Keeping Prophetic Distance

When I was in graduate school, I remember a professor of biblical studies speaking at length about something called “prophetic distance.” He was referring to the loving distance from society that a speaker of truth had to maintain to be effective. I remember he said that you cannot speak powerfully and objectively to a man if you desperately need something from him. You will bend your message to please him in order to obtain whatever you need from him—praise, money, acceptance, or access for example. To speak truth, particularly the truth of God, you must maintain prophetic distance. It is the price of the calling, the way you position yourself apart from society so you can speak effectively to society.

I’ve been thinking about this a great deal this week as I ponder the reaction to McCain’s appointment of Sarah Palin.

As I have said here before, I like Governor Palin very much. She is the kind of smart, hard-hitting but principled woman I admire and largely because my wife—who is very much of the same tribe—has taught me what a gift this kind of woman can be. I think Gov. Palin, in time, will be just such a gift to America.

Yet what concerns me is not Sarah Palin but the quickness with which evangelicals newly embraced John McCain once she joined the ticket. As readers of this blog know, I consider abortion to be the seminal issue in this election. An abortion is the taking of a human life. However open I might be to varying approaches to the war, health care, immigration or social justice, I cannot be flexible on the issue of abortion. And this is what concerns me about John McCain and the evangelical rush to embrace him following the appointment of Sarah Palin. McCain says he is pro-life and that his will be a pro-life presidency. Yet until just hours before appointing Palin, McCain strongly preferred either Lieberman or Ridge as his running mate, both men strongly pro-abortion. What does this say about McCain’s commitment to pro-life policies and does the presence of Sarah Palin ameliorate these concerns? Could it be that Mr. McCain intended to buy off the pro-life right with the Palin appointment without seriously intending a pro-life presidency?

While working on my recent book, I had the opportunity to interview Jim Wallis of Sojourners. In the course of a rich interview, I asked Jim if he planned to endorse a candidate. He replied that he did not endorse candidates, he asked candidates to endorse him, or, more precisely, his social justice movement and the values upon which it is built. In other words, Wallis did not go fawning after political candidates, surrendering his soul in search of political power. He remained himself, confident and somewhat apart, and welcomed those in power to stand with him in his noble cause.

This is what my professor meant by “prophetic distance” and this is what I want to urge among my pro-life friends in both parties—and yes, my fellow conservatives, there are numerous pro-life Democrats. Don’t be fobbed off by symbols and showmanship. Don’t accept the empty gesture, the artifice of stagecraft. Hold on to the truth you believe and make your case and don’t stop making your case until the cause of the unborn is declared and won. Too often people of faith have been bought off with symbolic baubles rather than substantive action by our elected leaders. This is because we have too frequently sold our birthright for a bit of porridge—or a steak with the powerful at Morton’s.

I hope that Mr. McCain’s appointment of Sarah Palin is more than a show for the benefit of his pro-life base. This, we cannot control. What we can do is continue to speak truth to power and refuse to be satisfied with anything less than an administration that speaks in defense of the unborn. This is what John McCain has promised and we are right to hold him to it.

I’ll close this thought with the words of acclaimed Christian author Bennan Manning, who has called us to prophetic distance using different terms: “Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one's core identity as Abba's child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags. Abba's children find a third option. They are guided by God's Word and by it alone. All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel—uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisies of bullying religion.”