without paying attention to the Empire of God’s oppressive economic system, Park argues, “Revelation … foster[s] a liberating new narrative for those living under global capitalism.”85 However, I argue that in light of the contemporary Chinese imperial military–economic system, for those living between China’s capitalism and the United States’ capitalism, Revelation fosters, not a liberating narrative, but an oppressive narrative.86 From this perspective, it is naïve to assume that all nations in Revelation merely suffer as a result of the Roman imperial military–economic system. In Revelation, God—the supreme military commander—unleashes the heavenly weapon of mass destruction, which can easily destroy the natural world and everyone in it. In the absence of a treaty to regulate the heavenly weapon of mass destruction, no nation can resist the Empire of God. Colleen M. Conway argues, “This is the mimicry of imperial violence …. The author of Revelation has no qualms in presenting a violent side of his images of Christ.”87 Finally, the Empire of God’s absolute military power allows it to create a new order, infrastructure, food production system, and economic system centered on a new global megacity—the New Jerusalem.88 Just like the prc’s People’s Liberation Army, the heavenly People’s Liberation Army (cf. 19:14: “the armies of heaven … following him on white horses”) does not aim to liberate people from the imperial military–economic system. Rather, the New Jerusalem simply replaces the megacity of Rome to become the new imperial military–economic superpower.
Decolonial theory, associated with such names as Aníbal Quijano, Walter D. Mignolo, Sylvia Wynter, and María Lugones, is different from postcolonial theory, which is more familiar to biblical scholars and associated with such names as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha. Further on decolonial theory, see Aníbal Quijano, “Questioning ‘Race,’” Socialism and Democracy, 21.1 (2007), pp. 45–53; Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018); Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” The New Centennial Review 3.3 (2003), pp. 257–337; María Lugones, “Coloniality of Gender,” Worlds & Knowledges Otherwise 2.2 (2008), pp. 1–17; Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). For applications of decolonial theory to biblical studies, see Gregory Allen Banazak and Luis Reyes Ceja, “The Challenge and Promise of Decolonial Thought to Biblical Interpretation,” Postscripts 4.1 (2008), pp. 113–27; Stephen D. Moore, Decolonial Theory and Biblical Unreading: Delinking Biblical Criticism from Coloniality (Leiden: Brill, 2024).
Walter D. Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” in Ada María Isasi-Díaz and Eduardo Mendieta (eds.), Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy (New York: Fordham University, 2012), p. 37.
Walter D. Mignolo, The Politics of Decolonial Investigations (Durham and London: Duke University, 2021), p. 296.
Ibid., p. xi.
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., p. 21. What is the colonial matrix of power (cmp)? Mignolo argues that “coloniality” is “a shorthand for the colonial matrix of power” (Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” p. 21). Aníbal Quijano distinguishes coloniality from colonialism, arguing: “Coloniality, then, is still the most general form of domination in the world today, once colonialism as an explicit political order was destroyed. It doesn’t exhaust, obviously, the conditions nor the modes of exploitation and domination between peoples. But it hasn’t ceased to be, for 500 years, their main framework. The colonial relations of previous periods probably did not produce the same consequences, and, above all, they were not the corner stone of any global power” (Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21.2–3 [2007], pp. 168–78 [170]). Mignolo adds, “Coloniality refers to a matrix for management and control of the economy, authority, knowledge, gender, sexuality, and subjectivity” (Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” p. 24).
Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), p. 32.
Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” p. 37.
The People’s Republic of China (prc) is the official name of China. The prc is different from the Republic of China (roc)—the first China. In 1949, the roc lost the civil war to the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) and escaped to its colony, Taiwan. After that, the ccp established the prc—the second China.
Moore, Decolonial Theory and Biblical Unreading, p. 4.
See Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1999), pp. 157–96.
Stephen D. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), p. 118; see also Shanell T. Smith, The Woman Babylon and the Marks of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), p. 177; Lynne St. Clair Darden, Scripturalizing Revelation: An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire (Atlanta: sbl Press, 2015), p. 135.
Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, pp. 2–3.
Ibid., p. 122.
Mignolo, The Politics of Decolonial Investigations, p. 156.
For a far more thorough comparative presentation of empire-critical, postcolonial, and decolonial work, see Moore, Decolonial Theory and Biblical Unreading, pp. 4–49.
Many scholars have related Revelation 21:24–26 to Isaiah 60. See n. 40 below.
Todd McGowan, Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), p. 21.
D. Kamalakar Jayakumar, “A System of Equality and Non-acquisitiveness as a Subversion of the Greed-Based Capitalism and the Patronage System,” Asia Journal of Theology 30.2 (2007), pp. 237–54 (237–38).
McGowan, Capitalism and Desire, p. 22.
Ibid., p. 34.
Ibid., p. 38.
For an extensive survey of the definitions of capitalism, see Frederic C. Lane, “Meanings of Capitalism,” The Journal of Economic History 29.1 (1969), pp. 5–12; Clive Beed and Cara Beed, “Conceptions of Capitalism in Biblical Theology,” ert 40:3 (2016), pp. 264–80 (264–65).
Unlike modern capitalism, the Roman Empire was not a consumer-driven economy. However, this does not mean that “over-consumption by the rich” could not be found in ancient Rome. As Karl Marx explains, “They used a large part of the surplus-product for unproductive expenditure on art, religious works and public works …. The wealth which they produced for private consumption was … relatively small and only appears great because it was amassed in the hands of a few persons, who, incidentally, did not know what to do with it. Although, therefore, there was no over-production among the ancients, there was over-consumption by the rich, which in the final periods of Rome and Greece turned into mad extravagance.” Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, vol. 4 of Capital (trans. S. Ryazanskaya; Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), part ii, p. 528.
Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (London: T&T Clark, 1993), p. 370. See also G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, (nigtc; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), pp. 909–10; Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, (becnt; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), pp. 647–50.
For a study of the luxury goods in Revelation 18:12–13, see Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, (nicnt; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, rev. edn, 1998), pp. 332–34; David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22 (wbc, 52C; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), pp. 998–1003; Craig R. Koester, Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (ayb, 38A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 702–6.
Rohun Park, “Revelation for Sale: An Intercultural Reading of Revelation 18 from an East Asian Perspective,” Bible and Critical Theory 4:2 (2008), pp. 25.1–25.12 (25.8).
Barbara R. Rossing, The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride, and Empire in the Apocalypse (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999), p. 144.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “world war” as “A war involving many nations of the world” (https://www.oed.com/dictionary/world-war_n?tl=true, accessed November 8, 2024). In Revelation, Jesus, at the head of “the armies of heaven” (19:14), is the one who wages war against many nations (19:19) and conquers them to collect many diadems (“he … wages war …. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems”—19:11c–12), so that he replaces the Roman emperor and becomes the new mega-emperor: “King of kings and Lord of lords” (19:16). Unfortunately, “the rest were killed by the sword”—the heavenly weapon of mass destruction—“of the rider on the horse” (19:21).
Stephen D. Moore, Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation: Sex and Gender, Empire, and Ecology, Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta: sbl Press, 2014), p. 236. Moore states, “Ecotheological and ecojustice engagement with Revelation has tended to have recourse to the blueprint of the new Jerusalem to extract positive ecological visions from the blighted landscapes of this disaster-ridden book” (p. 235). He further argues, “Attention to the size of the heavenly city has been all but absent from ecocritical, ecotheological, and ecojustice work on Revelation” (p. 236, n. 21). Moore’s ecocritical, ecotheological, and ecojustice analysis of the heavenly city is not positive. According to Moore, the New Jerusalem has become “a megalopolis that is a continent-sized shopping mall” (p. 225). Although Moore does not mention it, the New Jerusalem—the “continent-sized shopping mall”—is absolutely larger than Rome’s market.
