False Profits
Who is the world looking to for guidance and why?
I read the newsletter from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation most mornings, and this morning’s edition was about viewing Jesus as a prophet. The author of today’s newsletter, Brian McLaren, explains Christians tend to see “Jesus as the Son of God, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Savior, and the sacrificial atonement lamb,” but not necessarily as a prophet carrying a specific message about a coming spiritual movement his followers would carry out.
Of prophecy generally, McLaren writes:
The prophet is somebody who goes deep into themselves to hear the message that’s being birthed in the midst of their pain and their burdens and their frustrations and their sufferings and their questions and their perplexity and their disillusionments. In the foment and ferment of that inner journey, something begins to emerge, and they bring it out and they say, “I can’t just say these words. I have to demonstrate them. I’ve got to find two or three other people who see what I see so that we can do something about it.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about prophecy lately, partly because I needed something to write about for the title of this post, which I came up with weeks ago. But prophecy has also been top-of-mind because I see so many people held up as prophets and oracles of the future, though each are woefully lacking in prophetic qualifications, at least in the sense McLaren describes. Far from being in the midst of pain, burden, frustration, and disillusionment, these false prophets celebrate their privilege, power, and wealth. They buy Hawaiian compounds and mega yachts while the world starves and burns. They wantonly exploit and destroy nature and the planet in their pursuit of personal wealth and fame. They lie about the sources of their power, about the promises and true costs of their products and investments. They celebrate all things man-made, artificial, and technological. These men —and they’re almost all rich, white men from rich families —are bereft of wisdom and stillness, they lack reverence for the past and forbearance for the future.
Last night, I finished watching the 1998 film Bulworth, whose titular character presents a believable model for the modern prophet. Played by Warren Beatty, Jay Bulworth is a US Senator running for reelection with a hardline conservative agenda. In the depths of a suicidal existential breakdown, he loses his mind and political posturing and starts speaking the truth, often in a hip-hop, rhyming way. Here’s one of his raps:
Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker and give a little to the poor? I mean, those boys over there on the monitor/ they want a government smaller and weak/ but the be speakin for the riches 20 percent when they pretend they're defendin the meek/ Now, shit, fuck, cocksuker, that's the real obscenity/ Black folks livin with every day/ Trying to believe a mothefuckin word Democrats and Republicans say.
Bulworth is painfully prophetic and more relevant today than 25 years ago. But unlike the aforementioned false prophets, Bulworth’s prophecy had nothing to do with accumulating wealth, power, and fame. Quite the contrary: very much in keeping with Jesus’ prophecy, it’s about wresting power from one small, powerful group and giving it to another big, powerless group. It’s a prophecy that runs counter to mainstream, institutional power dynamics —one that would, if heeded, would make Bulworth (if he were a real) a deeply despised man…like pretty much every other prophet throughout history. This dissonance with mainstream narratives and values, this willingness to court powerful enemies, is how you know it’s prophecy. Those other guys are just cheap salesmen.
Song of the day: