Memo to Modern Prophets: Thou Shalt Follow These 5 Rules
There’s something about the notion of connection to the divine that fascinates. Words like “I have heard” or “God spoke to me” can be electrifying. Still, if what follows the prophetic overture is less compelling than the promise, the risk of alienating an audience is high.
The prophet Isaiah avoided specifics.
Across three religious degrees and from a cinder block church in a Honduras valley to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, I’ve nurtured a fascination with spiritual truth. It may be surprising, then, that self-proclamations of prophetic prowess ignite my suspicion, rather than my hope. The truth is, I’ve yet to read an independent work by a self-proclaimed prophet that isn’t highly problematic. It’s not just that self-styled prophets make wild proposals—that’s a given for the genre; it’s that, in my experience, they tend to write without considering outside reception.
Would-be prophets need to know this: your conviction is not enough. If you intend to persuade audiences of the truth of what you’re saying, there are a few basic rules that can’t be avoided.
1. Style Matters
You may be delivering Truth, but you’re probably working through electronic media, at the very least by the time you approach publication. You still have access to spell-check. Do not evade the editing process. It’s hard to take purveyors of truth seriously when they’re out malapropping all over the place. “Except” isn’t a strong stand-in for “accept,” “its” will always be the proper possessive form, and referencing “Revelations” will always make a student of Bible suspicious. Make sure the truth you’re sharing isn’t obscured behind obvious mistakes or slip-ups; they distract and discredit.
2. Get Your Facts Straight
It seems that many who claim to act as intermediaries between God and the people also want to talk about how those who won’t believe them, or who don’t already, are errant. Such side conversations can be interesting, so long as they don’t contain glaring departures from fact. If you’re going to discuss another religious tradition, for example, be sure that you’re at least Wikipedia-level versed in what that tradition teaches. There’s nothing more likely to induce a groan than misrepresentations of other traditions or ideologies. Again, such mistakes are discrediting.
3. Don’t Make it Personal
Prophets are people, too, with active foibles, who have their own strong likes and dislikes. Still, a prophet should not allow their personal preferences to bleed too heavily into their work. You want your work to be memorable, but in a way accomplished through intrigue, not insults.
Your ability to persuade is impeded when you, say, dismiss whole political parties as lost, or when you demean cultural entities like the Internet or modern music. Give your readers a means by which to measure what’s good or bad, dangerous or nurturing, but without attempting to preempt such decisions for them.
4. Avoid Specifics
There are prophets whose work remains compelling though they worked millennia ago. Isaiah, Mohammad, the author of Revelation: their words are powerful both because of their poetry and sophistication, and because they have enough elasticity to ensure that they can be grafted onto modern situations without too much difficulty.
In short, lasting prophets succeed in part because they are evasive. Christians and Jews can both claim Isaiah because we can’t really be certain what his words anticipated; so, too, have political motivators across the years warned that Revelation is coming to fruition, and with utter conviction.
Don’t name a modern politician as the definite harbinger of the apocalypse. Don’t name a date and time for God’s return. Prophets thrive where they are right. It’s easier to achieve vindication if you don’t provide absolutes which can be easily undone with time.
5. Be Prepared to be Disbelieved
Even if you do everything else right, your words may not be received with fanfare. Don’t take it to heart, though! True prophets are often reviled in their own day and by their own communities. If your words are received with scorn, based on content rather than matters purely editorial, that makes you sympathetic to biblical prophets. Ultimately, it’s not readers who will vindicate (or disprove) you; that only comes with the passage of time, and with fulfillment (or the lack thereof).
That time is the final arbiter of a prophet’s abilities should be both freeing and demanding. Give yourself the space to perfect your message. Remember, in order for it to last through time, you have to engage an interested readership. Polish passages, trim the fat, and content yourself to wait. Tomorrow will be your judge.
Michelle Anne Schingler
