{"id":2818,"date":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/spiritual-warfare-in-revelation\/"},"modified":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","slug":"spiritual-warfare-in-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/spiritual-warfare-in-revelation.html","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Warfare in Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i681.photobucket.com\/albums\/vv171\/mfa20000\/He_man_vs_Skeletor_by_Jams_da_1.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"146\" src=\"https:\/\/i681.photobucket.com\/albums\/vv171\/mfa20000\/He_man_vs_Skeletor_by_Jams_da_1.jpg\" width=\"200\"><\/a>Today in my class on Revelation, we were up to chapter 12, which features, on the one hand, some classic imagery depicting a battle between Michael and Satan and their angelic hosts, while on the other hand, it features a subversive reinterpretation of the way such battles are envisaged, since it describes the \u201ccounquerors\u201d in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Revelation%2012:11&amp;version=NIVUK\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Revelation 12:11<\/a> as follows: \u201cThey overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.\u201d They conquer by laying down their lives, rather than by taking the lives of others.<\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><\/div>\n<p>I was reminded in this context of a quote, the author of which I am afraid I cannot recall. The gist of it was to ask why, in view of such texts as this, we still find Christians depicting or envisaging spiritual warfare as a slightly-Christianized version of He-Man vs. Skeletor.<\/p>\n<p>In sharing this image, I also realized it was dated (although some students got it). Who would be the best equivalent to use for current students? Power Rangers? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Some other folks I\u2019ve never heard of?<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_PqMiTjPFyDw\/TA4S1GtD9MI\/AAAAAAAAB6I\/oP6jFwDbcas\/s1600\/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-11.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"308\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_PqMiTjPFyDw\/TA4S1GtD9MI\/AAAAAAAAB6I\/oP6jFwDbcas\/s400\/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-11.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5643344848049812630?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today in my class on Revelation, we were up to chapter 12, which features, on the one hand, some classic imagery depicting a battle between Michael and Satan and their angelic hosts, while on the other hand, it features a subversive reinterpretation of the way such battles are envisaged, since it describes the \u201ccounquerors\u201d in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Spiritual Warfare in Revelation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today in my class on Revelation, we were up to chapter 12, which features, on the one hand, some classic imagery depicting a battle between Michael and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/spiritual-warfare-in-revelation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spiritual Warfare in Revelation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today in my class on Revelation, we were up to chapter 12, which features, on the one hand, some classic imagery depicting a battle between Michael and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/spiritual-warfare-in-revelation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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