In Ruby Turpin's vision from her pig palor, she witnesses whole "companies of white-trash", "bands of black niggers", and "battalions of freaks and lunatics" ascend to Heaven in an image of joyous, disorderly Christian soldiers (miles Christianus) that contrasts with the orderly, marching, burning "tribe" of her own kind. As "Christian soldiers" were people who provided vigorous and dedicated service to the establishment of the first Christian churches as characterized in the Pauline epistles, the image of them in "Revelation" is used as an abasement of Ruby Turpin to indicate her deficient commitment to serve her church in comparison with those much less privileged than her in spite of what she believes about herself.