Robert M. Royalty, The Streets of Heaven: The Ideology of Wealth in the Apocalypse of John (Macon: Mercer University), p. 230. According to Royalty, John “distinguish[s] the ‘good wealth’ of God from the ‘bad wealth’ of Babylon/Rome” (p. 206). He further explains, “The wealth of the New Jerusalem is eternal and uncorrupted; it is also ideologically pure. And the wealth of Babylon, which functions in the Apocalypse as ‘earthly wealth,’ is associated with a cluster of impure motifs: Satan, fornication, commerce” (p. 239). In light of Royalty’s words, it seems to me that distinguishing the “good wealth” of God from the “bad wealth” of Babylon/Rome becomes a means for Revelation to justify the Empire of God’s wealth accumulation. However, essentially speaking, God’s Empire’s wealth accumulation is not different from the Roman Empire’s wealth accumulation.
Lynn R. Huber and Gail R. O’Day, Revelation, (wc, 58; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2023), p. 336. Although Huber and O’day notice the heavenly city’s extravagance, they attempt to lessen its negative meaning: “In fact, according to ancient logic, the wealth of the New Jerusalem reflects the city’s greatness and points to the character of its inhabitants. In a culture in which citizens demonstrated their goodness by making civic donations, the city’s facades and statuary revealed the generosity of the city’s patrons” (p. 336). However, as I will unpack later, the heavenly city only shows generosity toward those who have received the divine seal (21:27). This pattern is similar to the Roman Empire’s economic system: “No one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name” (13:17).
Rossing, The Choice Between Two Cities, p. 144.
Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, p. 32.
On the benefits of reading Revelation neoliterally, Moore argues, “And just as I have found it fruitful elsewhere (Moore 1996, 117–38; 2001, 175–99 passim) to read Revelation’s God as human—more precisely, to ask what kind of divine–human relations are encoded in this human, all too human deity—so I am attempting here to read Revelation’s metaphorical, all too metaphorical animals as animals in the interests of deciphering the human–animal relations encrypted in them. In other words, and taking my cue from Rosi Braidotti, I am attempting a ‘neoliteral’ reading of Revelation’s animetaphors” (Moore, Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation, p. 228). Following suits, this article aims to read the New Jerusalem as a city—more precisely, a megacity. I am reading Revelation’s metaphorical wealthy city as a city in the interest of deciphering the megacity–margins relations encrypted in it.
I am not, of course, implying that this article is using a neoliteral reading strategy to uncover the Revelation author’s intentions. On strategies for reading “against the grain of the biblical authors’ intentions,” see Stephen D. Moore, The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays (Atlanta: sbl Press, 2010), p. 358; idem, Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), p. 52. As I read Revelation 21 neoliterally in this article, “the biblical text is read as covertly complicit imperialist and colonialist literature—or, more precisely, as literature that, irrespective of the conscious intentionality of its author, insidiously reinscribes imperial and colonial ideologies even while appearing to resist them” (Moore, Empire and Apocalypse, p. 14).
See Mounce, The Book of Revelation, pp. 332–34, 93–95; Aune, Revelation 17–22, pp. 998–1003, 1163–66; Beale, The Book of Revelation, pp. 909–10, 1079–90; Osborne, Revelation, pp. 647–50, 754–59; Koester, Revelation, pp. 702–6, 817–20.
“They were given authority over a fourth of the earth. Authority over a fourth of the earth shows the magnitude of the threat as well as its limit: one-fourth, not more. In the trumpet visions the scale increases so that a third of the earth is damaged and a third of humanity is killed (Rev 8:1–12; 9:15, 18)” (Koester, Revelation, p. 398).
Many scholars have critiqued the intimate relationship between capitalism and enslavement. Steed Vernyl Davidson argues: “Capitalism as an engine of empire requires access to cheap labor, preferably free labor in the form of slaves …. Ultimately, sub-Saharan Africans fill out the ancient question of the ideal slave due to various forms of anti-black racism. Though David Davis attributes the eventual firm equation of sub-Saharan Africans with slavery as a function of racism, the fact remains that slavery facilitated the capitalist impulses of empire. The logic of darkness as the ideal expression of slavery created not simply a class of permanent slaves but hierarchies of unfree labor that would characterize European empires across four continents” (Steed Vernyl Davidson, “Bible, Empire, Liberalism, and Racial Capitalism,” in R. S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism [New York: Oxford University Press, 2023], p. 602). Daisy L. Machado also states, “In reality, capitalism in the United States is a deeply entrenched ideology (belief system) that has survived and benefited from slavery, immigrant labor, and other forms of exploitation” (Daisy L. Machado, “Capitalism, Immigration, and the Prosperity Gospel” atr 92.4 [2010], pp. 723–30 [723]). Following suit, Mignolo points out that “enslaved and waged labor became naturalized in the process of creating an economy of accumulation that is today recognized as capitalist economic mentality” (Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, p. 12).
“Through the inclusion of Isa. 60, Rev. 21.24–26 emphasizes the future glorification of Jerusalem and the role that the nations play as bearers of tribute to Jerusalem, effecting an eschatological reversal. As such, the light of the new Jerusalem, as in Isa. 60, functions to draw the nations to the city. In contrast to the role which the nations and kings played in bringing their tribute to Babylon (cf. Rev. 17–18), they now bring their tribute to the new Jerusalem (21.24–26), highlighting the eschatological reversal that will take place (David Mathewson, A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Meaning and Function of the Old Testament in Revelation 21.1–22.5 (JSNTSup, 238; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003], p. 167). On the other hand, although Osborne also relates Rev 21:24–26 to Isaiah 60, he does not agree that all nations have to bring their “tribute” to the New Jerusalem, arguing, “John has transformed the Isaianic imagery of 60:1–2. In 60:5 it says, ‘The wealth of the nations will come to you,’ and 60:11 states ‘Men may bring you the wealth of the nations—their kings led in triumphal procession.’ The imagery is that of military victory. As Oswalt (1998:547–48) says, ‘in its victory parades ancient Rome customarily displayed all the spoils of the defeated people …. The climax of the parade was the victor in his chariot, leading the highest living official, preferably the king, of the defeated country as his slave. It is reasonable to believe that the Romans did not begin this practice.’ John has changed this imagery of wealth to οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς φέρουσιν τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν εἰς αὐτήν (…, the kings of the earth will carry their glory into it). In other words, John has replaced the idea of military victory and plunder with that of conversion and worship. By inserting ‘glory’ instead of ‘wealth,’ there has been a subtle shift of emphasis …. As Beale (1999:1095) says, ‘They are bringing not literal riches but themselves as worshipers before God’s end-time presence (so 22:3–5)’” (Osborne, Revelation, pp. 762–63). See also Beale, The Book of Revelation, p. 1095; Allan J. McNicol, The Conversion of the Nations in Revelation (lnts, 438; London: T&T Clark, 2011), p. 80.
Osborne, Revelation, p. 650. See also Mounce, The Book of Revelation, p. 334; Beale, The Book of Revelation, p. 910; Koester, Revelation, pp. 705–6.
Osborne, Revelation, p. 773. See also Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), p. 99. In a different way, Royalty does not read the term “slave” negatively either: “The positive connotations carried by slave metaphors in Revelation, as with its use in other early Christian literature, reflect the positive aspects associated with slavery in the social world of the Greco-Roman audiences of these texts. We should not be misled by the negative connotations the word ‘slave’ has in modern English usage” (Royalty, The Streets of Heaven, p. 137). He further explains, “Revelation portrays God as more powerful, and wealthier, than any contender the Romans might put forward: proconsul, high priest, Caesar himself. And, the more powerful the master or patron, the more powerful the head slave. The rhetoric of slavery in Revelation raises the status of John within the Christian communities of Asian, since he is the slave deemed worthy to receive the apokalypsis from this wealthy and powerful God” (p. 139).
Osborne, Revelation, p. 650.
