Tell All the Truth

 

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.
Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name,
I myself will make him answer for it.
But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name
an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak,
or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.” 

Deuteronomy 18:17-20

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20 was the first reading at today’s mass. It is God’s promise to always send prophets to guide his people.

We should assume prophecy continues in our time. God would not abandon us. Nor do we have God’s wishes all down by law. There must be prophets among us now.

The task of a prophet is to express God’s concerns regarding current human actions. Prophets warn and admonish. They do not tell the future. This is necessarily so, since there is free will. The entire point is to allow us to repent.

Where are the modern prophets, then?

These are our writers and artists. If we no longer have the job and title of prophet among us, the ancient Israelites did not have an artist class. What we call “art” is simply the melding of craft, craftsmanship, with inspiration.

Prophets speak by inspiration; artists speak by inspiration. It is the same: inspiration speaks.

Why do modern prophets, unlike Moses, speak indirectly? For the same reason Jesus spoke in parables. The mighty will persecute a prophet. Ask Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. They were presecuted in the Old Testament. Those of swinish disposition will trample their insights underfoot. It is wise to half-conceal the point, so that “those who have ears to hear, will hear.”

So, as Emily Dickenson said, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” 

This too is the tradition of the court jester.

However, this is not to say that all art is from God. We see that some current offerings seem positively Satanic. There are more ambient spirits than one. Inspiration can come from God. It can also come from demons.

But if it does, Moses warns, the prophet will be truck dead.

Should a prophet speak for demons, God has an urgent need to silence him. He raises prophets to guide his people; a false prophet does the opposite with equal force. He must be silenced as the Canaanites had to be extirpated, the cities of the plain immolated: they misled souls into Hell.

The 27 Club is a celebrated list of pop musicians who died at the age of 27. An odd coincidence, if it is coincidence. The first member of the Club was actually Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson reputedly went in a short time from being an adequate to an uncannily good guitarist, because one day he met the Devil at a crossroads and sold his soul.

He died gruesomely within two years of that encounter.

Jim Morrison is another member of the club. His family never knew him to be musical or able to sing, and were amazed when he became a pop star. He actually claimed to be possessed by some ambient spirit that entered him at the scene of a traffic accident in the desert.

Other members of the club: Brian Jones, who reputedly was into Satanism; Amy Winehouse; Kurt Cobain; Jimi Hendrix; Janis Joplin.

This can explain why artists have a reputation for dying young; some are wrestling with devils. If the Devil doesn’t kill them, to take their soul, God must.

It’s a risky business, channelling spirit voices.

Those artists who defy the Romantic stereotype and live to a ripe age seem to turn to religion. I think, for example, of the Byrds. Of the original five, two survive: Roger (Jim) McGuinn and Chris Hillman. Both are openly Christian, unlike their bandmates; and have been spreading subtly Christian messages since “Turn1 Turn! Turn!” Of the Beatles, the public atheist, John Lennon, was the first to go, in an unnatural way. There are rumours he sold his soul to the Devil, like Robert Johnson, to become a rock star. Two survive, and they are the two Christians. Ringo Starr is open about it; Paul McCartney as been spreading Christian messages in his lyrics at least since “Let It Be” and “Long and Winding Road.”

For ordinary people, the contrary principle that “the good die young” logically applies. God wants to give the merely wicked a long leash in this life to have the opportunity to repent. The good deserve their reward. 

But the math reverses in the case of prophecy. The longer a true prophet lives, the more souls he can save. The longer a false prophet lives, the more he condemns.

What about George Orwell? Despite his political interests, he seem to have been on the side of the angels. Yet he died young.

But he had already said everything good he had to say. 1984 simply repeats the same lesson as Animal Farm. His spirituality was tenuous; he might have had no more in him. 

What about Keith Richards? If he is a prophet, is he really on the side of God? I mean—the Rolling Stones? Yet they seem to just keep on going.

First, Richards writes the music for the Stones, not the lyrics. If there is a satanic message in the lyrics, that’s down to Mick Jagger. Silencing Richards would not silence Jagger, but silencing Jagger would be sufficient without silencing Richards. Richards may be a bad man personally; but he is being given all the time he needs to repent.

But there is no satanic message in the Stones lyrics. Despite the hype, if you listen to them, Jagger’s lyrics are never advocating immorality, and are sometimes obviously Christian.

It just doesn’t pay to say it straight. Success in circuit lies.