this time was a Kent-smoker, fiftyish, with no lemon juice in his yellowy-white hair. Frankly troubled, like any normal vestry-man, his normally sedate nervous system was jumpy and he could sit no longer. A kindly woman had asked Yale chaplain William Sloan Coffin, another panelist, what he would tell a young man who wanted to become a minister. Coffin answered by saying he could not tell anyone what to do, he could only ask questions the young man might not have already answered. The Kent-smoker’s normally pink face was reddening. He had to interrupt.
“If you church leaders don’t attempt to lead, then who… ?” This was Malcolm’s cue.
“We’re not leaders, man. How could we be? Readers’ Digest just got us together to talk some things over.”
Malcolm is irony. He is a “leader” of the “alienated,” but he refuses the onus of leadership. He is a priest, but he hasn’t the concrete faith of a Coffin. He is the only campus lecturer who is likely to say “I don’t know” a half-dozen times every night.
“Boyd’s a sensationalist,” says one Yale student. Another adds, “Boyd’s an ass. I just can’t handle an Episcopalian minister who says ‘bitch.’”
Malcolm is masterful in front of an audience, born and trained. When he was concluding his talk in Battell, he had even the easy doubters and cool sophisticates moving to his beat. He uses the shock effect because it keeps the audience with him and because that is often the only way to communicate. He is seldom at one campus for more than two days and never at one university more than twice a year. He must be bluntly honest, because there is no time to cajole and persuade.1 Because of how Malcolm affects his audiences, I perceive Malcolm’s life in the framework of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
The beginning of the book of Revelation tells of a scroll in God’s right hand that is sealed with seven seals. Jesus opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons forth the four beasts that ride on white, red, black, and pale-green horses symbolizing conquest, war, famine, and death, respectively. For some, the interpretation of the Christian apocalyptic vision is for the four horsemen to wreak havoc upon the world as harbingers of the end of the world. Such interpretations are dangerous among those who may not fully understand the complexity of power revealed in this surreal book of Revelation. For example, the influence of this Armageddon theology is reflected in a Federal Bureau of Investigation report that certain individuals have acquired weapons, stored food and clothing, raised funds, procured safe houses, prepared compounds, and recruited converts to their cause, all in preparation for foreign attacks. Many believe in the militia movement in the United States that the Antichrist will attempt to take over the world in the near future. There were over 100 extremist militias that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as active in the United States in 2009. In March 2010, one of these militia units, called the Hutaree, had several members arrested for planning an attack on the police.2
So, interpretation of the book of Revelation must be entered into care-fully. Each of the four riders is summoned onto human history by one of the heavenly living creatures. The opening of the first four seals reveal the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Each one of the four living creatures reveals a horseman, the first three horsemen are summed up by the fourth horsemen, “They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” But remember, power in heaven is strange, if not seemingly unstable.
Although the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in just eight verses of the book of Revelation (chapter 6:1–8), which is the last book in the Bible, they are also eerily foretold in the same chapter and verses of the Hebrew Bible, from Zechariah (6:1–8) in which there are four chariots pulled by variously colored horses, conveying the four spirits of heaven proceeding from God to the world. The four horses also travel in four directions, that is, they affect the whole earth. For Zechariah, the horses appear in the following order, red, black, white, and finally the pale horse. Zechariah’s horses differ from Revelation’s not only in their order but also they do not indicate anything about their characters since they are more like sentries than like agents of destruction or judgment.
In Revelation, the four horsemen appear when the Lamb (Jesus) opens the first four seals of a scroll. A seal was a security measure used when a letter was dispatched from a royal office. Often this seal was made using a signet ring, hence the word signature. Such imagery is fitting for the Revelation of John since the biblical message was often conveyed through epistles or letters. In the strange vision of Revelation, the seals were not just security measures. Such seals meant something much more. John’s Revelation contained all together the following seven seals:3
1 The white horse
2 The red horse
3 The black horse
4 The pale horse
5 The martyrs
6 Anarchy
7 The fanfare of trumpets
As each of the first four seals are opened, a different colored horse and its rider is revealed. And yet, earlier in John’s Revelation (chapter 4) we see God seated on the throne in heaven, but also sovereign over earthly events. A paradox of power occurs as the Lamb ( Jesus) appears in chapter 6 and takes the scroll from God. This is a paradox because how can a lamb be powerful? And yet the Lamb not only snatches the scroll, he also breaks the seals, a privilege only for Kings. To further the paradox, especially as practiced by the less divine, the first horse and rider, white in color, is interpreted as good, representing either Jesus or the church going out, in victory, sharing the gospel. The time, however, eventually came when the church became a persecuting power, mutating to a second rider on a red horse with a sword in his hand. The paradox here is in how the first horse and rider is juxtaposed to the second, who represents a history in which the church turned on its own members. The crime of many who were killed was the “crime” of reading the Bible. For example, in the year 1215 Pope Innocent III issued a law commanding “that they shall be seized for trial and penalties, who engage in the translation of the sacred volumes, or who hold secret conventicles, or who assume the office of preaching without the authority of their superiors; against whom process shall be commenced, without any permission of appeal. ”4 Innocent “declared that as by the old law, the beast touching the holy mount was to be stoned to death, so simple and uneducated men were not to touch the Bible or venture to preach its doctrines.”5
Rather than promoting erroneous interpretations of this important book of the Bible, the key to interpreting Revelation is Jesus. This is Malcolm’s key interpretation as well. Similar to the way the first century had a difficult time interpreting the Messiah as someone meek and mild like Jesus, so do we have complexity in interpreting Revelation, the second coming of Jesus. What is described by the seals is similar to the signs of the end of the age as described by Jesus in Matthew 24. There will be wars, famines, and earthquakes (Matt 24:6–8); persecution (24:9–14); and the heavenly bodies will be shaken (Matt 24:29): “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn” (Matt 24:30). After the opening of the seven seals, the scroll can be read and we will find more detail, but this starts in chapter 8. The seven seals describe tribulation that is largely the result of human foibles (wars, famine, and persecution) but under the control of God. The fact that the seven seals are opened by Christ indicates his sovereignty over the future. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Rev 22:13); he is sovereign from the beginning to the end of history, and everything in between.
Focus on Jesus in the book of Revelation should prevent militia and extremist groups because John’s vision indicates that these strange occurrences all occurred under the sovereignty of God. I think this is strange; after all, the Lamb is the most powerful one. Even if we do not understand
