The Next Instalment

Here is the next instalment in what I am writing – this paper on discipling prophets.  (I think there will now be a much longer gap until the next paper in the series.)

One of the things that is hinted at throughout, but which I don’t explicitly state (and perhaps need to in a revision) is this reason why we need prophetic intelligence:

We live in a society where certain voices – both for and against religious faith – are insisting that only the literal form of ‘truth’ (and, in fact, only a particular kind of literal: what is measurable) is ‘real’ truth, or at least it is the highest form of truth. This ought to be patently nonsense to anyone who has ever read a novel or been moved by music – but sadly is not – and what is most ridiculous of all about it is that it renders everything produced by humanity prior to the Modern Era as untrue.  What is literally true is true, of course: but it is the lowest and most empty form of truth, not the pinnacle. This is why we need the storyteller, the songwriter, the artist, to help us to explore the significance of the life we have learnt to measure but failed to interpret, to the extent that we can create for ourselves anything we want but fail to share with our brothers and sisters...