Bishop John Spong pretty much dismisses Revelation as of little value to the modern Christian:
The Bible closes its pages with the book of Revelation. It is a piece of apocalyptic or "end of the world" literature. Presumably that theme struck the leaders of the early Church, who still expected the end of the world to be near, to think that this book represented the proper way to close the New Testament. The book of Revelation has been a godsend to those who like to predict "doomsday" all of whom, let it be noted, have thus far been 100% incorrect! It is also the favorite book of those who believe that events in modern history are the fulfillment of and can be explained as the living out of biblical prophecy. In my lifetime I have heard the beast of Revelation 13 being identified with Adolf Hitler, Tojo, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Saddam Hussein, just to name a few. My mother told me that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany was called the beast of Revelation during World War I. I have never found the book of Revelation to be worthy of the study it would take to open it to its own meaning and context. I have read it a number of times, but I have never been edified by it. It is all but nonsense to me. My good friend and admired colleague, Professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton University's department of Religion faculty, is now writing a book on Revelation. I shall read her work with delight when it is published, but I have never felt compelled personally to explore its words with any depth myself. I see this book primarily as a dated piece of first century literature and little more.
Despite this I can still say that my favorite text from Revelation is in chapter three where the author, writing to the Church of Laodicea, condemns them for being neither "hot nor cold" but "lukewarm," regarding them thereby as "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." As a bishop, I have known lukewarm congregations, which stand for nothing and thus have no passionate commitments. These churches will die of boredom long before they die of controversy. The love of God demands that our love go beyond our limits, confront our prejudices and call us into transformed lives. That always means that controversy is part of the Christian life.
I began this series of columns on the origin and meaning of the books of the Bible in the year 2007. It has taken me over seventy columns to complete it, interspersed as they were with treatment of the events of the day. This series has required me to go back to my library to familiarize myself anew with every book included in the sacred text, even those that I had long ago dismissed as irrelevant It has also kindled anew in me my long time love affair with this book, which began on Christmas day in 1943 when my mother gave me my first personal Bible. From that day to this, I have read it daily, going cover to cover at least twenty-five times. Some of its books I have read too many times to count. On many of its books I have spent more than a year in concentrated study. I am at this moment beginning my third year of study on the Fourth Gospel. Underneath its limited words it conveys to me a sense that all life is holy, that all life is loved and that each of us is called to be all that we are capable of being. Those are the themes that I hope our world never loses.
~~~ John Spong
I have even heard some commentators suggest that John of Patmos may have been suffering from a mental disorder.
