{"id":22028,"date":"2023-01-16T08:26:51","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T13:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22028"},"modified":"2023-01-16T08:40:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T13:40:32","slug":"22028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22028","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ben Fuller - Who I Am (Official Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZrpTTtvrRfI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Disrupting the Status Quo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard Rohr describes how speaking truth to power is an essential part of the prophet\u2019s mission:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the gifts of the prophets is that <strong>they evoke a crisis where one did not appear to exist before their truth-telling. <\/strong>In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. was blamed for creating violence\u2014but those who had eyes to see and were ready to hear recognized, \u201cMy God, the violence was already there!\u201d Structural violence was inherent in the system, but it was denied and disguised. No one was willing to talk about it. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and others said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets <strong>always talk about the untalkable and open a huge new area of \u201ctalkability.\u201d For those who are willing to go there, it helps us see what we didn\u2019t know how to see until they helped us to see it<\/strong>. That\u2019s how we begin to recognize a prophet\u2014there is this widening of seeing, this deepening of a truth that was always there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets <strong>generate a crisis, so it\u2019s almost understandable why they\u2019re usually called troublemakers and so often killed<\/strong>. They generate the crisis because while everybody else is saying the emperor is beautifully clothed, they are willing to say, \u201cNo, he\u2019s naked.\u201d We\u2019re not supposed to say that the emperor has no clothes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the nature of <strong>culture to have its agreed-upon lies<\/strong>. Culture <strong>holds itself together by projecting its shadow side elsewhere. That\u2019s called the \u201cscapegoat mechanism.\u201d<\/strong> Ren\u00e9 Girard, Gil Bailie, and others have pointed out that the <strong>scapegoat mechanism is the subtext of the entire biblical revelation. <\/strong>It\u2019s the tendency to <strong>export our evil elsewhere and to hate it there<\/strong>, and therefore to remain in splendid delusion. If there isn\u2019t a willingness to be critical of our country, our institution, and ourselves, we certainly can\u2019t be prophets. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When the prophet is missing from the story, the shadow side of things is always out of control<\/strong>, as in much of the world today, where we do not honor wisdom or truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems the prophet\u2019s job i<strong>s first to deconstruct current illusions, which is the status quo, and then reconstruct on a new and honest foundation<\/strong>. That is why the prophet is <strong>never popular with the comfortable or with those in power. <\/strong>O<strong>nly a holy few have any patience with the deconstruction of egos and institutions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prophets are <strong>\u201cradical\u201d teachers in the truest sense of the word. The Latin\u00a0<em>radix\u00a0<\/em>means root, and the prophets go to the root causes and root vices<\/strong> and \u201croot\u201d them out! Their educational <strong>method is to expose and accuse with no holds barred<\/strong>. Ministers and religion in general tend to concentrate on effects and symptoms, usually a mopping up exercise after the fact. As someone once put it, we throw life preservers to people drowning in the swollen stream, which is all well and good\u2014but prophets work far upstream to find out why the stream is swollen in the first place. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Big Picture Thinkers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In a 2006 CAC conference, Richard Rohr identified the prophet as one who places issues in the context of the \u201cbig picture\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is a prophet? Let me try this as a definition:<strong> one who names the situation truthfully and in its largest context. <\/strong>When we can name the situation truthfully and in its largest context, it cannot get pulled into interest groups and political expediency. I was preaching in Atlanta, and I went for the first time to the Martin Luther King Jr. exhibit. It\u2019s so obvious that he was a biblical prophet. I stood there and heard the addresses right in his very church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, where they play his preaching constantly. I realized how he was always putting racism and segregation in the big context of the kingdom of God. And then he kept going and came out against the Vietnam War. He is said to have lost at least one-third of his own followers because he placed the issue in too big a frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>W<strong>e don\u2019t want the big frame. No one wants the big picture.<\/strong> I\u2019m convinced that Jesus\u2019 metaphor and image for what we would simply call the big picture is the r<strong>eign of God, or the kingdom of God. <\/strong>That\u2019s Jesus\u2019 way of describing a phrase we used to say in Latin [<em>sub specie aeternitatis<\/em>] which means, \u201cIn light of eternity.\u201d <strong>To consider things in light of eternity is a great clarifier. <\/strong>Maybe it comes to us on our death bed, when we think to ourselves, \u201cIs this going to mean anything? Does this really matter? Is this little thing we\u2019re upset about now and taking offense at going to mean anything in light of eternity?\u201d <strong>The prophet or prophetess speaks truthfully and in the largest context. [1]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s&nbsp;<\/em>\u201cBeyond Vietnam\u201d<em>&nbsp;speech, he spoke from the \u201cbig frame\u201d to call for a revolution of values based on love:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one\u2019s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all [humankind].\u2026 When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I\u2019m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of<strong> that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. <\/strong>Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. T<strong>his Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: \u201cLet us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.\u2026 If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and [God\u2019s] love is perfected in us\u201d<\/strong> [1 John 4:7\u20138, 12]. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4-500x305.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22033\" width=\"636\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4-500x305.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4-300x183.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4-768x468.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4-1536x936.png 1536w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-4.png 1762w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disrupting the Status Quo Richard Rohr describes how speaking truth to power is an essential part of the prophet\u2019s mission:&nbsp; One of the gifts of the prophets is that they evoke a crisis where one did not appear to exist before their truth-telling. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. was blamed for creating violence\u2014but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22028"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22028"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22036,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22028\/revisions\/22036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}