Reviews on Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free

Information technology has get a platitude that prophets speak truth to ability, but like most clichés it has a basis in truth. Prophecy, it's articulate in the Old Testament, isn't purely a theological matter – by its nature it has political and social ramifications.

The matter of whether at that place is a universal, objective, and eternal truth or just subjective, changeable, and relative plural truths generates more heat than calorie-free in the noisy conversation between modernistic and post-modern commentators. So let me state my position conspicuously: the true prophet e'er conveys an objective truth. Merely the truth is not just in the message; it resides in the opinion prophets take toward their listeners. The true prophet reminds the self-satisfied of their flaws – that they are not good and that they are not God.

In The Prophetic Imagination, Erstwhile Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann sets out the task of prophecy: "to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception culling to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture." The dominant culture of the Hebrew prophetic tradition was Egyptian and the paradigmatic prophet was Moses. Brueggemann describes how Moses, brought up to exist a prince of Egypt, stood against it on behalf of the enslaved Hebrews. The royal consciousness knows it is dominant and thinks it is supreme. It believes it will never change and never exist moved. Merely the Exodus story, with its protests, plagues, and miraculous manifestations, "dismantled the religion of static triumphalism by exposing the gods and showing that in fact they had no ability and were not gods."

The programme of Moses, Brueggemann is bang-up to remind u.s., is non just "the freeing of a little band of slaves equally an escape from the empire," though that is important; rather, "his work is zilch less than an assault on the consciousness of the empire, aimed at cipher less than the dismantling of the empire both in its social practices and in its mythic pretensions." Information technology is an assail that does non end with Arab republic of egypt. The part of the prophet does not disappear with the Exodus. Indeed, it grows in prominence in the scriptures precisely in those contexts where homegrown imperial consciousness arises – "the quondam history of Pharaoh is continued in the monarchy of Israel." Wherever kings, priests, and princes constitute themselves, Isaiah and Jeremiah are not far behind. "The prophets of Israel continue the radical movement of Moses in the face of royal reality."

The prophet argues the interests of the weak to the stiff, sometimes represented past a single person: a queen, a boss, a president. In the Bible nosotros oftentimes encounter prophets speaking to such yard eminences: Nathan to David, Amos to Jeroboam, John the Baptist to Herod. And nevertheless frequently these prophets are besides addressing the population the rex represents; their message is directed at the actions, assumptions, and aspirations of an unabridged culture.

Emil Nolde, Prophet (Public domain)

A closer await at the accustomed narratives of any civilisation will reveal awkward facts ignored, histories revised, unheard voices. It's the prophet'southward job to crave people to accost their complacencies and assumptions; quite literally, the prophet intends to offend common sense. Information technology'southward the imitation prophet who confirms the powerful in their assumptions, reassures them that they're as virtuous as they remember, and perpetuates the prevarication that those with ability are the purveyors of truth.

Consider the following 3 examples fatigued from different cultures, faiths, and political arrangements, which demonstrate that the role of "prophet," in this limited sense, is not tied to any one ideology or faith, and that the question of true and false prophets is equally relevant now as it was in the age of Moses, Amos, and John the Baptist.

In June 2021 the Royal Academy of Arts in London withdrew the work of the textile artist Jess de Wahls from its gift store. The academy explained itself in an online argument, claiming it had received numerous complaints for selling works "by an artist expressing transphobic views." The complaints stemmed from a 2022 web post in which de Wahls featured an embroidery slice titled "Somewhere over the Rainbow, something went terribly wrong. …" De Wahls'due south work is replete with LGBTQ+ iconography, and her art engages the feminist struggle for equal representation in conservative and patriarchal societies. And notwithstanding she finds troubling some entrenched ideas about gender and sex currently gripping her customs. De Wahls's concern is with the doctrine whereby self-identity is authoritative and sexual practice is a social construct rather than a biological reality."I take no issue with somebody who feels more comfortable expressing themselves as if they are the other sexual activity (or in whatever style they please for that thing)," she writes. "Even so, I cannot accept people'due south unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex activity to when they were built-in and deserve to be extended the aforementioned rights as if they were born equally such." De Wahl is concerned that such attitudes undermine hard-won feminist progress. "I do not believe that these beliefs should override existing protections that are in place as a outcome of the biological realities of women, since their purpose is to relieve oppression based on women's physicalities and reproductive functions (non identity or feelings)." Equally de Wahls herself predicted, when she published her views she was accused of "biological essentialism" by many of her former fans, and was branded a TERF, the pejorative term for "trans exclusionary radical feminist." The resulting controversy led to the removal of her works at the Royal Academy of Arts, accompanied by further recriminations within de Wahls'due south own feminist creative person community. She writes, "I find myself unable to continue with what now seems to be the but accustomed narrative in 'my circles.'" (She may non be crying entirely in the desert: within a matter of days the RAA reinstated her work and apologized to de Wahls, saying that its actions were "a 'betrayal' of its commitment to freedom of speech.")

