Witness and prophecy in biblical teaching

WITNESS and PROPHECY in Biblical Preaching

Chapter Twelve

from “COMMUNICATING THE WORD OF GOD. Practical Methods of Presenting the Biblical Message” by J N M Wijngaards, Theological Publications in India, Bangalore 560 055, 1974. First published in Great Britain in 1978 by MAYHEW-McCRIMMON LTD Great Wakering, Essex, England.

The whole book can be found online here: http://www.wijngaards-clackson.com/contents-communicating-word/ .

Every profession has its “front” which Erving Goffman (*1) has defined as “that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance”. The “front” is that part of our behaviour by which we try to give people a particular kind of impression about our work. The front is maintained by an elaborate social game, subconsciously or half-consciously adopted by all the members of a profession.

Fig. 39. Facades at the old Market square in Brussels.

Undertakers, for example, carefully distinguish between on-stage and off-stage areas. On-stage areas are accessible to outsiders. They include the showroom where coffins can be sold and the “chapel of rest” where corpses are laid out in state. Outsiders do not see the off-stage places, such as workshops and the room where bodies are dressed and prepared for burial. In the on-stage area a certain dignity and solemnity is fostered. Service personnel will be formally dressed. Curtains and other ornamentation will reflect sobriety and mourning. The manner of conducting business will be dignified and subdued. All evidence of the “dirty work” that necessarily needs to be done will be suppressed as far as possible. By charging a higher fee for the coffin, the undertaker does not need to dramatize the other costs of conducting a funeral that somehow would seem to upset the front. In short, an undertaker is an ordinary human person, an individual who laughs and jokes like everyone else, but who in the exercise of his profession is forced to maintain a certain front that covers and obscures his own person.

This is true of all professions to a greater or lesser extent. It is certainly the case for all those engaged in teaching or preaching the Gospel message. Whether they want it or not, a certain “front” has been constructed by society which they are expected to maintain. A clergyman who ascends the pulpit on a Sunday morning assumes the front of a preacher. He may confirm this by his terminology, “dear brethren . . .”, by his vestments, by the topic selected for his sermon and a hundred and one other small things that mark him off as a “preacher”. There is nothing surprising in this, you will say, and it can hardly be avoided. That may be true, but we should be aware of some of the undesirable consequences.

As soon as people realize that we are maintaining a front we lose credibility. People know that it is our professed aim to convince them of some truths and to persuade them to adopt certain modes of action. Almost instinctively this knowledge calls into operation a kind of defence mechanism by which people will be somewhat sceptical about everything we say.

Psychological research confirms this to be a fact. To make people adopt a message, the honesty and credibility of the speaker are more important than his competence or the intrinsic value of his words (Kelman and Hovland, 1953). A speaker loses credibility whenever the hearer knows he wants to persuade him (Hovland 1953). People are much more inclined to accept a message if they hear it accidentally, because they are then convinced that the speaker did not intend to influence their thinking (Walster and Festinger 1962). However one tries to explain it, the fact seems clear that the professional masters of the word, the politician, the barrister, the salesman and the preacher, are listened to with a certain amount of scepticism and distrust.

A shy and ill-at-ease farmer was called as a witness in a Kansas court. The counsel for the defence was anxious to get a good account out of him. “Now, sir, stand up and tell your story like a preacher!” The judge is said to have intervened by exclaiming, “Like a preacher?! No sir! None of that; I want you to tell the truth”. (*2)

Religious studies about teenagers around the world confirm that credibility should be of especial concern to preachers and teachers of religion in our own times. Modern youth seem to have an inborn aversion to everything that smacks of dogmatism. Perhaps this arises from a profound awareness of the limitations of conditions and structures. Our young intellectuals know that doctrines affirmed by one authority are contradicted by another. They realize they are part of a society that is self-contradicting and constantly changing. They are exposed all the time to the business of making bold assertions which later prove false or erroneous. As a result they are distrustful of anything that is self-perpetuating and static, of institutions and traditions, of a priori ideologies and structures of power. They will not readily believe anything that is presented as traditional doctrine or the teaching of an official Church. Thus, in a person who speaks about religion they will immediately sense whether he is presenting a front or his real self.

