The Nightmare Of God

Written during the 1970s and early 1980s at the height of Daniel Berrigan's work to stop the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons, The Nightmare of God offers a stunning commentary on the book of Revelation as a textbook of nonviolent resistance to empire. It begins in jail, where Berrigan sits after a 1976 protest at the Pentagon. As he takes us through the book of Revelation, Berrigan suggests that apocalyptic language and imagery are used to name Death (and its empires and wars) as anti-Christ, and challenges us to do the same today, to name every empire and war as anti-Christ, anti-humanity, anti-creation. Written with poetic insight and prophetic passion, Berrigan urges us to resist the culture of war as the early Christian heroes and martyrs did, so that we can end the suffering, heal humanity and join our place to worship the God of peace. Tom Lewis-Borbely's photo etchings complement the literary images. Daniel Berrigan describes Tom's art as healing "the ancient killing split between ethics and imagination."