Making God Nice: On the Lectionary Abridgment of the Book of Revelation

“Making God Nice” takes up how God is depicted differently in the Bible's book of Revelation and in the abbreviations of Revelation in the two three-year lectionaries: the Roman Catholic lectionary ( Ordo Lectionum Missae , 1969) and the Revised Common Lectionary (1993). After presenting how little of the book of Revelation is included in the lectionaries, the article concentrates on how the dark passages of Revelation are muted and only bright passages are proclaimed. After comparing the theologies of canonical Revelation and the lectionaries’ Revelation, the article considers how Christians whose lives are difficult find Revelation attractive and that the skewed theology of the lectionaries’ abridgments narrows the embrace of the Christian church.