Silent Prophets

I once had a strange exchange with an older friend, the pastor of a large congregation, and it went a little something like this. We made small talk while keeping a watchful eye on children skateboarding. There was a lull. “I’m an advocate,” he said, breaking the silence. “Wait—That’s not the word.” I waited for the word. “I believe in climate change,” he said starting again, and I agreed that one would not want to self-identity as an advocate of climate change. “I believe in climate change, but if I told my congregation they’d probably tar and feather me.” Silence. “I guess that makes me a silent prophet.”

I’m sensitive about these things, and my head began to spin. There was so much I wanted to say. Prophets, I imagined saying, are many things, but silence is not in the job description. You don’t get to say nothing and be one. You can’t sound a clear note and mislead simultaneously. Hide it under a bushel? No. Perhaps we should pray together that a a righteous truth-teller might arise from within your congregation. Is it right to drive around listening to NPR while rolling your eyes over what parishioners might say if they knew you were listening to NPR? Maybe they could handle it. Maybe they’re counting on you to tell them things they won’t like, things they aren’t hearing from anyone else they feel they can trust. Isn’t there another adjective for the prophet who’s silent?

I didn’t say any of these things. But the lava flowed within my heart for days. Doubtless trying to score a few righteousness points, I rambled the whole episode off to another pastor. He smiled and dropped a helpful word on me, “Well, I guess you were a silent prophet then.” Oh my yes.

Compassionately skewered, I gave the matter a little more thought. It took me an embarrassingly long while, but I came to conclude that my silent prophet pastor was paying me a deep compliment. Why would he say something like that to me? Why would he entrust me with the airing out of that unflattering self-assessment?

Maybe for the same reason I set myself up to get knocked down a few days later. Maybe we can’t help it. If, as ancient authority has it, we are somehow each person in our dreams, maybe something like an unconscious desire to overcome estrangement is at work in the things we say without knowing why. Given what he took to be my commitments, my pastor friend was actually kind enough to wonder what I might have to say to the fact that he has yet to share his conviction concerning the future of the planet with his congregants who—perhaps sometimes aggressively—don’t. Every spoken word is an act of faith after all, but there I stood missing my cue, opting out for a separate, holier-than-thou existence, missing the fact of my nearby brother in silence asking for a little input. Judging feels easier and stronger than empathy sometimes. It isn’t.

It’s a complicated business bearing witness. As William Stafford tells us, there is many a small betrayal of the mind. So many compromises in the space of one day. So many opportunities to drop the ball of being true. So many supposedly solid reasons to live just short of full disclosure in our communications with people (Associates? Friends? Sisters? Brothers? Congregants?) who might be surprised to hear how unsafe we presume they’d prove to be were we to do something as radical as, say, tell the truth about what we believe and why. Dare we attempt courtesy of the heart in our everyday dealings? Do we dare show our hands?

Two stories which invite some uncomfortable forays into situational awareness appeared in my feed over the last few days. The first involves the Joyners.

Anna Jane Joyner is a climate activist in Alabama. I started following her work years ago and had forgotten the name, Rick Joyner, who I now know to be her father. When I taught English at Christ Presbyterian Academy, I had the privilege of working with students whose parents viewed Rick Joyner as a living prophet. Many of those students remind me of Anna. Some of them strike me as among the most morally serious individuals the world has ever seen. It’s as if they’ve emerged from a crucible of toxic ideas about God, themselves, and other human beings and now possess essential and hard-won realizations about what matters in the world. They are deeply imaginative and mentally tough, like artisans of the sacred. More than a few, like Anna, have moms or dads who have urged armed revolution against the United States Government. Things are tough out there.

The other story involves Joe White, Camp Kanakuk, and a network of people who’ve publicly vouched for each other and thereby participated in the years-long enabling of sexual abuse. It is a grisly tale which nevertheless needs to be told. As a high school student and later as a high school English teacher, I have sat through hours of Joe White’s presentations. It’s possible that one or more of my students is a silenced victim within the culture Nancy and David French describe in their story. They have done us a great service in telling it.

“There is no statute of limitations on truth,” Nancy and David French tell us. They are right. Especially within the incentive structures that successfully market themselves as ministries, there is often tremendous risk in saying what you see and telling the whole truth about your experience. Many of us are conditioned to avoid conflict lest we upset the wrong people. It’s time to stop doing that.

"Important: stand where you must stand, be human there."

—Daniel Berrigan