Prophecy is not primarily clairvoyance. In Judeo-Christian history the prophet was God's instrument to check the corruption and oppression which usually attend political power, and to call the ruler to faithfulness to Yahweh and obedience to the divine standard. From the beginning of the theocracy the prophets daringly challenged the king: Nathan condemned David's adultery; Ahijah conspired against Solomon; Elijah vituperated against Ahab's economic excesses and murder; Amos was indicted by the Royal Committee on Un-Hebrew Activities for calling the Daughters of the Samarian Revolution "fat cows" because they were "oppressing the needy and crushing the poor"; Micah denounced the leaders of Israel for "devouring the flesh of the people." Even in the exile, when pious Jews gained the audience of the rulers they confronted them with their injustice (for example, when Esther acted ethically, Haman hung highly). Daniel and his three Hebrew comrades committed four acts of civil disobedience, confronted the government at least five times, and sent one king out to graze with other wild animals, John the Baptist prophesied against the immorality of Herod the Tetrarch. Jesus taught in the temple without permission, drove out those who made capital use of the sacrifices, called a ruler a "fox" (then a nasty epigram), and was executed as a revolutionary.
With the creation of the church, the prophetic mission took corporate as well as personal forms. These early communities were prophetic by their very existence and they resisted rulers who would silence them.
When they had brought them in to face the Sanhedrin, the high priest demanded an explanation. "We gave you a formal warning," he said, "not to preach in this name, and what have you done? You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and seem determined to fix the guilt of this man's death on us." In reply Peter and the apostles said: "Obedience to God comes before obedience to men; it was the God of our ancestors who raised up Jesus, but it was you who had him executed by hanging on a tree. By his own right hand God has now raised him up to be leader and savior, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins through him to Israel. We are witnesses to all this, we and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." This so infuriated them that they wanted to put them to death (Acts 5:27-33).
Unlike the early church, its American descendent has forfeited its prophetic role; Christians today resist the government only when their self-interest is violated (aid to parochial schools, ecclesiastical tax exemptions, prayer in school, and freedom to pass out literature). What has happened to our prophetic witness? History and sociology can demonstrate how the church has unconsciously identified itself with the world to which it is supposed to minister, but an understanding of the biblical analogies for prophetic action should demonstrate how we can reverse this process of prophetic atrophy.
Every example of prophetic resistance in the Bible shares two ingredients: first, a basis in revelation; second, an application in total commitment. To the extent that these ingredients are absent in the Christian community, to that extent it has lost its prophetic potential.
1. Concerning a revelational basis: Some Christians have forsaken this revelatory perspective, perhaps thinking that since modern men have difficulty accepting it they will more easily believe in a Christianity without it; however, in doing so—no matter why—they have robbed themselves of their basis for speaking prophetically. This line of theological thinking, strongly influenced by 19th century humanism, often asked the most important questions about Christian morality, but lost its right to make solid value judgments. They felt that to enter the free-for-all battle of moral relevance most freely they must abandon their awkward armor.
Other Christians have affirmed the need for a revelatory context for making value judgments but have in turn denied its existence by being blinded to the relevance of those values in their lives and their society. They believe Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and pray that the United States will gain a military victory. ... They read how Jesus said, "It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," and then pander the rich to support their church building program. A Christian banker feels no tension when he teaches his Sunday School class the text, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth." To deny the relevance of revealed values to human existence is at least as harmful as to deny the possibility of revelation itself. They do not abandon their armor, but they do not know that it is to be used, in the contemporary moral battlefields—not to be regalia for spiritual self-righteousness in the local ecclesiastical fortresses.
2. Concerning total application: Many Christians have understood the need for revealed morality and the relevance of that morality to modern man but they have not applied those values comprehensively or aggressively, too often, it seems, because they often feel impotent compared to the magnitude of the task. But the prophets proclaimed "the word of Yahweh" uncompromisingly with their total lives: Hosea's marriage itself was to be a symbol of Yahweh's relationship to Israel; Ezekiel and Isaiah engaged in demonstrations and guerrilla theater; Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet," was virtually alone and ignored in his lifelong witness to disobedient Israel; John the Baptist's lifestyle was totally prophetic. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews praises the prophets' devotion lyrically.
Time is too short for me to tell the stories of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephah, of David and Samuel and the prophets. Through faith they overthrew kingdoms, established justice, saw God's promises fulfilled. They muzzled ravening lions, quenched the fury of fire, escaped death by the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength, they grew powerful in war, they put foreign armies to rout. Women received back their dead raised to life. Others were tortured to death, disdaining release, to win a better resurrection. Others, again, had to face jeers and flogging, even fetters and prison bars. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were put to the sword, they went about dressed in skins of sheep or goats, in poverty, distress, and misery. They were too good for a world like this. They were refugees in deserts and on the hills, hiding in caves and holes in the ground (Hebrews 11:32-38).
One to whom the Word of God has been given is irresponsible unless he or she considers his or her body—his or her total being—as the medium for its application into the human predicament. We Christians, as media, must communicate the message totally; we too must be the Word made flesh—"our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all."
Let us dream for a moment. Suppose every Christian in America came to grips with these two ideas—God has communicated God's will to all people and asks complete dedication to the fleshing out of that will in our work. Christians would begin saying, "I will resist being conformed to the world so hostile to the gospel! I will refuse to hate or judge people by color, wealth, or status! ... I will struggle to halt the runaway materialism which enslaves our people! My bank account is open to the needy; my home to the homeless; my heart to the unloved! I will expend myself gladly in the proclamation of the gospel that offers forgiveness and new life to all [people]! If necessary, I will use my own blood to lubricate the friction which leads to violence and my own body to oppose the wrong! "I am crucified with Christ!" Herbert Marcuse had a similar dream called "the Great Refusal." Instead of aggressively fighting the industrial-profit cycle, significant numbers of people would, by refusing to cooperate with its injustice, declare the impotence of the machine over their lives. Without cooperative workers and consumers, business is powerless; without soldiers, the army is powerless. Then, Marcuse says, we will be able to create a just society. Whatever one may think of Marcuse's other ideas, his perception of the power of passive resistance is undeniable. Let us call our dream "the Great Christian Refusal," and let us make Romans 12:2 our theme: "Stop being shaped by the age, but be reshaped by the renewing of your mind, that you may demonstrate what the will of God is. ..." Imagine the consequences if just a few thousand Christians decided to take this stand in the name of Jesus! Wherever they were—in the home, school, factory, battlefield, office, streets—they would translate the Sermon on the Mount into prophetic and de facto subversive resistance. They would raise a loud, creative voice of protest, as did Carol Feraci, every time they confront authority. They would resist the world's call to one-dimensionalism: conformity. Dream about the Great Christian Refusal!
But we have no excuse for just dreaming about it. The urgency for such a movement in history's most powerful nation is inestimable. The helpless cry of one poor, young mother in the ghetto, ... and the hopelessness of one person who has not heard the message that death is dead and life reigns in Christ—these condemn any dreams as irresponsible unless they motivate one to total involvement. No single group in the world has as much potential moral energy and possibility for resisting and halting the injustices in our world than the American church, if it will offer a prophetic witness to the sin of its own nation and proclaim the salvation of Christ and the righteousness of God's kingdom.
Carol Feraci said, "If Jesus Christ were in this room tonight, you would not dare drop another bomb." But Jesus Christ is here now in a new body—the church. His disciples must demonstrate his presence with just this power.
O Lord,
May we, the extension of your body in this world, like you also proclaim your forgiveness, heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, make the peace, stop the evil, confront the unrighteous, as did the prophets who were before us.
Sincerely,
Your American Church
P.S. And, Lord, teach us prophetic resistance.
Dennis MacDonald was a regular contributor to The Post-American, predecessor to Sojourners, when this article appeared.
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