“The most common interpretation of the black horse and rider is that they symbolize famine. Famine is implied by the balance and the exorbitant prices” (Mounce, The Book of Revelation, p. 144).
In contrast, David Mathewson believes that Revelation 20:1 refers to God’s new creation. He relates 20:1 to Isaiah 65:17, arguing, “It must be observed that the primary concern of John’s vision is with the results of the creative act rather than the process. The author has taken over the post-exilic promise from Third Isaiah, which emphasizes the discontinuity between the old and the new, transformed order, and further heightens the antithesis between the old creation and the radical new beginning which would be inaugurated by an all-embracing, creative act of God” (Mathewson, A New Heaven and a New Earth, pp. 38–39). Then, Pilchan Lee recognizes the creation as “the restoration of the first creation … rather than the removal of the first creation” (Pilchan Lee, The New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation: A Study of Revelation 21–22 in the Light of its Background in Jewish Tradition [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001], pp. 268–69). For an ecological lens of restoring/healing the world, see Barbara R. Rossing, “For the Healing of the World: Reading Revelation Ecologically,” in David Rhoads (ed.), From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), pp. 165–82; Ryan L. Hansen, “On Trying to Praise the Mutilated World Reading Revelation in the Midst of Ecological Crisis,” in Bruce Worthington (ed.), Reading the Bible in an Age of Crisis: Political Exegesis for a New Day (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), pp. 285–312; Barbara R. Rossing, “Lost Land: Visualizing Deforestation and Eschatology in the Apocalypse of John and the Column of Trajan in Rome,” in Jione Havea (ed.), People and Land: Decolonizing Theologies (Lanham: Fortress Academic, 2019), pp. 159–74.
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa. 65:17).
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Rev. 20:1).
Yuki Takatori, focusing on the war crimes trial in Tokyo after wwii, argues, “The allies hoped that trying and punishing the former rulers of Germany and Japan—thus revealing the Axis powers’ folly and cruelty—would leave an indelible impression on the consciousness of the defeated nations, ‘educating’ people and causing them to reject all that their former leaders represented” (“The Forgotten Judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial,” Massachusetts Historical Review 10 [2008], p. 116). From this perspective, I would argue that after the Empire of God wins the world wars, a war crimes trial is held to punish the enemies, thereby “‘educating’ the people [of the surviving ‘nations’ (21:24–26)] and causing them to reject all that their former leaders represented.” In the heavenly war crimes trial, the leaders of the defeated nation, the devil, beast, and false prophet, are sentenced to eternal torture (19:20; 20:10). However, the trial does not end after punishing these leaders. Those who have died because of the world wars are put on trial by force (“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne …. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done”—20:12–13). Unfortunately, they are also sentenced to eternal torture (20:15). These common people lose their human right to rest in peace simply because they do not belong to the victorious nation (“anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire”—20:15). In addition, the heavenly war crimes trial does not omit the survivors of the defeated nation. Though they have survived the cruel world wars, they cannot escape from the ruthless judgment (“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur”—21:8).
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2000), p. xiv.
Ibid., p. xii.
Nimi Wariboko, God and Money: A Theology of Money in a Globalizing World (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), p. 167.
Walter D. Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), pp. 12, 44.
Wariboko, God and Money, p. 172.
Ibid., p. 172.
Ibid., pp. 173–74.
Further on the study of global cities, see Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy (Thousand Oak: Pine Forge Press, 2000); Ravi Ghadge, “Toward a Critical Understanding of the World/Global City Paradigm,” The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology 11.1 (2019).
Enrique Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation (trans. Aquilina Martinez and Christine Morkovsky; Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985), p. 25.
Mignolo, The Politics of Decolonial Investigations, pp. 20–21.
