Abstract
Invasion of the Dead addresses the Christian eschatological theme of finding hope while engulfed by the presence and inevitability of death. Unique to Blount’s scholarship lays his distinction between various levels of human existence which include two different types of life and two different types of death. Readers of Invasion of the Dead who lack familiarity with Blount’s earlier work such as Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through an African American Lens (2005) should expect to have their assumptions challenged with regards to the role the resurrection plays in terms of the world becoming transformed. The book’s audience includes scholars, preachers, and laity. In six concise chapters, the author contributes to the collection of recent Apocalyptic Biblical literature based on years of his personal cumulative research. As a New Testament scholar and contributor to the sub-discipline of African American Biblical Hermeneutics, Blount provides a valuable source for systemic theologians as he describes the relationship between eschatology, doctrines of God, Christology, and the human experience. Throughout the book, there exists an acknowledgment that apocalyptic symbolism from the ancient world contains challenges in terms of its readers attempt to grasp its meaning, message, and applicability to the modern world.
Second, Invasion of the Dead provides a wealth of material for preachers, especially those who reluctantly and only on occasion choose Revelation as their primary text or the challenging passages from the Gospel of Mark that the lectionary tends to omit. A significant amount of apocalyptic preaching deals with either dispensation themes or the utter destruction aspect of death, but Blount makes plain that other important topics derive from the same texts such as: God’s desire to protect His sovereignty, the meaning of life in direct communion with God, or how the resurrection conquers various aspects of an active cosmic war. Furthermore, the book derived from Blount’s manuscript as the keynote speaker at Yale Divinity School’s annual Lyman Beecher Lecture in 2011. In addition to reading the book, listening to the archived recorded lecture should enhance the level of appreciation for Blount’s scholarship.
Third, Invasion of the Dead invites laity to engage in theological reflection on various states of existence including literal earthly death. ‘Death reveals the fragility and tenderness of life, but not necessarily its transcendence’ (p. xiv). Blount refrains from the excessive use of academic jargon such that a broad set of readers can grasp the content. The book provides a scholarly alternative to the genre of popular apocalyptic literature that relies on sensationalism in order to acquire an emotionally hooked audience.
Furthermore, the author invites readers from diverse backgrounds to exercise the practice of using an ‘apocalyptic vision’ when studying Biblical texts, and in one’s approach towards life as a means of practical application. ‘Viewed apocalyptically, life comes after the resurrection of the dead. Not before’ (p. 51). Apocalyptic vision depicts what the historical Jesus of Nazareth instilled in the Apostles of the first century with respect to their new understanding of the world and their missional purpose. In the modern world, apocalyptic vision entails a world perspective that invites active participation in God’s reclamation of the world. ‘In the resurrection, God changed something about the world by annihilating the grip of those powers and reconfiguring the human constitution so that it is as receptive to God as it once was singularly receptive to sin and death’ (p. 66). Nevertheless death itself accompanies at least two significant mysteries. First, the human creature cannot experience death before it happens, therefore the experience of physical death remains unknown. Blount uses the term ‘type-A death’ to describe the completion of one’s earthly life course. The other mystery of death rests in the reality of the resurrection as a process that surpasses human logic and understanding, which results in the dead not remaining dead. Blount describes ‘type-B death’ as a condition in which one permanently ceases to exist.
Since the book Invasion of the Dead originated as a lecture within the discipline of homiletics, Blount revisits the following two concepts: (1) the contrast between rescue and resurrection, and (2) preaching resurrection as supplemental to preaching the cross. The theological concept of rescue functions as an essential part of Christian doctrine, which receives great emphasis among North American Protestants, especially evangelicals. The name Jesus from Greek to English can translate to the word ‘rescue’; however, conventional Christian doctrine acknowledges that Jesus did more than rescue: he invaded a world in need of invasion. Blount demonstrates that rescue alone describes only a fraction of God’s involvement in relation to the state of the world. ‘What God does is invade, not rescue. In a rescue, the primary objective is the securing of the prisoner/hostage and subsequent retreat to the closest-held safe zone’ (p. 90). However, Blount describes resurrection as God’s invasive act with the intent to oppose a force whose single greatest weapon is death.
The book’s greatest strength lies in its brevity and how the author makes plain the reason why preachers have an easier time preaching the cross in comparison to preaching the resurrection. Human creatures have concrete examples of the cross and its manifold manifestations whether by way of religious persecution, state sponsored repression, genocidal attempts, mass murders, or broad and subtle forms such as exclusion, which functions as a substantive death such that the subjects become systemically eliminated from their societies. However, when one speaks of resurrection, ‘it is of the future, a rupture in the present, whose reality is from a time we cannot image’ (p. 105). A healthy imagination at its best may fall short of an ‘apocalyptic vision’, which makes preaching the resurrection possible.