ABSTRACT
Keller states that without a public imagination, the “public” fails. Prophecy in the Hebrew sense signified the public imagination of the future, a strategy to amplify past, ancient, and dissident voices of warning and hope. The populous has yielded to the new populism that confuses itself with authoritarianism. This unrestrained self-indulgence alludes to the moment of regression in the narrative of exodus, when the people surrender to the nostalgic intensities of idol-worship—the allure of the riches, the golden calf, of Egypt. The populous escaping from slavery turns to embrace the imaginary of its enslavement. Henry A. Wallace, Franklin Roosevelt’s VP, wrote of this in an essay called “The Danger of American Fascists.” There is no need for the present international surge of populist authoritarianism to solidify into fascism. The prophetic hope is conditioned on the public practice of justice: “love justice, practice kindness, walk humbly with your God.” Apocalypse roots down into its etymological significance: apokalyptein, to reveal, which would mean local electoral labor and planetary coalition: collusions between secular and religious modes of public imagination. Keller concludes that such a coalition would not diminish but rather link differences, and has the chance of outmaneuvering the present regime of contradictions.
