MINISTERIAL MUSINGS: The Prophetic Voice

When people hear the phrase “the prophetic voice” they often think of “prophecy”: predicting the future, soothsaying, Ouija boards, runes, Tarot cards, palm reading, and the like. From a biblical perspective, prophecy has to do with far more than this.

The concept of the prophetic voice has to do with calling institutions — be they secular or sacred — “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” in the words of the prophet Micah (6:8b). That all sounds well-and-good, but, more often than not, when people of faith call governments or big businesses into question they are inundated with castigations such as, “Don’t mix religion with politics. This has nothing to do with theology. Mind your business.” Although I believe in a strict separation of Church and State, speaking the prophetic voice is a fundamental part of the nature and mission of the Church. Consider this: what would have been the state of slavery in the United States if the abolitionist church remained silent? What would have been the result of the Civil Rights Movement if the Church skulked on the sidelines and remained inert? Look around the globe as well. Where would the Confessing Church be if Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not pen the Barmen Declaration and levy an emphatic “No!” against the Nazi regime who sacrilegiously tried to make Adolf Hitler the head of the Church? Where would South Africa be if modern day prophets like Bishop Desmond Tutu did not call the 46 year reign of Apartheid into question? There are watershed moments when the Church needs to bellow the cry of JUSTICE as a siren so that the world can hear (and head) it. Remember Jesus driving the money changers out of the Temple? That was a prophetic act. No, we are not called to be violent, but we are called to stand on the side of that which is just no matter what the consequences.

The present global climate is not exempt from the prophet’s admonitions. Look at the genocide unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. Look at the global sex-slave trade that sends women and children into forced prostitution — even here, in the land of the free! Look at the plethora of countries that systematically detain, torture, and execute the innocent…or the guilty for that matter.

Are we, who live in relative comfort and worship God in our nicely maintained sanctuaries, called to do more? Ask yourself that old adage, “What would Jesus do?” I think the answer is self-evident.

This is a time when the Church is called to act — to embody the ethic of Jesus. It is not enough to pray, although prayer is essential. We must stand on the side of the poor and the oppressed; we must advocate for all people who are marginalized by those who walk the corridors of power — those who are charged with the welfare of “the least of these.”

And so, my readers, here is my advice: pray as if the fate of the world rested in God’s hands, but act as if it rests in yours. Only then will the Church truly be the Church.