The
Book of Revelation is something of a cultural and spiritual rorschach test; people see very different things in it, and there's no one "correct" way of reading it. Ever since it was received into the canon of Christian scripture, church communities and faithful people have struggled with the text. Springing as it does from a context of deep alienation from and oppression by a dominant culture (the Roman empire), it has found its most enthusiastic readers amongst groups who likewise experience themselves and their most closely held beliefs as profoundly at odds with their surrounding cultural milieu.
At the outset of
Can I Get A Witness? Bryan K. Blount admits that
Revelation was not originally the book of scripture that most drew his attention, but that once he engaged with it he found it to be a text that lends itself particularly well to his cultural-studies-based hermeneutic. Blount rejects universalizing methods of interpretation which "dismiss readings 'from below,' to appeal instead to 'objective' methodologies that valorize the dominant cultural ideology inscribed within them, while all the time arguing that no such ideology exists." (p. 17) By insisting that no reader of biblical texts is an "academic construct or scholarly paradigm" (p. 21), a cultural studies approach calls attention to the cultural lens through which we read scripture, seeks out and presents an alternative lens (in Blount's case that of African American experience), and thereby also helps us to recognize and value the different cultural contexts embedded in the Bible itself. (p. 26)
After treating the classical approach to biblical interpretation quite dismissively, Blount nevertheless proceeds to use many of its academic and scholarly techniques in his subsequent analysis of the role of "witness" and the slaughtered Lamb: historical context as reconstructed from a variety of sources, close reading of the Greek text, and literary analysis of the metaphorical tropes employed. Once he has developed his thesis about John's intention — that of provoking Christians to claim their identity as witnesses of God in Christ and thereby actively put themselves, as it were, in harm's way in a hostile environment — he seeks and finds a parallel in the actions of African Americans and their allies during the Civil Rights movement. This seems an appropriate and helpful comparison, especially as prominent leaders of that movement were both Christian and members of the oppressed group, and consciously drew upon their Christian heritage and traditions to fuel their resistance. In reminding readers that the response to oppression and the hope for liberation and vindication found in Revelation is not a mere historical artifact, but something that continues to speak to marginalized, alienated, and persecuted communities to this day, Blount provides us with a useful way into this difficult scripture — one which can be revisited and reframed by others in similar circumstances.
In what seems to me like a strained reach for relevance, however, Blount goes on to try to make a case for a parallel between the hymns found in Revelation and contemporary rap music. I was with him while he built is case for similarity with spirituals and gospel music. I was less persuaded by the attempt to bring blues into the picture and then utterly skeptical when he tried to extend the argument for a similarity in role (the vital and sustaining expression of cultural resistance, albeit secular, by an oppressed group) for rap. He hinges part of his case on one or two slim uses of Christian language and imagery in Tupac Shakur's oeuvre (personally, I'd have been more impressed by a reference to Kanye West, who is not a gangsta rapper) and claims that the misogyny and violence of rap actually connect it to Revelation.
The notion that rap is primarily a cry of resistance to the dominant culture is, I think, at best deeply flawed and incomplete. Contrary to Blount's claims, I think rap represents an attempt to appropriate the values and ideals of the dominant culture in an extreme, almost caricatured fashion. The American dream of individual power, achievement, and material gratification is writ large in the Thug Life of guns, drugs, hos, and lots of money. I don't buy the argument that most rap is "rapping on Rome" (p. 117). The main "counter-cultural" thing about it, if there is one, is the notion that disempowered Black men are claiming it for themselves, frequently by illegal and/or violent means. Salvation in gangsta rap is bought by becoming dominant oneself at any cost; nothing could be more unlike the salvation described in the hymns of Revelation, where it is an almighty God and the witnessing and sacrificed Lamb who do the saving and who are glorified with praise.
I find this particular interpretative move by Blount unsuccessful; frankly, I also suspect it would be laughed out of school by most fans of rap music (of which, I confess, I am not one). There are few things less helpful to the Gospel message than strained grasps for contemporary "relevance" that fall embarrassingly flat. The very overwhelming success of rap music itself — its vastly lucrative creation and consumption as part and parcel of the culture it supposedly critiques, and in which it has achieved widespread, mainstream acceptance (the overwhelming majority of consumers of rap are middle class and White) — makes it a poor candidate as a parallel to the songs of Revelation. In this case, I'd say Blount is looking at a black-and-white ink blot but describing a radio broadcast: these two things are simply not like each other at all.
Blount is most successful when he speaks from his own solid scholarship and personal life experience and interests (e.g., the Civil Rights struggle), and less so when dealing with material with which he is less familiar. I would wager money, for example, that he is not himself an avid listener to rap music; his analysis seems primarily to draw on others' descriptions. I find
Can I Get A Witness? to be a curious mixture of solid scholarship, imaginative interpretation, and occasionally downright misguided contemporary parallels. It will serve me both as a useful model and as a cautionary counterexample for how scripture can creatively be read through a particular cultural lens.
Reading: Blount, Bryan K.
Can I Get A Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture. 2005. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
Labels: religion, seminary, writing