SPEAKING ABOUT OURSELVES

In his booklet How to prepare a sermon Francis S. MacNutt (*3) rightly stresses that in our preaching today we should by all means introduce a personal element. Rather than represent the official Teaching Church by presenting an intellectual and objective lecture on faith or morals, the preacher or teacher should speak from his own experience and present a personal witness. As long as the preacher is not personally involved, his word lacks credibility. Francis MacNutt, quoting John Wesley, defines a preacher as a man who can say: “I set myself on fire; and people come to watch me burn”. This is indeed a powerful image of a preacher. It reminds me of the 73 year-old Buddhist monk who immolated himself at Saigon in protest against the Diem regime. (Fig. 40). Nobody could doubt that this preacher believed in what he was saying.

To break down the front that we present, we have to lead people to the off-stage areas where we let our hair down and where we are ourselves. We share with people what we have experienced, our searching, our failings and our discoveries. We give our personal views and evaluations. We talk about our likes and dislikes, the things that encourage or discourage us. We communicate faith as we believe it and love as we feel it. We reveal ourselves as much as the topic about which we speak.

Fig. 40. Self-immolation by a 73 year-old Buddhist monk at Saigon in 1962.

It is my conviction that such a “personal” approach to our religious preaching and teaching is a necessary element in every presentation. There are obviously limits to what can and what should be done in this regard. Ultimately we are not preaching ourselves. There will be times when a very personal involvement is called for and other times when a more detached presentation is required. There are ways of bringing in personal matters that offend good taste or obstruct effective communication. No exact rules can be given about this. Knowing precisely where the personal element should begin and where it should end is the outcome of informed wisdom and a good amount of experience.

In this chapter I would like to discuss two approaches in which the personal element predominates: witness and prophecy. I have brought together various suggestions which result from my own experience in trying to communicate scriptural messages or from observing the process in others. In giving some thoughts and hints as to how one should be a witness or a prophet, I may seem to contradict my own purpose. By teaching people how to be a prophet or witness, it may look as if I am making these things into new professions with their tricks and skills. We are indeed on thin ice when making a study of what is by nature unstudied and spontaneous. Perhaps, we should formulate our attempt in this way: by looking at what witness and prophecy mean, we could liberate ourselves from our professional mask, from the preacher’s front, to be ourselves when the occasion demands this from us.

WHAT IS WITNESS?

In every day English, giving witness to an event means that we testify that we have seen this event with our own eyes. We have experienced it. We can vouch for its being true for we were present and have seen what happened or heard what was said. In court practice, the eye-witness account ranks as the highest form of evidence. We speak of someone who vouches for qualities in a person as a character witness.

In the book of Acts, the apostles testified both as eyewitnesses and as character witnesses. They are eye-witnesses of the Resurrection. “The Apostles continued to testify to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power” (4,33). They also gave witness to Jesus himself as a person, thus executing Jesus’ command “You shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” (1,8). Their witness about Jesus is a complex statement. It asserts the truth of the historical events they relate. It vouches for Jesus’ credibility. It attests, on the strength of experience, that Jesus can truly save. All these elements are part of the testimony.

“We are witnesses of everything that Jesus did in the land of Israel and in Jerusalem. Then they put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But God raised him from death three days later and caused him to appear, not to everyone, but only to the witnesses that God had already chosen, that is, to us who ate and drank with him after he rose from death. And he commanded us to preach the gospel to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God has appointed judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets spoke about him, saying that everyone who believes in him will have his sins forgiven through the power of his name.” (10,39-43)

Christ is central to the idea of witness in the New Testament sense of the word. To give witness in this sense simply means to share with others our experience of Christ.

In his very first sermon on the day of Pentecost (2,14-39), Peter presents the pattern that must have been well-known in the Early Church. At first he explains the outpouring of the Spirit which was so manifest in the behaviour of the Apostles, then he reminds his audience of what Jesus has done and finally he testifies to the Resurrection. Peter, therefore, relates a threefold experience; his experience of the Holy Spirit, his experience of living with Christ, and his experience of Jesus as the Risen One. His words make such a great impression precisely because he is giving a testimony of something he himself has seen.

And John writes in his Letter:

“We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning. We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes; yes we have seen it, and our hands have touched it. When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you also, so that you will join with us in the fellowship that we have with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1,1-3).

We will appreciate the force of such testimony. There is a big difference between what we simply pass on as a traditionally held doctrine and the message which we convey as witnesses of what we have personally experienced. An objection here would seem unavoidable. It may be said: “but how can we witness to what we have not experienced? Have we actually seen the Risen Christ?” The answer is that although we have not actually seen the Risen Christ in flesh and blood, we too can witness to what Christ, through his Spirit, is doing in us. The New Testament is emphatic on this point. In his Eucharistic farewell address, Jesus said that we will know him because of the Spirit of Truth that will be in us. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper, the Spirit of Truth to stay with you for ever. The world cannot receive him because it cannot see him or know him, but you know him, for he remains with you and lives in you” (Jn 14,16-17). Jesus says he will reveal himself to us: “My Father will love him who loves me. I too will love him and reveal myself to him” (Jn 14,21). The Holy Spirit will teach us everything: “The helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you” (Jn 14,26). The early Christians were aware that in this way every Christian could know God directly and therefore could give witness of him. “This is how we are sure that we live in God and that he lives in us: he has given us his Spirit. And we have seen and will tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 Jn 4, 13-14).

Whenever we give witness, our testimony is related to this experience of Christ and his Spirit. I am not thinking of something deeply mystical or dramatic. I believe that all of us, if we become sufficiently sensitive to the work of the Spirit, will discover that we have a real experience of Christ in this way. It is here that the roots of our Christian witness lie even if the immediate topic discussed may not cover the whole Christian message. There is no dichotomy here between the words we preach and the life we live. In early Christian parlance, the preacher was a witness (in Greek “martur”) who was ready to die for his testimony. Our word “martyr” derives from this.

WITNESS IN COMMUNICATION

In practice, when speaking about the Bible, how can we witness to what we say? What will a testimony look like in an ordinary Sunday sermon or in a catechism class?

Having observed and analysed what seemed to be genuine cases of witness, I always found these four ingredients: personal involvement, the touch of true life, a favourite Scripture text and experience of the Spirit.

Personal involvement:

The person speaks about himself. He talks in terms of “I” and “me”. The subject in hand obviously means a lot to him.

The touch of true life:

What he says fits in with ordinary human life as we know it. He acknowledges his own limitations and defects. He admits doubts and mistakes. His account includes true elements of life which are not easily captured by definition but which are yet very important, such as emotion, a sense of mystery, poetry and the voice of conscience.

A favourite Scripture text:

Some word of Christ or some other passage from the Bible has made a deep impression on the person. The truth or attitude implied has become part and parcel of his view of life.

Experience of the Spirit:

The person has been affected by the profound stirrings of the soul that are caused by the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility or self control (Gal 5,22).

Six weeks before she died, St. Theresa of Lisieux said: “You know, those words of Isaiah, ‘There is no beauty or majesty in him. We saw him, but he has no looks to attract our eyes. He is despised, the least among men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, who hides his face from shame. That is why we despise him. . .’ (Is 53,2-3); these words have been the foundation of all my devotion to the Sacred Face, or I may even say the foundation of all my religious life … I too wanted to be without beauty, without looks, lonely, treading the winepress while being unknown to all creatures”. (*4)

This was a personal testimony. Devotion to the Sacred Face of Christ was something dear to Theresa. When she became a novice as a girl of sixteen years old she had already asked to receive as her religious name “Theresa of the Sacred Face”. Theresa kept a picture of the Sacred Face of Christ in her prayerbook and during her final sickness she asked that such a picture be pinned to the curtain at the side of her bed so that she could look at it from time to time. Frequently we find prayers and poems of hers that make reference to this special devotion. She understood her whole life in the convent as a hidden life chosen on purpose to live up to the example of self negation given by Christ. “To console you, oh Jesus, I want to live unknown and lonely. Your beauty, which you cover with a veil, reveals to me the depth of your mystery and makes me want to approach nearer to you! Your face is my only riches. I want to possess nothing else. Hiding myself in your face I will be like you, oh Jesus!”

Fig. 41. Painting of the Veiled Christ (15th cent., Portugal, artist unknown).

Such reflections of Theresa had great consequences for her practical and spiritual life. Theresa’s biographers agree that one of her most remarkable virtues was her talent of hiding all her internal struggles, tensions and anxieties, but also her visions and exalted spiritual experiences, under the veil of a kind and childlike smile. This corresponded to her philosophy of life.

“Our face is a mirror of the soul. That is why you must always show a happy, relaxed face as a small and contented child. All the more so when you are alone, for there are always angels who watch you.”

“Our dear Lord is sorry enough to have to test us here on earth, even though he loves us so much. Why should we cause him more sorrow by telling him how difficult we find life? That is why we should not let him notice what we feel. We should not be so tactless as to complain of heat or cold, to wipe the sweat from our face, or to rub our hands together when we are cold. Or, if we do these things, we should do them as it were without drawing his attention to them so that he knows we don’t blame him for it.”

In our age of gut-level communication and of finding Christ in intimate communion with others, Theresa’s ideal of life may be beyond our understanding. We may not be able to say, as she did, “may my face like that of Christ remain hidden from all creatures on earth so that no one may recognise me!” Be that as it may. The point here is that when Theresa spoke about these things she presented something that had become part and parcel of her life. The sacred face of Jesus meant something to her. The words of Isaiah, “There was no beauty nor majesty in him”, etc. had become a reality in her life. That is why Theresa could be a true witness about it. And however much our inclinations may be different from hers, she presents us with a genuine experience of Christ which no one will treat with disrespect.

Witness is such a personal thing that each individual can only do it in his own way. Often we may not feel strong enough about a certain point to be able to give witness to it. But, unless we are utterly spineless creatures who have no Christian principles of our own, there will be issues on which we can give a genuine witness and about which, in fact, we may have to give witness. To help us recognise the opportunities that may come our way, I will briefly describe four more examples I have come across myself.

Confession is quite a problem nowadays, even with practising Catholics. A chaplain addressed a group of college students about the sacrament of penance. He did not dogmatize or moralize. Instead he told them in simple words what confession meant in his own life. He was quite honest about it. He admitted his own difficulties and reluctance at various stages of his life, and told them how he had come to appreciate the real value of confession. In this context he said that the story of the woman who wept at Jesus’ feet (Lk 7,36-50) had made a deep impression on him. He had really felt the power of Jesus’ sacramental words, “Your sins are forgiven”. He was consoled by Jesus’ assurance that sin might lead to greater love if the experience had brought us nearer to him. He added to all this an explanation of the various practical, pastoral rulings laid down by the Church. The students were wrapt in attention throughout his talk. Everyone felt that the chaplain was not putting up a front, but communicating a part of himself.

In religious instruction classes at school the matter of the relationship with parents repeatedly came up for discussion. After some of the usual teenager problems had been aired and looked at, the discussion moved towards grandparents and looking after people when they get old. Some students imitated and ridiculed old people. At this stage the teacher intervened. She narrated how she had felt about her own parents at various periods in her life. She told them that both her parents were now dead, and how she was happy about any small pleasure she had given them in their old age. She gave some examples of this and referred also to Sir 3,12-16 which discusses the blessings for children who respect their parents when they are old. She said she was especially struck by the promise that kindness to a father or mother shall not be forgotten but will serve as a reparation for our own sins.

I remember attending a congress in Madras at which a government official was to speak about education. In the course of his address he mentioned the fact that he himself was of Pariah descent and had been born in a small village. Through the Christian mission his family had been baptized and he himself had been given the chance of attending various schools. He then continued to give a straightforward witness about Christ. “Without Christ I would not be a human person. Christ gave me everything I have and made me a child of God because he loved me.” He then quoted 1 Cor 1,26-30 in which Scripture says that God chooses what is common and contemptible in the eyes of the world and that Jesus Christ has become our wisdom and our virtue and our holiness and our freedom. It was a moving testimony, which I will never forget.

A certain youth leader spoke about drugs. He himself had gone through a period when he occasionally used drugs and was on the way to getting hooked for good. He gave an interesting account of the agonizing struggle he went through. One of the things that helped him break the habit altogether was hearing a short sermon on the blind man of Jericho (Mk 10,46-52). The blind man called after Jesus, “Have pity on me!” When

Jesus invited him to come, he was so full of confidence that he threw off his cloak, jumped up and went to Jesus. It is difficult for a blind man to find his cloak when he has let it drop. Throwing off the cloak symbolized his abandoning himself to Jesus. The youth leader said that he had felt that breaking with his habit would require a similar act of trust.

PROPHECY AS FOUND IN SCRIPTURE

We are all familiar with prophecy as a phenomenom described in Scripture. We know that it means “pronouncing in the name of God a judgment on a specific situation, uttered on the strength of the prophet’s inspired conviction”. The prophets condemned or praised, threatened or consoled, according to the needs of their times. Prophecy was ranked as an important charism in the Early Church: after the ministry of the apostles and before that of the teachers (1 Cor 12,28).

The distinctive feature of prophecy was that a man of God told certain people what God thought of them in a particular situation. The prophet’s vision always had a bearing on people’s life.

The prototype of all prophets in the Old Testament was Moses. Moses’ charismatic leadership inspired the Hebrews to such an extent that they left Egypt under his guidance and concluded a covenant with God at Sinai. According to the Old Testament books that describe Moses’ activities, Moses always spoke on behalf of God. “This is what Yahweh has commanded me to say to the children of Israel…” Moses was so close to God that after speaking to Yahweh on the holy mountain, “the skin on his face was radiant with light” (Ex 34,29). And at his death we find recorded: “Since then, never has there been such a prophet in Israel as Moses, the man Yahweh knew face to face. What signs and wonders Yahweh caused him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh and all his servants and his whole land! How mighty the hand and great the fear that Moses wielded in the sight of all Israel!” (Dt 34,10-12).

Jesus too was a prophet

On one occasion many simple and poor people had gathered to listen to Jesus. Looking at them Jesus proclaimed: “Happy are you who are poor, the kingdom of God is yours! Happy are you who are hungry now, you will be filled!” (Lk 6,20-21). These simple god-fearing people did not realize how happy they really were. Jesus, acting as a prophet, told them what God thought about their situation. When confronted with the pharisees however, Jesus had a different judgment to give. He said: “Woe to you teachers of the law and pharisees! Imposters!” (repeated seven times in Mt 23,13-28). Jesus proclaimed God’s disapproval of the hypocrisy and formalism of Jewish religious leaders.

Fig. 42. “Moses” by Michelangelo (1515).

Prophets have sometimes been called “the voice of God and the conscience of society”. Prophecy had two aspects: the social dimension, by which one person expressed what was present in the consciousness of the whole community; and the inspiration of an individual who felt called upon to make a statement on behalf of God. Both elements had to be there to make it a real prophecy. Condemning society or some abuses in it on purely humanitarian grounds did not make it prophecy. It was the reference to the judgement of God that changed a democratic protest into real prophecy.

As Christ’s followers, we have been sent to teach people to obey everything Jesus has commanded us (Mt 28,20). We have been commissioned to continue his own prophetic task (Jn 20,21). So we too may occasionally be called upon to exercise the function of prophecy ourselves. In what kind of conditions would we be required to do so? What would such a prophecy look like? No doubt Christ promised his apostles, “When they bring you to trial, don’t worry about what you are going to say or how you will say it; when the time comes, you will be given what you will say. For the words you speak will not be yours; they will come from the Spirit of your Father speaking in you” (Mt 10,19-20). But Christ spoke to men for whom prophecy was familiar. Will we be able to recognize its moment and allow the Spirit of the Father to speak in us?

PROPHECY TODAY

Before analyzing the elements that always seem to be present in a prophetic statement, I would like to present two examples of prophecy in our own times. For some mysterious reason or other we always associate prophecy with biblical times: more readily with the Old Testament and hesitatingly with the New. Prophecy, having become a scriptural category, has been made to look unreal, out of place, in our present-day running of the Church. Paul’s injunction not to disregard prophecy (1 Thess 5,20) is perhaps taken too lightly by us. Seeing some examples of prophecy outside a scriptural context may make us aware again of its function in our own lives.

Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican monk preaching in Florence. Being a saintly man he was utterly appalled by the conditions of his time. Christian life had been ruined by prosperity and materialism. People freely indulged in pleasure-seeking and extravagances that would have shamed pagan Rome. With prophetic zeal Savonarola set about remedying the situation. He pronounced doom and divine wrath on all forms of degeneration and called for a universal renewal. The effect of his repeated messages was unparalleled. It brought about a revolution of life within the city, replacing pagan indulgence with pious austerity. It is unfortunate that Savonarola in his fanaticism overstepped the mark and was to die at odds with the Church. However, he certainly had the stature of a prophet and spoke as one, as can be seen from these extracts from a sermon he preached in the Duomo at Florence on 12th May 1496. (*5)

“In everything I am oppressed: even the spiritual power is against me with Peter’s mighty key. Narrow is my path and full of trouble: like Balaam’s ass, I must throw myself on the ground and cry: ‘See here I am: I am ready to die for the truth’. But when Balaam beat his fallen beast, it said to him: ‘What have I done to you?’ So I say to you: “Come here and tell me: ‘What have I done to you? Why do you beat me? I have spoken the truth to you: I have warned you to choose a virtuous life: I have led many souls to Christ”. . . “The ass alone saw the angel, the others did not; so open your eyes. Thank God, many have them open. You have seen many learned men whom you thought wise and they have withstood our cause: now they believe; many noted masters who were hard and proud against us: now humility casts them down. You have also seen many women turn from their vanity to simplicity; vicious youths who are now improved and conduct themselves in a new way. Many indeed, have received this doctrine with humility. This doctrine has stood firm, no matter how attacked with the intention of showing that it was a doctrine opposed to Christ. God does that to manifest his Wisdom, to show how it finally overcomes all other wisdom. And he is willing that his servants be spoken against that they may show their patience and humility, and for the sake of his love not be afraid of martyrdom.

Oh you men and women, I bid you to this truth: let those who are in captivity contradict you as much as they will, God will come and oppose their pride. You who are proud, however, if you do not turn about and become better, then will the sword and the pestilence fall upon you; with famine and war will Italy be turned upside down. I foretell you this because I am sure of it: if I were not, I would not mention it. Open your eyes as Balaam opened his eyes when the angel said to him: “Had it not been for your ass, I would have killed you”. So I say to you, you captives: ‘Had it not been for the good and their preaching it would have been woe unto you’. . . ‘What will you have of us, brother?’ you ask. I desire that you serve Christ with zeal and not with sloth and indifference….”

William Wilberforce addressed the House of Commons in London on the African slave trade on 12th May in 1789. Wilberforce was a statesman and humanitarian leader who had pursued the abolitionist cause with great enthusiasm. Being a profoundly religious person he saw his task as not only dictated by principles of human dignity, but also imposed by the teaching of the Gospel. It has been said that in his lifetime struggle against slavery Wilberforce personified the conscience of contemporary England. The prophetic nature of his message will be clear from this extract of his address.

“I trust, therefore, I have shown that upon every ground total abolition ought to take place. I have urged many things which are not my leading objects for proposing it, since I have wished to show every description of gentlemen, and particularly the West Indian planters, who deserve every attention, that the abolition is politic upon their own principles also. Policy, however, sir, is not my principle, and I am not ashamed to say it.

There is a principle above everything that is political, and when I reflect on the command which says: ‘Thou shalt do no murder’, believing the authority to be Divine, how can I dare to set up any reasonings of my own against it? And, sir, when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion and of God?

Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object case before us, we cannot pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision. A Society has been established for the abolition of this trade, in which dissenters, Quakers, Churchmen – in which the most conscientious of all persuasions – have all united and made a common cause in this greater question. Let not parliament be the only body that is insensible to the principles of natural justice.”

