Can I Get a Witness?: Reading Revelation through African American Culture

In this accessible and provocative study Brian Blount reads the book of Revelation through the lens of African American culture drawing correspondences between Revelations context and the long-standing suffering of African Americans. Applying the African American social political and religious experience as an interpretive cipher for the books complicated imagery he contends that Revelation is essentially a story of suffering and struggle amid oppressive assimilation. He examines the language of martyr and the image of the lamb and shows that the thread of resistance to oppressive power that runs through Johns hymns resonates with a parallel theme in the music of African America.