See Jiao Wang et al., “A Comparative Study of Beijing and Three Global Cities: A Perspective on Urban Livability,” Frontiers of Earth Science 5.3 (2011), pp. 323–29; Peter Newman and Andy Thornley, “Case Study Window–Global Cities: Governance Cultures and Urban Policy in New York, Paris, Tokyo and Beijing,” in Greg Young and Deborah Stevenson (eds.), The Routledge Research Companion to Planning and Culture (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 69–84; Li Zhifeng, Fang Ying, and Xiao Yang, “Global City Hypotheses and Social Polarization: Empirical Analysis of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou,” China City Planning Review 29.2 (2020), pp. 66–75; Yi Li, “Small Cities and Towns in Global City-centred Regionalism: Observations from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China,” Transactions in Planning and Urban Research 2.1 (2023), pp. 103–14.
See Cissy Zhou, “Sri Lanka’s China ‘Debt Trap’ Fears Grow as Beijing Keeps Investing,” Nikkei Asia, January 2, 2024, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Sri-Lanka-s-China-debt-trap-fears-grow-as-Beijing-keeps-investing.
The twelve countries are as follows: Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, the Holy See, Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tuvalu.
For instance, in the US, the name of Taiwan’s representative office is “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York.”
See Thomas J. Shattuck, “Lithuania’s Bet on Taiwan and What It Means for Europe,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 12, 2023, https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/07/lithuanias-bet-on-taiwan-and-what-it-means-for-europe/.
Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” p. 37.
Rome had two striking titles: Urbs Aeterna (The Eternal City) and Caput Mundi (The Capital of the World). See Samuel Kliger, “The ‘Urbs Æterna’ in Paradise Regained,” pmla 61.2 (1946), pp. 474–91; Filippo Carlà-Uhink, “Caput mundi: Rome as Center in Roman Representation and Construction of Space,” Ancient Society 47 (2017), pp. 119–57.
Park, “Revelation for Sale,” p. 25.6.
Lynn R. Huber, Thinking and Seeing with Women in Revelation (lnts, 475; London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 86.
Walter D. Mignolo, “Delinking,” Cultural Studies, 21:2 (2007), pp. 449–514 (477).
Ibid., pp. 481–82.
Wariboko, God and Money, p. 181.
Ibid., p. 176.
Ibid., p. 181.
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 215. See also Andrew K. Jorgenson et al., “Guns versus Climate: How Militarization Amplifies the Effect of Economic Growth on Carbon Emissions,” American Sociological Review 88.3 (2023), pp. 418–53.
Michael Beckley, “Economic Development and Military Effectiveness,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 33.1 (2010), pp. 43–79.
Wariboko, God and Money, p. 184.
“2022 Military Strength Ranking,” Global Firepower, https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php, accessed January 16, 2022.
Hal Brands and Zack Cooper, “Getting Serious About Strategy in the South China Sea,” Naval War College Review 71.1 (2018), pp. 12–32 (15).
Ibid., p. 15.
Nalanda Roy, “The Dragon’s Charm Diplomacy in the South China Sea,” Indian Journal of Asian Affairs 30.1/2 (2017), pp. 15–28 (20).
H. Sonmez Atesoglu, “Economic Growth and Military Spending in China: Implications for International Security,” International Journal of Political Economy 40.2 (2013), pp. 88–100 (90).
Kenneth W. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1996), p. 36.
Harold Mattingly, Roman Coins (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 2nd edn, 1960), p. 87.
Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, p. 36.
Park, “Revelation for Sale,” p. 25.4.
Ibid., p. 25.6.
This reading adds to the many readings that showcase Revelation’s oppressive elements. See Tina Pippin, Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image (London: Routledge, 1999); Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 159–74; Matthew Streett, Here Comes the Judge: Violent Pacifism in the Book of Revelation (lnts, 462; London: T&T Clark, 2012); Moore, Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation, pp. 39–73; David L. Barr, “Violence in the Apocalypse of John,” in Craig R. Koester (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation (New York, Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 291–306.
Conway, Behold the Man, p. 162.
That is why the three sections in this article are inseparable. The imperial military–economic system is a means for the Heavenly Empire to build a new global city, and the desire for wealth accumulation motivates the Heavenly Empire to achieve this goal.