Prophecies of this nature usually seem to contain five elements which I have called: endangered value, particular situation, direct address, judgment of God and support from scripture.

Endangered value:

The immediate occasion for a “prophet” to intervene is the fact that a human value or a Gospel value is in need of being defended.

Particular situation:

What is at stake is never a purely theoretical or abstract question. The problem arises from very specific conditions, peculiar to a particular country and time.

Direct address:

In his statement the “prophet” directly addresses a particular person or group of persons who are involved in the particular situation.

Judgment of God:

The authority with which the “prophet” is speaking is a kind of charismatic leadership arising from the fact that at this moment he knows himself to be inspired by God. He knows that he is the one most capable of expressing God’s judgment on the situation. He is deeply convinced that he is empowered by God to speak on God’s behalf.

Support from Scripture:

If at all possible, the Christian prophet will base his judgment not only on his own personal inner conviction, but on the manifest meaning of God’s Word.

I remember a prophetic statement made by a religious sister at a staff meeting of an urban high school in India. The school catered for two thousand pupils; there were around sixty teachers on the staff. In a low voice, but with great determination, the sister pointed out to her colleagues that she had noticed discrimination in the treatment given to children of rich and poor families. She produced some examples: children whose parents were influential got better marks, received less punishment, were granted special privileges on the sports field and given top positions in the school organisation. Sister said she understood quite well the advantages individual teachers might reap from giving such preferential treatment to children from well-to-do families, but she asked them whether this was a truly Christian attitude. Quoting Jesus’ words “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed: for they are not able to pay you back” (Lk 14,13), she said that she felt Jesus would thoroughly disapprove of what was being done in the school. If any children were to be given preferential treatment, these should be children belonging to the poor and backward families. Some teachers who attended the meeting told me that it had opened their eyes to the unjust habits of favouritism they had gradually acquired.

At a meeting of professors teaching theology at major seminaries the discussion had been on rather humanistic lines. A lot of the discussion was dominated by the God-is-dead theology and secular thinking. At the con- celebrated mass in the evening, the main celebrant confessed in his homily that he had felt uneasy the whole day. “At the back of my mind”, he said “I kept hearing the words of Christ: if a man is ashamed of me and of my teaching, then I will be ashamed of him” (Lk 9,26). While we should try to formulate theology in terms understandable to modern society, we should never allow ourselves to disown Christ or to deny him the central place in salvation which is his. We are not doing justice to the Gospel if we describe Christ only as the most perfect man. Christian faith cannot be resolved into charity towards the neighbour without more. It contains as an essential element submission to God and to Jesus Christ, the Saviour and mediator between God and us! He ended up by saying: “I feel that in today’s discussion we have not sufficiently owned up to Christ”.

In a tribal area of India the Bible Society had launched a plan for bringing out an ecumenical translation of the New Testament in a local language. Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals had been called together to discuss cooperation. Especially among the representatives from the Evangelical groups there were strong reservations about Roman Catholic participation. It looked as if the meeting would end in an atmosphere of distrust and without coming to practical resolutions. At that moment an old Baptist minister asked to be allowed to speak. He said that all day he had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in the coming together of these members of different Christian Churches. He stated it to be his deep conviction that Christ himself would welcome this kind of cooperation. “When the Disciples on one occasion wanted to stop a man driving out demons in Jesus’ Name, because he didn’t belong to their group, Jesus said: ‘Whoever is not against you is for you’ (Lk 9,49-50). Jesus prayed for unity. He wanted unity. Translating the Bible together and so bringing out one Christian version would clearly be the mind of the Lord”. This prophetic intervention helped to arouse the Christian conscience of all present and the ecumenical translation was accepted as a common project.

Footnotes: (*1) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, E. Goffman, (pp.32-40). (*2) Over overtuigen, W. Drop et al, (pp. 38-40). (*3) How to Prepare a Sermon, F. S. MacNutt, (passim). (*4) Das Senflkorn von Lisieux, I. F. Goerres. (*5) The World’s Great Speeches, ed. H Peterson, (pp. 80-2 & 219).