The Lamb’s enemies end up defeated and punished while the saints are vindicated and rewarded. The revelation ends with a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more death, crying, or pain. The vision all along was for a different use of power in which a Lamb sits on the throne of heaven. God’s plan for the future of the world, especially as the apocalyptic vision is progressively revealed, is not to destroy, but to create. This revelation comes with the instructions to record the prophesy so that it can be used to encourage a struggling first–century church. In many ways, Malcolm fits this progressive apocalyptic vision–especially as Malcolm seeks to create rather than destroy.
This detailed review and interpretation of the seven seals is necessary for understanding Malcolm because so much of Malcolm’s public impact was either interpreted as creative or destructive. The verdict seemed to be in the eye of the beholder. Similar to the early church’s apocalyptic literature, how one interprets the end times of an empire often depended upon having power or not. On one hand, if you were invested in the power structures of the empire, of course apocalyptic realities were seen more as a horror movie. On the other hand, if you were marginalized or oppressed (like the early church), apocalyptic realities meant something else entirely. The oppressed longed for the toppling of the empire. For the marginalized and oppressed, the Apocalypse is actually a creative act.
Today, especially in our Western culture, it is difficult to be encouraged by apocalyptic worldviews. Malcolm’s genius in many ways represents the divide between how apocalyptic worldviews seek to encourage societies out of ruts and how modern–day society has a difficult time receiving such worldviews as constructive and creative. Of course, any society struggles with its own end; after all, who can really handle “extra-reality” judging our current reality? Our particular struggle in the Western world comes because we expect an empirical revelation full of complete and technical accuracy. We were the masters of such revelation, but now we are beginning to see Chinese and Indian children out achieving our own. Instead of being insecure, Malcolm is helpful to the Western worldview. Malcolm’s apocalyptic worldview entails judging the world according to extra–wordly or transcendent standards. In other words, instead of seeing others as a threat to our existence, why not simply understand that the world never stays the same?
Malcolm’s mission was in fact one of encouraging the church, but not in ways that she often wanted. Malcolm’s word of God revealed God as one who could transcend all of us and yet sit in a coffee shop and a bar, a God who could love us equally in Sunday morning worship and Friday night laughter. Consequently, Malcolm approaches God’s revelation without too much anxiety about whether he has gotten such revelation precisely correct. His mission is simply to make known that there is indeed a revelation from God.
This revelation often comes across as apocalyptic to those who cannot accept truth and reality as coming beyond self (and even Western culture). Malcolm’s vision is akin to the writer of Revelation who envisions four horsemen galloping through the desert on a horse with no name. But Malcolm accepts the judgments that are coming and tries his best to help us do so as well as he gleans what has been given to him in the poetic imagery of God who transcends us and yet drinks coffee with us.
Though the faith–minded might find comfort in my interpretation of Malcolm’s impact, there is also a challenge to us as well—namely, the imminent side of God (the One who drinks coffee with sinners) is not all there is to God. God is also transcendent. So, although the faith–minded may look for the seven signs of the Apocalypse as taking place in the order in which they appear in Revelation, there is little need to actually follow this order. To understand that God transcends us should actually take the pressure off. Belief in God alerts us to the fact that our interpretations of reality usually carry with them self-fulfilling prophecies that often end us in ditches rather than flourishing places. In other words, God keeps us honest between hope and despair. Malcolm irritates the faithminded just as he does the empirically-minded in that no one can be selfsufficient, really. In addition, for many faith–minded, Malcolm could never be their brother due to their never being able to accept his identity as a white, gay Episcopal priest. Keep in mind that Malcolm’s impact comes through his poetic, apocalyptic literary style that paints a picture of how God’s kingdom accepts a person wherever they are.
When Malcolm prays, “Are you running with me?” he prays to a Jesus who came to fulfill the promise that God made to Abraham that his descendents will be impossible to count. In fact, Malcolm’s message does not bring us a new revelation, but rather places in writing the same message that Jesus brought us, but does so in a wonderful and colorful literary style.
White Horse
In my first chapter I look at the first horseman of pestilence who rides the white horse. The writer of Revelation describes it this way, “When the Lamb had opened the first of the seven seals, I heard the first of the four beasts say with a thundering voice, ‘Come and see.’ And I beheld, and lo a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow: and there was given unto him a crown, and he departed as conqueror and to conquest” (Rev 6:1–2). Malcolm is this White Knight representing pestilence because of his “queer” identity, his celebrity, and his shocking words.
The white horse and its rider are ambiguous images that create polarities between good and evil, depending on one’s interpretation. For many biblical scholars, they see the White Knight as civil war and internal strife. Some go so far as to say the rider of the white horse is the Antichrist, or a representation of false prophets. Pestilence follows wherever this White Knight appears. Malcolm’s appearance certainly caused strife as he came out in public as a gay priest. Of course, I cannot write this biography without exploring Malcolm’s gay identity. Such identity becomes complex in light of his secular witness as a civil rights leader and his religious identity as an Episcopal priest. Malcolm writes, “My presence as a gay man and elder should be thought through in light of someone like Bayard Rustin, who organized the March on Washington, but whose role was never really acknowledged.” And so, this biography seeks to acknowledge Malcolm’s role in the Civil Rights Movement—and even more, to shed some light on Malcolm’s groundbreaking wisdom in understanding the relation of civil rights to gay rights.6
As already mentioned, another aspect of Malcolm’s pestilence is in his celebrity status. Malcolm offers groundbreaking wisdom due to his ability o reach large publics without watering down his authenticity. This ability invites us to reflect upon Malcolm’s life as a celebrity figure. For example, a reporter shoved a microphone in Malcolm’s face and asked, “They just announced that God is dead. Do you have a comment?” This dynamic of celebrity is true, especially, following the publication in 1965 of the spiritual classic and international best-seller Are You Running with Me, Jesus? 7 For many, the combination of being both gay and a celebrity priest is an abomination or is just plain sick. The rider of the white horse (or the White Knight) fits Malcolm because there are concurrent meanings: white for goodness, but a pestilence because his words frequently shocked and offended. The White Knight causes polarities between good and evil, destruction and creation. Among the civil wars concerning full inclusion of gay identity, interpretations swung between extremes as to whether gay people could be fully human, married, serve in the military, and even be Christian. Malcolm’s life demonstrated such pendulum swings. In terms of the pendulum swinging toward goodness, according to Revelation 19, the rider on the white horse is depicted as the Word of God. In the end, however, the White Knight not only represents Malcolm’s queer identity and celebrity status, it also represents the pestilence of the white horse because of his shocking words. Much of Malcolm’s work was deemed controversial and apocalyptic because Malcolm’s word of God shocks—words like, “Jesus had a penis.”8 “Malcolm proclaims that we minister to Jesus—the Jesus who comes in Matthew in the guise of the needy, the thirsty, and the naked–when we minister to a “nigger,” a “kike,” a “dago,” a “queer,” a “dyke,” or a “faggot.”9 Such a word from the Lord made people sick of Malcolm. The pestilence of Malcolm’s words drove many to extremes. So, not only was Malcolm a White Knight
