I believe that the entirety of the Bible is valuable for life and faith. If I\u2019m honest, however, I admit that the prophets are not my favorite place to read and ponder. Amidst the promises of God, bad news rules. Ultimately, God wins but the current state of things often receives strong words of correction. Reality is a friend to all, but it\u2019s rarely easy for anyone. The prophet\u2019s job proved hard. Jeremiah spoke God\u2019s truth and experienced little if any, outward success. The office of the prophet in the Old Testament contains two elements, one foretelling, and another forth-telling. Foretelling predicts the future while forth-telling speaks reality into the present situation, whether comforting or convicting. This week\u2019s reading felt like a journey with a few modern-day prophets.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s authors were not the first of their kind I\u2019ve encountered. In the year 2000, I read a provocative book by a man dubbed a Christian futurist. \u201cWhat is that?\u201d I wondered. His name: Leonard Sweet. His book Soul Tsunami <\/em>predicted coming changes across all spectrums of society. One thought, in particular, stuck with me over the years. Paraphrasing his prediction, he related how the next, twenty-first, century will culturally be closer to the first century (the Roman Empire) than it will be to the twentieth century. He called for a postmodern Reformation in the church. His insights prove true today and his call for effectiveness remains.<\/p>\n Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn\u2019s 1983 speech, \u201cMen Have Forgotten God,\u201d read like a forewarning call to a nation heading toward impending doom. Drawing from his experience under the strong, totalitarian anti-church hand of the Soviet Union, he relates how the removal of God leads away from unity and a sense of accountability. \u201cFaith was the shaping and unifying force of the nation.\u201d[1]<\/a> Removing Someone and something greater than humankind removes a sense of purpose greater than oneself. No sense of divine purpose or accountability leads humanity to act out some of its darkest intentions. \u201cWhen external rights are completely unrestricted, why should one make an inner effort to restrain oneself from ignoble acts?\u201d[2]<\/a> Almost forty years ago, Solzhenitsyn cautioned about the inevitable implications of elevating mankind beyond its intended place. \u201cIn the East art has collapsed because it has been knocked down and trampled upon, but in the West the fall has been voluntary, a decline into a contrived and pretentious quest where the artist, instead of attempting to reveal the divine plan, tries to put himself in the place of God.\u201d[3]<\/a> Solzhenitsyn\u2019s words ring true forty years later.<\/p>\n N. S. Lyons, in \u201cThe Upheaval,\u201d speaks about the present as \u201can era of epochal change\u201d[4]<\/a> and predicts future implications on a grand scale. More specifically in the current reality, his predictions target \u201cthree concurrent revolutions, one a geopolitical revolution, a second an ideological revolution, and a third a technological revolution.\u201d[5]<\/a> No aspect of culture will remain untouched. \u201cA mass movement that is scrambling every aspect of traditional American political, cultural, religious, and even corporate life\u201d [6]<\/a> presently progresses. He sounds a clarion call that if unanswered promises to bring seismic shifts for the worse. \u201cIt would be na\u00efve to assume that any liberal democracy (or any society) can long survive with all of its conceptual foundations gutted. Either it will collapse into civil conflict, or those foundations will be replaced brick by brick by the New Faith, until it is transformed into an unrecognizable edifice that is neither liberal nor democratic.\u201d[7]<\/a>Time will tell whether or not Lyon\u2019s foretelling proves true.<\/p>\n This week, we were challenged to find an objective news source. I discovered an online site titled ProPublica. Its goal is to investigate the abuses of power, covering a broad spectrum of issues. One article on the opening page sounded like another predictive plea to change the present direction of democracy around the world from its current course. An article titled \u201cHow America\u2019s Democracy is \u2018Ripe to be Exploited\u2019\u201d sounds like one contemporary illustration of Lyon\u2019s claim about geopolitical and technological challenges combined. Eric Umansky interviewed political scientist, Barbara Walter, about the decline of healthy democracies around the world. When discussing social media, Walter asserts that unregulated media only begins to explain the implications. \u201cIt\u2019s not that it\u2019s unregulated per se. It\u2019s that it\u2019s being driven by algorithms that selectively push out the more extreme incendiary messages.\u201d[8]<\/a> The same technology that fueled the Arab Spring and current protests in Iran also contains the potential to undermine freedom with false information and increased political polarization.<\/p>\n In the Old Testament, the bar was set high for any prophet. False prophets did not fare well. Today, any person is wise to set a high bar when choosing someone to give insight into the future or relay objective truth to the present state of things. Many people say many things, calling for selectivity in choosing the voices to give credence. Who one listens to and what is done with the insights received requires a special measure of discernment. Choose your prophets carefully.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a>Solzhenitsyn, \u201cRemembering Solzhenitsyn\u2019s \u2018Men Have Forgotten God\u2019 Speech,\u201d\u00a0National Review<\/em>, December 11, 2018, accessed October 3, 2022, http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2018\/12\/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-men-have-forgotten-god-sppech\/.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [4]<\/a> N. S. Lyons, \u201cThe Upheaval,\u201d Substack Newsletter,\u00a0The Upheaval<\/em>, April 7, 2021, accessed October 3, 2022, https:\/\/theupheaval.substack.com\/p\/the-upheaval<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n