Prophecy is not magically predicting future events. Prophecy is understanding the present in terms of its ethical implications for the future. Prophecy is considering what our actions mean to those yet to be born. Authentic prophecy is not about visions, but vision.
Prophecy is about taking those who have been scapegoated or discounted back into the equation. Prophecy is politics as through everyone counts. Prophecy must destroy every unfair hierarchy, cast light on every unexamined authority, a deconstruct every sense of special privilege.
Prophecy is loving one’s own beloved group enough to be called a heretic by our own beloved group for speaking truths they don’t want to hear. Prophecy is being brave enough to risk being called “traitor” by our own beloved country for extending justice to those beyond our own boundaries and interests.
False prophecy is revealed by its narrow mindedness, defensiveness and cruelty. False prophecy makes excuses for the crimes of its nation and sees its own group as the exception to any common norm of behavior. It tells the nation what it wants to hear and so poisons the people with the narcissistic cancer believing of that its might makes it right.
All of us are prophetic sometimes, none of us are prophetic always. In the strictest sense, there is no such thing as an individual prophet. Prophecy is always about the message, not the messenger.
The mind of all true prophecy is an honesty willing to face any truth. The “heart” of all true prophecy is a love so expansive it demands justice for all. Authentic prophecy calls us beyond the narrowness and self-interests of any one group into a greater and fairer communion with all humankind and into an atonement with the larger web of life of which we are each but a thread.