On November 29, 2007, presidential hopeful Barack Obama held a fundraising outcome at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater. Ane of his special guests and phase partners was Cornel West, a famous Black thinker, progressive spokesman, campaigner for racial justice, and professor of African American studies. According to commentator Michael Eric Dyson, Obama was drawn to Due west as "a juggernaut of the academy and an intellectual icon amongst the black masses" and praised him as "a genius, a public intellectual, a preacher, an oracle." For his role, West dubbed Obama "my blood brother … companion, and comrade." W went on to stump for Obama, contributing to at least sixty-five campaign appearances. The love affair was non to last long. By May 2011, West was publicly excoriating Obama in person and in print, bitterly describing him as "a blackness mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a blackness puppet of corporate plutocrats. And at present he has become caput of the American killing motorcar and is proud of information technology. … I thought Barack Obama could accept provided some way out. Merely he lacks backbone." When challenged by fellow Black intellectuals and party stalwarts for abandoning the crusade, West fired back: "Nosotros have got to endeavour to tell the truth, and that truth is painful. … It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream." Pushback to West's opinion came from former colleagues such as Dyson and Melissa Harris-Perry, who published a rebuttal calling West's diatribe "a self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in the soapbox of prophetic witness."

In Dec 2019, Kris Vallotton, lead pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, prophesied that Donald Trump would win a second term in 2020. Vallotton told his majority-Republican audience about a dream he had which he interpreted as divine revelation of Trump'due south favored status. "The Lord wants it," he said, to cheers from the crowd. On November 7, 2020, four days afterwards Trump lost the election, Vallotton posted a video on his social media accounts apologizing for getting it wrong. Two days later, facing immense pressure from other Bethel leaders and from his thousands of followers, Vallotton retracted his apology. "After doing a lot more research, I decided to wait until the official vote count is consummate as it appears that at that place is a significant amount of discrepancy in the process." In January 2021, Vallotton reinstated the apology video.

The Bethel brouhaha was one played out several times in Pentecostal and charismatic circles over the same menstruum. By no means was Vallotton lonely in confidently foretelling a Trump win, or in subsequently dithering over the right action to take when Trump lost. He was also non alone in facing a perfect storm of acrimony from an outraged, politically conservative audience – anger, it should be noted, that was not directed at the mistake, but at the apology. Christian "prophets" who predicted a Trump victory to adoring crowds that year include Paula White, Dutch Sheets, Shawn Bolz, Lance Wallnau, Johnny Enlow, and Jeremiah Johnson, whose high-profile prophecy predicting Trump'due south first win in 2022 is seen by many as a watershed moment in charismatic nationalism. Many of these prophets continue to cling to their utterances. Johnson, like Vallotton, apologized for getting it wrong in 2022 and faced blowback as a issue, including "multiple decease threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I take ever heard toward my family and ministry."

Prophets speak not only to a specific group but from within it.

The office of prophecy in American evangelical culture bears clarification. Here, a "prophet" is usually a self-appointed person who claims the ability to meet, hear, or know the Lord's volition. Prophecies may take the form of foretelling the future or interpreting current events. Some, such every bit Vallotton, hold official positions in churches. Others, including Johnson, are freelance ministers, earning their livings through donations. One even assumed an official position in the government when Paula White served as special faith adviser to President Trump. Premier prophets attract tens of thousands of followers, command multimedia empires, and enjoy international platforms. Needless to say, this tin can be extremely lucrative. To people who are not Christians, and to Christians who are not part of the evangelical, charismatic culture, the whole enterprise can seem baffling at best, perverse at worst.

And nevertheless all groups – secular, religious, black, white, gay, straight, left, or correct – have voices speaking in their midst that may be either truthful or imitation prophets. All groups have a common self-image that may be either coddled or challenged past those voices. When he issued (and reissued) his controversial apology, Vallotton said, "I think it doesn't make me a false prophet." Vallotton is right. He was already a false prophet on December 8, 2019, a year before anyone could have known what would happen, not considering he was mistaken in a prediction simply because he claimed the prophetic voice when he told his own people what they already wanted to hear, to applause from the oversupply. In their contexts, Jess de Wahls and Cornel West were prophetic because they spoke against the common assumptions of their respective spheres.

Ironically, the apologies of Vallotton and Johnson go some fashion to restoring their bona fides, for the simple reason that these apologies are and then unpopular amidst the audiences to which they are directed that making them stands as a sort of prophetic witness in itself. For these self-appointed prophets to fulfill their claims, however, they must consistently use their voices to counteract mistaken mindsets in their habitation cultures. And such a course of action is inevitably bad for business.

Jesus says, "No prophet is accepted in his hometown" (Luke iv:24). Prophets speak not merely to a specific group merely from within information technology. They have hometowns, and how their hometowns care for them tin can be a adept indication of their integrity. When prophets do not tell the bulk what its itching ears want to hear, they will be marginalized. There's a reason the stereotype of the prophet shows him ragged, poor, carrying his placard in the face of jeers.

Of grade the content of the prophetic message is important too. Surely the overriding concern of the Old Testament prophets for the poor and the weak is an indication that prophecy must defend such people. Even so, prophetic witness can be directed on behalf of whatever despised group against any despising one. Information technology is true that Jesus acts prophetically against the oppressors on behalf of his poor compatriots living in foreign-occupied regions. Simply he as well acts prophetically when he heals Roman servants, raises rich people's daughters from the dead, and feeds hated Samaritans and other gentiles, all in the face of hostile crowds of impoverished people. The most intense acrimony at him tends to come when he prophetically reminds his subjugated countrymen to love their enemies. Significantly, Jesus' maxim about prophets and hometowns belongs in the context of the domicile crowd wishing to guard itself against a perceived challenge to its ain sense of ethnic privilege: "'Truly I tell you,' he continued, 'no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in State of israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the state. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, just to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the fourth dimension of Elisha the prophet, even so not i of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.' All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this" (Luke 4:24–28). The dominant culture might be the rich and powerful, but it might also be the poor and aggrieved.

The prophet reminds the powerful that their story is not the whole story, that their mode is not the but fashion, and that they are not God.

"For the fourth dimension volition come when people volition not put up with true teaching. Instead, to suit their own desires, they volition get together effectually them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears desire to hear" (two Tim. 4:3). To talk well-nigh prophets is to talk about power, and to talk about power is to talk about who controls the story a grouping tells itself most itself. Prophets are inextricable from the social environment. Agreed-upon forms of social life may be legal or political, but they are also economic, religious, ethnic, traditional. Commonage agreement can be explicit, or it might be inferred, merely collective agreement is how human societies work. Still, there is a grab, for the whole truth of any state of affairs tin never exist comprehended by whatever one entity. Whenever i finds a big grouping shouting with one voice, one may exist sure that somewhere, somehow, smaller voices are being silenced or unheard. And with their absence comes a baloney of the truth that applies not just to those who speak the loudest or describe the biggest crowds. This is what Kierkegaard is getting at when he says that "the crowd is untruth." And yet man groups love to be right, and individuals crave beingness amidst the right, and the righteous. The force per unit area of confirmation bias and sentimental narratives is enormous, and the authentic prophet is doomed to offend it.

It is ironic that of our three examples, it is the professional prophet who failed the test of true prophecy when the bookish and the artist did not. To be clear, information technology is not a prophet's controversial opinions and conclusions which validate the role, it is whether the prophet speaks truth without calculating fear or favor. Insofar as the prophetic task treats with ability, it is political. And insofar equally it treats with truth it is theological. Whether they are overtly religious or not, when those with ability act every bit if their beliefs are timeless, immutable, and true they arrogate to themselves properties of the divine. The prophet reminds the powerful that their story is not the whole story, that their way is not the only way, and that they are not God.

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Source: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/politics/truth-to-power

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