Here is the 4th prophetic logical fallacy in the series I’ve been doing on “prophets or posers?”:
“I’m functioning prophetically because I’m cutting edge and the people around me are old school and behind the times.”
Counterpoint: You might just be heading the wrong direction in a faster and more fashionable or trendy way.
It is quite true that groups, systems, organizations, or churches are often slow adapters in maintaining a healthy relevance to the psyche and needs of the current generation and era. As a result, early adapters or those who tend to be more cutting edge when it comes to ideas and methodologies get pushed out eventually via discouragement and lack of innovation or they choose to head elsewhere out of frustration. Yet that doesn’t make this usually talented, creative, and passionate type of person prophetic in how they are functioning.
This kind of person could potentially function prophetically as it relates to how attitudes and methods of the past are hindering God’s will from being made manifest. However, it’s quite possible that someone from a more traditional mindset could function prophetically as to the dangers that particular technological or creative advances might be hindering God’s will being made manifest. The key to the prophetic voice is not “new” or “old”, but it’s related to God’s will and the degree to which people in power and community are bringing their lives, relationships, and work under the will of God.
Cutting edge folk are vital to healthy creativity and progress for organizations and ministries, but just because new ideas are new doesn’t mean they are prophetic. I like C.S. Lewis’s term for this type of thinking. He called such glorification of the “new” to the detriment of the past as “chronological snobbery.”
We should all aspire to be early adapters and to some degree “cutting edge,” but if we lose the humility that comes with being attentive first and foremost to the heart of God then we’re running the risk of arrogant posturing and self-promotion.
