Abuse of the prophetic function
The prophetic gift is a double-edged sword.
Iβd been trying my best to think about how to understand the recent Inaugural homily from the Washington National Cathedral which has caused so much stir, delivered by Episcopalian bishop Mariann Budde. Iβve come (with some help) to the conclusion that it was the right message, spoken from the wrong pulpit, at the wrong time.
What do I mean by this? Well, take a look at what Budde actually said:
Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labour in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbours.
Is there anything doctrinally or ethically wrong with any of this? No. Homosexuals and transgender people are people, who deserve to be accorded the same degree of dignity under the law as their straight and cis neighbours. Also, there is nothing wrong, on its face, with calling for the rights of working-class immigrants to be respected. The problem is who is saying it, and where, and why. Ms Budde is abusing the prophetic function in an attempt to play it for institutional power.
This abuse of the prophetic function happens in Scripture also. In the Gospel of Saint John, Judas Iscariot censures Mary the sister of Lazarus for taking her savings and using it to buy a costly fragrant oil, a ΞΌΟΟΞΏΞ½, with which to anoint Jesusβs feet. Judas chides Mary that the oil should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. But βthis he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into itβ (John 12:6).
In analogising Budde to Judas, am I thus likening Trump to Jesus? No, not in the slightest. Trumpβs a mass-murdering jackass. Like at least the five presidents prior to him, Mr. Trump has exactly zero interest in the authentic teaching. But Judas, even though what he says in John 12 sounds correct (it is indeed the teaching of the Scriptures to do justice, and especially to care for the poor), his use of the teaching is guided by ulterior motives. He uses the teaching of caring for the poor as a smokescreen for his own self-interested motivations.
So what self-interested motives am I ascribing to Ms. Budde? Well, for one thing, look at how she is being fΓͺted by The Atlantic, The New York Times and The National Catholic Reporter. Theyβre tripping over themselves to declare her a modern-day Saint Thomas Γ Becket. Money isnβt the only idol by which people sell out the teaching: reputation is another. Ms. Budde was not only not censured for her sermon, but she was in fact lauded and applauded for it by the same founts of institutional power in the American government and its subservient press that oversaw the Gaza genocide.
In fact, Ms. Budde did not speak up at all on the question of that genocide, as was pointed out by the head of Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah. In fact, she willingly spread the same atrocity propaganda and lies about Gaza that were being peddled about by the Israeli governmentβin particular the allegations against αΈ€amas fighters of the mass slaughter of Israeli children and the mass rape of women that were later shown by international investigators to be false. Ms. Buddeβs position on the question of Palestine was the same one of silence, moral abdication and cowardice that characterised the entire liberal class when Biden was in power. That is because they worship power. If Ms. Budde were actually doing her job the way she should be doingβthat is to say, if she were in fact obedient to the teaching that she gives voice to and from which she claims authorityβshe would have castigated Biden to his face for sending unlimited amounts of weapons to the Israelis for the purpose of murdering children. She had her bully pulpit then, too. She chose not to use it.
Prophets have a tendency to get their butts kicked. When Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Isaiah spoke actual truth to actual power, they did so with the full understanding that they were going to suffer for it. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were stoned to death; Isaiah ended up sawn in half. Gary Webb and Iris Chang βcommitted suicideβ (or so the official story goes). Martin Luther King, Jr., al-αΈ€ajj MΔlik aΕ‘-Ε abΔzz and Fred Hampton were assassinatedβ¦ and none of them were well-liked when they were alive, either. Americans tend to forget that, particularly on the day we set aside to commemorate Kingβbut in fact use it to commemorate ourselves. We donβt like it when a mirror gets held up to us and the reflection that we see is ugly; and we donβt improve ourselves, we attack the guy holding the mirror.
Thatβs why I have such a high respect for Ta-Nehisi Coates now, particularly over his latest book, The Message. Owing to the high-academic voice and poise and eloquence with which he has advocated for the social-liberal position on racial justice in his previous books (for example, The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me), Coates managed to attain this position of moral gravitas and authority among the Γ©lite who read The Atlantic and The New York Times. He would get invited to all the evening-show interviews and national correspondentsβ dinners.
When he wrote The Message, and especially when he started to do publicity for the book, he was faced with the real choice that Ms. Budde failed to make correctly. He could choose to continue voicing platitudes and maintaining the institutional privilege accorded to him for saying all the right things to the right people in the right toneβ¦ or he could choose to speak the truth about Palestine, and suffer for it. Coates knowingly chose the latter. No more talk shows or exclusive dinner invites for him. But Coates knows where he comes from: he comes directly out of the Black American prophetic tradition which produced Revβd Martin Luther King, Jr. and al-αΈ€ajj MΔlik aΕ‘-Ε abΔzz. This tradition is represented in our own Orthodox Church (through the grace of God and not our own deserving!) by Fr Paul Abernathy of Pittsburgh, who has been blessedly voluble on the plight of the Palestinians from the beginning.
Or, as Fr Marc Boulos puts it in his most recent podcast:
You canβt be the bishop of the national cathedral and remain silent about a holocaust, and then preach about βmercyβ to the next presidentβ¦ You canβt cozy up to power. Itβs fake. Itβs not propheticβ¦ Prophetic instruction comes at a price.
