Comfort and Protest

By the time Comfort and Protest was completed, South Africa was in a declared state of emergency. Within the context of the ongoing struggle in his country, Allan Boesak has written a powerful and urgent commentary on the Book of Revelation. He provides scriptural and historical interpretations, emphasizing that the drama which unfolds in the Apocalypse is played out in history whenever a political ruler claims the allegiance that belongs to God alone. Amid persecution and temptations to despair, Boesak provides a message of hope. He sees that, in the Apocalypse, ""John longs passionately for another day, another world. He feels it so keenly that he writes: ""That day has come. The church shares this longing, for the tent of God to be among the people. This is what the church has lived and died for, worked and struggled for: justice and humanity and peace and fullness of life.""""Comfort and Protest was conceived in 1980 as a series of Bible studies for my local church. It was the year of the student uprising in Cape Town, following on Soweto, 1976. The school boycotts left hundreds dead, many wounds that would never heal, and questions about faith and God to which I had no answer.... I turned to the words of John of Patmos, and for the first time I began to understand. The power of his testimony forever changed my life."" -From the Preface by Allan A. Boesak""Allan Boesak''s reflections on the Book of Revelation are as relevant and powerful in the 21st century as when they written in the midst of South African apartheid."" -- Curtiss Paul DeYoung, executive director of the Community Renewal Society, Chicago""Comfort and Protest logically embraces the life of Allan Boesak as a radical activist for societal change who fueled his faith to endure cruel hardship, suffering love, and blind hope, all of which came from the serious study of biblical narratives.""-- J. Alfred Smith Sr., Professor Emeritus, American Baptist Seminary of the WestAllan A. Boesak received his PhD in Theology from the Protestant Theological University (Netherlands) in 1976, the same year of the Soweto Uprisings which marks his entry into public life in South Africa. As President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches he called for the formation of the United Democratic Front to advance the anti-apartheid movement in 1983. He has written 17 books and has received numerous awards, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Award. He now holds the Desmond Tutu Chair for Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis.