9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat, 17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
(Revelation 7:9–17, NRSVue)
One of the Sunday School action-songs that we were taught as children in my home language Telugu at our local Dalit Lutheran church was “Nakoka Thella Angi,” which means, “A White Robe for Me.” Here is the English translation of the lyrics of that song:
A white robe for me,
A white robe for you,
A white robe for God’s children,
When I reach heaven
I will wear the white robe
And move round and round in it.
As children, we sang it in full gusto and enjoyed the song with actions to it. What was interesting about this song was how we learnt actions to this song. For the lyric “A white robe to me,” the action was to make our hands flow from shoulders to the feet to only mean “a robe to me.” ‘Whiteness’ was not shown in action as we sang the song, for we could have pointed our fingers to someone who wore a white dress that day, or to our pastor who wore white robes at church services, or towards the white-washed walls of our church or we could have used sign-language for ‘white’ in the action song. We left out the ‘whiteness’ of the robe from our actions as we sang that song. In a way the message was: all will have a robe as God’s children—don’t worry about the colour of it.
Why did we leave out the ‘whiteness’ of the robe in our action song? Perhaps, we did not know how to show ‘white’ in action as we sang it, or we overlooked whiteness in the song for it is not the important part of the song, or perhaps we did not want to emphasise ‘white’ in our action song and so we just did the action for ‘a robe to me.’ Why? Because as Dalit Christian Sunday school children we believed in all colours, and the emphasis of this song is that there is a robe for all God’s children, and the colour of it did not matter. With my decolonial Dalit theological worldview, when I reflect on my Sunday School action-song, the conscious omission of ‘whiteness’ in it is what I call a ‘de-whitening’ moment of Christian faith. No one colour takes precedence or superiority, but multiple colours are celebrated in the presence of God, for in God all colours co-exist and co-habitate.
With the same hermeneutic of ‘de-whitening,’ I now read and interpret Revelation 7:9-17. The multitude that gathered around the throne of the Lamb were a multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic, multinational and multicoloured congregation that wore bright/shining/glittery robes, carrying palm branches, and singing praises to the Lamb.
John’s Revelation unveils the empire’s politics and invites the churches of his times to have faith in God rather than in the powers of the empire. The book of Revelation is one of the most vocal anti-empire texts that we have in the New Testament canon, for all the prophecies, visions, metaphors, pictures and symbols carry and convey anti-imperial, political-theological meanings in the text.
Revelation 7:9-17 is an example of such political theology, where John sees in a vision a great multitude from all nations standing before the throne and the Lamb. This vision counters the empire’s theology, where only the few who have access and power can gather in the presence of the powerful emperor. In John’s vision, the slaughtered Lamb is at the centre of the throne and a great multitude from all nations, all ethnicities, all tribes, all languages, all colours of people stand before the throne of the Lamb. The Lamb shall be the liberative shepherd leading the multitude to living waters, sheltering them, where all are fed with food and drink, and where every tear is wiped away.
This scene comes as a strong critique to the imperial powers, who do it the other way around: with hunger, thirst, homelessness and tears, pushing the nations into further marginalisation and oppression. This is a fabulous vision, and it offers so much hope to all—particularly to those who have been excluded, discriminated against, oppressed, marginalized and to ‘the unchosen,’ for there is place, space and solace for all people far and wide. That multitude is countless and boundary-less.
Nevertheless, we ought to evaluate how the logic of colour-blindness as ‘whiteness’ is at play in any given text and context. Political theology interrogates the distinction between what seems to be inclusive and what enacts inclusion by consciously bringing into conversation those who have been ‘othered,’ particularly the voices of women, voices of Dalits, voices of the people of colour, voices of the queer people and the voices of the non-western colonised communities.
The vision of John in Revelation 7:9-17 seems inclusive, but it does not actually enact inclusion, for the multitude gathered around the Lamb are depicted wearing ‘white robes’ (verse 9). When asked who these people are ‘clothed in white robes,’ one of the elders replies, “These are the ones coming out of great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (verse 14). This language calls for a ‘de-whitening’ hermeneutical treatment of the text as our political theological commitment.
Why are the multitude wearing ‘white robes’ in uniformity in that vision of unity and inclusion? Though this vision of John is of anti-empire nature, the traits of coloniality were left unattended and unaddressed in the concepts of ‘white robed’ uniforms. It would be anachronistic to think of first century Romans as ‘white,’ though they did have their own ideas of race, where the differences of tribe and ethnicity mattered. Prejudice, cruelty and discrimination were central to Roman rule, on which racist regimes were founded. So, reading this text from our own modern contexts that are saturated in white supremacy, one can notice the episteme of coloniality thriving in this text on mono-colourism, whitewashing the colourful multitude of people with uniform ‘white’ robes for all. For my Dalit congregation, who have been facing exclusion and discrimination because of caste structures, being in the multitude with all of the ethnic communities across the nations around the Lamb and wearing multi-coloured robes are of utmost importance in this vision. How can I communicate like my Sunday school class that the robe is the emphasis of this text and not its colour?
The Greek word used for ‘white’ in this text is leukos which also means “bright”, “shining” and “glittery.” Still, the translators of this text in almost all English versions of the Bible upheld the ‘white’ status quo, for it suited the ‘white’ privilege of the ‘white’ powerful interpreters. From their ‘white’ perspective, the robes in the heavenly vision cannot be any colour but ‘white.’ What such a translation has done is, particularly in my home language Telugu, it made us perceive ‘white’ as a normative colour for purity, where people wear white clothes to most church services as a resemblance to heavenly robes. One of the ways the empire works today is naively captivating people to acknowledge uncritically that white coloured clothes are a reflection of heavenly codes for purity.
Out of the 25 times, the word leukos is used in the Greek New Testament, the verb leukaino is only used twice, both times for ‘white’ garments, though the translations could mean ‘bright/shining/glittery.’ The first time it is used is in Mark 9:3, in the transfiguration of Jesus, where his garments were made white/bright and secondly it is used in this text in Revelation 7:14, where the garments made white/bright in the blood of the Lamb, which really tells how white/bright garments mattered in the first century context. Since ‘white’ dress received Biblical sanction and sanctity through such translations, ‘white’ coloured clothes have become a norm for purity and heavenly dress. A political-theological reading of this text from a ‘de-whitening’ perspective therefore, challenges us to read and identify these garments as bright/shining/glittery, bringing it home to the multi-coloured multitude gathered around the Lamb.
I have already written about the politics of white colour in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, making it a case for political theology to transgress the elevation of ‘whiteness’ as normative and superior, for divine representations. However, in the case of Revelation 7:9, 14, the calling for political theology is to resist mono-coloured robes to the multitudes gathering, for any spec of mono-colourism that comes in the colour of ‘white’ defeats the very vision of a great colourful multitude gathering in all freedom and liberation. How wonderful it would have been if the translations read that everyone in the multitude from all nations, all ethnicities, all tribes, all languages, all colours wore bright/shining/glittery robes, making it truly a multi-cultured, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-national and multi-coloured gathering in the presence of the divine who comes as a Lamb. For the presence of God can only come in multi-ethnic and multi-coloured forms and shapes to all the multitudes of God’s creation. This is how political theology enacts inclusion by intentionally ‘de-whitening’ the text and celebrating multi-colourism in the economy of the divine.
It is interesting here to note how Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther explain that these white robes serve as counter-cultural images in this text. They say,
“The counter-experiential image of being made white via the blood serves two important functions. First, it mocks the priestly institution of the cult of Cybele, in which white-robed candidates were dipped with bull’s blood in order to purify them. Second, it reverses the logic of Israel’s tradition of holy war in which persons who were killed during war were required to wash their robes to remove the blood of their enemies in order to be purified (e.g. Num 31:19-20). In Revelation, it is not the enemy’s blood that must be removed to achieve purity, but a sharing in the Lamb’s blood itself generates purity” (210).
For Howard-Brook and Gwyther, in their pursuit of unveiling the empire they explain the functions of white robes, which for me seems to be striving for inclusion. However, they have not enacted inclusion because they haven’t problematised the whiteness of the robes and still adhere to the purity associated with whiteness. They tacitly assume that whiteness is identical to, and always generates, purity. A real unveiling of the empire in Revelation from a 21st century perspective isn’t wholistic if one neglects to name, to expose and to condemn the white coloured supremacy overtones in any given text. The empire’s theology conveniently veils race and colour, for it comes from their privileged sites of white power and normativity. They do not want their colour and comfort to be challenged or disturbed. A de-whitening hermeneutic speaks truth to the white powers, as a decolonising offering of reading the Bible today.
Therefore, a ‘de-whitening’ political theological response to this text de-privileges ‘white’ as a symbol of superiority and purity. A ‘de-whitened’ reading says that a robe washed in the red blood of the lamb will turn bright/shining/glittery! Everyone who passes through great tribulation in their lives will receive such a robe.
So, what then is the relevance of a ‘de-whitening’ reading of Revelation 7:9-17? Firstly, it dismantles ‘whiteness’ which has taken, assumed and subsumed superiority and supremacy over other colours and cultures, paving way for a celebration of multi-coloured and multi-cultured ethos of this text and context.
Secondly, it dismantles uniformity, for when a multi-coloured multitude wears bright/shining/glittery robes, it isn’t a uniform of white, rather it is a rainbow of different bright/shining/glittery robes all around.
Thirdly, it dismantles the whitewashing image of heaven, for heaven isn’t white or white isn’t heaven, rather it is a space where multi-colourism flourishes. The heavenly vision of the multitude is all about where hungry are fed, thirsty are quenched, where homeless find a shelter and where the Lamb serves as a liberative shepherd leading all towards living waters, wiping every tear from every eye (verses 14-17).
Fourthly, it dismantles the white image of God, for “God is not a white man”; rather, God is a red-blood bleeding Lamb in this text. That slain Lamb, which personifies the divine, was slaughtered because he/she resisted the powers and principalities, including that of whiteness, opening access for a countless multitude to the throne.
Fifthly, it dismantles the image of a white, blue-eyed, blonde Jesus Christ, who was exported to various parts of the global contexts, making the image of such a Jesus normative and supreme.
Sixthly, a de-whitening reading of this text empowers the anti-racist commitment of readers, called to work for racial justice in our local contexts addressing racism, classism, colourism, casteism, sexism and all such oppressive forms—for the aim of a de-whitening reading is liberation and transformation of the least and the last communities who have been oppressed because of their colour, gender, caste, class, sexuality, race etc.
Reading the book of Revelation in the 21st century from a political-theological perspective invites readers to be aware of and recognise the presence of empire in our midst today, challenging God’s people to resist and not yield to the seductions of empire. Howard-Brook and Gwyther examine global capital through the lens of Revelation, as one of the many ways of coming out of empire today, which is a significant one. Along with it, racism is another severe form of empire that is actively at play in our world today, on the one hand by upholding the supremacy of ‘whiteness’ and on another hand by discriminating and even murdering people of colour. The killing of George Floyd is a case in point, as we remember him on the 5th anniversary of his brutal killing (25 May, 2020).
De-whitening is yet another way of resisting the empire today, calling us to resist all forms of racism, liberating people of colour to overcome ‘I can’t breathe’ situations and scenarios. De-whitening is about celebrating “we can all breathe freely and in freedom” irrespective of our colour, caste, gender, sexuality, class etc. De-whitening is a call to affirm “Black lives still and always matter.” De-whitening is a hermeneutical tool and a decolonial methodological offering, allowing us to be aware of the existing imperial forces in our localities, that might include casteism, patriarchy, classism, xenophobia, colourism etc. along with racism, and seek ways to resist such forces and to strive for the liberation of all, for God is at work with us in that pursuit of de-powering and overthrowing the rule of the empires.
I am not specifically presupposing that the text Revelation 7:9-17 is entangled in racism, for the historical context of the text was different from ours and had more tribal and ethnic prejudices at play. However, reading this text from a Dalit decolonial perspective challenges me to de-whiten the text by celebrating the bright/shining/glittery coloured robes for the gathered multitude, resisting all racial, tribal, ethnic prejudices of the text and in our contexts today.
As I reminiscence on my Sunday-school action-song in Telugu, “Nakoka Thella Angi” with which I began as an introduction to this essay, having been challenged by de-whitening hermeneutic, I translate the white robe as a “bright/shining/glittery” robe, or as a “colourful” robe in this song. I am now committed to teach this song to my children with a new Telugu lyric as “Nakoka Rangula Angi” which means “A colourful robe for me.” Here is the English translation of the new lyrics of that song:
A colourful robe for me,
A colourful robe for you,
A colourful robe for God’s children,
When I reach heaven
I will wear the colourful robe
And move round and round in it.
By such a colourful de-whitening translation, I enact inclusion into this song, into the given text and into our contexts today.
