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Two
days after the 9/11 attacks a reporter for the
Toledo Blade newspaper called to interview me.
At the time, I was pastoring the Toledo
Mennonite Church, and this columnist wanted to
know how a Christian pacifist would respond to
Osama bin Laden and al Queda.
I had to admit that I was greatly disturbed by what had transpired on 9/11. The perpetrators should be sought and brought to justice, I said. But I was equally disturbed by the response of my own government and country. A war on terror? "When you start talking that way, you let something loose that is hard to pull back," I told the columnist. Although in the short run, counterviolence may seem like the most effective response, as a Christian I must take Jesus seriously, who "allowed himself to die, and absorbed in his own being the violence around him, rather than countering that violence."
The columnist devoted one whole column to her interview with me, as well as three more installations giving the perspectives of others committed to a non-violent response to terrorism.
Prophets call the status quo into question. Prophets are change agents, and change doesn’t come easily to most humans.
I could not say then—nor now—whether my words were in any way prophetic. I do not see myself as a prophetic type person. I’d rather not confront others if I can avoid it. But this interview did create numerous opportunities, including speaking engagements, for me to make a "peace witness" in a very volatile situation. And it put the Toledo Mennonite congregation on the map. Others in the metropolitan area saw us as offering an alternative perspective—a prophetic witness—on the unfolding events of 9/11.
Few people aspire to become prophets. The biblical prophets themselves were, in many cases, reluctant spokespersons for God. We tend to think of prophets as characters we’d avoid if we could. They can be cold, prickly personalities that make us squirm. They challenge our assumptions and commitments, and call the status quo into question. Prophets are change agents, and change doesn’t come easily to most humans.
If this is the case, is there a place for prophets in a missional church? More importantly, can a missional church be prophetic? That depends on what you mean by missional and how you define prophetic. A missional church probably isn’t going to be very prophetic if it is merely a warm, fuzzy community driven above all else by a commitment to numerical growth. Yet, if a missional church is defined by a call to witness to the reign of God through words, deeds, and symbolic actions, it is by its very nature a prophetic community in the world.
Being a Christian, I’ve come to see, isn’t just about belief or actions. It’s about perception—how we see the world and view all of reality. What we see, of course, depends on where we’re standing, what we’re looking at, and what kind of practices and habits we’re cultivating. And a prophetic perspective is, above all else, about how and what we see in the world.
As a Christian community, we stand on the knowledge that through Christ, God is creating a whole new reality in this world. We look to Jesus as both Lord and Savior of our lives. And through the community of faith we worship God alone and cultivate practices of following Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Whether we intend it or not, seeing things from the perspective of the reign of God is prophetic. For a prophet is one who sees things not just as they are, but as they might be; a prophet is one who imagines a different and possible future oriented to the shalom that God intends for all people.
Richard A. Kauffman