God's Paradoxical Path

Reflections on Conference, Prophets, and Not Prophets

We had a wonderful conference weekend. At a friend’s suggestion, we tried a Conference Cash system--basically, paying my kids to listen to the speakers and take notes and allowing them to purchase junk foods and soda with the money. It worked like a charm! My kids listened to almost every speaker and we paid through the nose. Best money I could hope to spend.

I found a lot of messages to celebrate and some I admittedly didn’t want to hear. I felt called to love the people around me more--to invest myself in the day to day concerns of my family, friends, and neighbors. It’s easy to overlook our Church and family callings as only incidental to creating Change and Progress, but God’s miracles are usually unexciting to the untrained eye. So much of my early activity in the Church was only possible because the people around me understood the importance of simple acts of service, like offering a ride to activities or inviting me to their home evenings. When your life has been filled with these ordinary mercies and you’ve learned to see them, love is no longer an abstract cause but a meaningful service you can render to increasingly wider circles.

Sister Craven’s talk from the Women’s session touched me especially. She talked about the importance of doing something when we want to feel or share God’s love, but the upshot, for me, is that God is always accessible. No, we may not get a certain answer or outcome, but that His love can always be made manifest in our lives (or in the lives of others) if we will make a choice about what matters most to us: in the moment and in our lives. By prioritizing God, He becomes real.

Over the weekend I saw a graphic someone had made listing the apostles as true prophets and a bunch of influencers as false ones. I tend to be critical of influencer culture in the Church. Some influencers are genuinely uplifting and point us toward Christ, but in my experience most do not. Their platforms eventually boil down to grievances and resentments, a fast track to misery and moral blindness. In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, God doesn’t punish people by throwing them in hell; people actively create hell, celebrate it, lash out at others from it, and will not be persuaded to leave it for any reason. I have no doubts about their sincerity, but I believe many of the most miserable people are completely sincere. 

Still, I think listing out names will generate more heat than light. It will only inflame tribal allegiances and reinforce misunderstanding. It’s obviously partisan, too, because there are a number of problematic rightwing influencers missing from the list. But it is nevertheless true that the online world is full of false prophets: people who claim to have an authoritative understanding of the scriptures, God’s will, and His values, which allow them to correct or reinterpret prophetic teachings. Such voices will never couch what they’re doing in these terms and, in many cases, probably don’t actually believe this is what they are doing. But it doesn’t matter, because the fact remains that when someone publicly contradicts or massages prophetic teachings they are (re)interpreting God’s word and will. They are supplying their own (scholastic/therapeutic/political) interpretation of God--what he values, what His scriptures really mean, what heaven looks like-- in place of priesthood authorized messengers. Even the claim that personal revelation trumps prophetic teachings is, itself, an interpretation of God’s will.

Some might laugh at this because they have in mind a Hollywood false prophet: someone who dresses like John the Baptist and has underaged wives and engages in self-serious future-telling. Critical thinkers might think seeing “false prophets” everywhere reflects a fear of nuance and the need to protect a fragile theology with crude and overwrought distinctions between good and evil. I once thought that way too until I figured out that it wasn’t me that was sophisticated, it was Satan. You can’t believe what a nuanced thinker he is.

Still, God is smarter. To nuance He adds wisdom and real love. But the only channels which He has guaranteed are His own: messengers He authorizes through His very own power. There are a lot of people--especially, unfortunately, among the most educated--who cannot stand to be checked by priesthood power. They are deeply offended that someone who lacks the distinctions and sympathies which define their own authority should claim the right to settle important questions. Sometimes they’ll outright admit this, by peer reviewing prophetic claims. Often, they’ll take a more subversive route, by attributing to priesthood leaders cynical motives or blaming them for self-inflicted wounds. Again, The Great Divorce is instructive:

“The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy; that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.”

God has offered a way to personal peace and happiness. And from the collective efforts of individuals who have found joy in Christ’s redemption will emerge communities of peace and happiness. The premise of the false prophets is that happiness is found in redefining right and wrong to match the values of a God they claim the prophets misunderstand and misinterpret. The prophets, they generously concede, are good and generally inspired, but their counsel is not ultimately binding.

And in a way, they are correct. No one has to follow the prophets. You can (try to) be your own authority, even though that’s never worked for anyone. Or, alternatively, there is a wide selection of influencers and pundits who will happily tell you what to think on a variety of topics . If you’re unsure, you can dwell on the faults of the members of your faith community, your leaders, your parents, and even society at large. You can punish them by rejecting the good they’ve stood for and by refusing to extend real forgiveness (you can instead extend a nominal forgiveness that allows you to rehash the past whenever an opportunity presents itself). You can whine and wail against any and all wills contrary to your own. You certainly may choose this vision for making the world a fairer, happier, more accepting place. You can believe that love and mercy are made stronger by denying truth or justice.

Or, you can exercise faith in the paradoxical path preached by God’s prophets: The world will change when you change yourself. God loves you incomprehensibly and wants you to change. The antidote to injustice is mercy. You can and should love people who want to hurt you. You will be free only if you submit. Suffering can yield real joy. The end goal of all learning is to become like a child. Christ has overcome the world, so the only impediment to real deliverance is yourself.