Political cartoons can provide welcome relief for our weary brains. They can make us laugh if we understand the meaning but more than that, they provide sharp and serious critique, making us rethink our assumptions about the way things are. The word pictures in Revelation work in much the same way as political cartoons. John uses them to expose the shortcomings of first century society to the scrutiny of his readers, and his cartoons still apply all these years later.
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Tags: New Jerusalem, Babylon, Political Cartoons, Josh Garrels

Many people, myself included, grew up in fear of the Rapture. The modern book series Left Behind have fueled this fear, and the theology behind them is dangerous indeed. For starters, the word “rapture” is not even biblical, and the interpretation of the Bible on which these books are based is fiction. As Barbara R. Rossing (author of the excellent book The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation) put it, “God is coming to heal the world, not to kill millions of people. God loves the world, and God will never leave the world behind.”
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Tags: Rapture, Left Behind, Historical Interpretation, Metaphorical Interpretation