Stripped of its apocalyptic end-of-the-world images, Revelation is politically, economically and socially relevant to every age, suggests Ian Harris.
The drive for scientific advance needs to be weighed urgently against the risk of unimaginable calamity for life on Earth if things go wrong.
Not my words, but those of Cambridge astrophysicist Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, in his book Our Final Century (retitled in the United States, to his displeasure, Our Final Hour). Against the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, coming on top of Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, his call seems prophetic.
It is also a timely reminder that apocalypse is not just a potent religious notion, but has its scientific counterpart - and that, for good or ill, the destiny of the planet lies in human hands.
Nuclear energy is but one example. Rees warns also of the threats posed by scientists' pushing the boundaries of biotechnology: thousands of people are now capable of producing viruses and bacteria that could cause deadly plagues. Genetic engineering could change people in unpredictable ways.
Other perils loom from killer robots, super-intelligent computers, rogue nano-machines. The collapse of matter through atom-crashing experiments gone wrong, sucking everything on Earth into a black hole, cannot be ruled out.
Rees notes it is the advanced nations of the West that carry the greatest potential for unleashing any one of these disasters. And, much as we might wish it, no God will intervene from beyond to stave off the consequences of human folly. Doomsday at the hands of science will be averted only as scientists, politicians, industrialists and financiers determine to use new knowledge only for the benefit of humanity and the planet. Rees hopes they will.
Is his list of possible disasters merely a 21st-century update of the dire predictions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - war, violent revolution, famine and pestilence - that charge out of the biblical book of Revelation?
Not at all. The point of Rees' warning is to urge scientists to act responsibly to avoid catastrophes. Revelation has no such message. It was written to encourage Christians to remain faithful while facing persecution at the hands of the Roman empire. Science as we know it didn't exist.
Sure, its author, John, shared the view of the 1st-century church that the end of the age was imminent. But he points beyond it to a new age in which Christ and his message of love will at last prevail. In Rees' scenario, if the worst happens, there will be no beyond.
Strip away the apocalyptic end-of-the-world images, and suddenly Revelation becomes politically, economically and socially relevant to every age. The key, says American scholar Marcus Borg, is to recognise that John is indicting Rome not just for persecuting Christians, but for all that Rome as empire represents.
His searing condemnation of Rome is then seen to apply to every power that sets out to dominate other peoples - and that is very modern. In the past 500 years, the list would include Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States.
In them, as in Rome, elites of class, wealth and power have exploited other societies for their own gain; and as often as not, they have legitimated their domination by declaring it to be God's will.
The parallels are clear. John homes in on Rome's political oppression, its economic exploitation, and its claims to religious sanction. He describes its rule as a combination of seduction, intimidation and violence. Client states commit fornication with "the great whore", and ordinary people have no choice but to tag along.
Wealth of all kinds poured into the coffers at the heart of the empire, enabling Rome to glorify herself and live luxuriously. Imperial power convinced Romans the goddess Roma was in the ascendant. Her spirit took human form in the emperor, demanding devotion and obedience.
Later empires have also invoked a higher legitimacy and destiny, whether through the papacy in the Holy Roman Empire, the Sun King in Louis XIV's France, Britain's "civilising mission", or America's "manifest destiny".
Borg sums up: "'Babylon the Great' is not a code name simply for Rome. It designates all domination systems organised around power, wealth, seduction, intimidation and violence. In whatever historical form it takes, ancient or modern, empire is the opposite of the kingdom of God as disclosed in Jesus."
Look around the world today to see who is wielding political, military and economic power to the detriment of others, and how, and why. The insights of Revelation are as pertinent as ever they were - and so is John's alternative vision.
• Ian Harris is a journalist and commentator.
