The ancient Hebrew division of the societal roles of priest, king, and prophet plays heavily here. The king has political power, the priest has ceremonial power, and the prophet has, essentially, sole power to challenge priests and kings, a dynamic that plays out over and over again in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is conceivable that a politician could play a prophetic role, in our culture, but the presidency itself? Probably not so much. Once you're the president, you are the king.
Now, within the Christian model, in which Christ is the unity of all three roles, maybe; one could have a person with official power to challenge corrupt worldly institutions from a position of temporal authority. Still, as much as I might support Obama, I very much doubt he's Jesus any more than anyone else is.
A very interesting article, yeah. The problem with prophetic speech is that it's hard to back claims of it. How does one tell genuine inspiration from someone who merely is very skilled at convincing people that he or she has inspiration? I'd say it's nigh-impossible. At least, our recent political age has seen some leaders (Clinton) who were very convincing speakers, but were acting from a position of shrewdness rather than genuine passion.
Probably the reason the article was speaking of the Rabbis preferring debate from text to prophetic inspiration is that at least working from text, people can double-check your arguments. Prophetic speech is purely emotional content. There are less checks against that power.
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Now, within the Christian model, in which Christ is the unity of all three roles, maybe; one could have a person with official power to challenge corrupt worldly institutions from a position of temporal authority. Still, as much as I might support Obama, I very much doubt he's Jesus any more than anyone else is.
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And yeah, Obama's not Jesus-just his grooviest representative upon this earth. :-)
Matt
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Probably the reason the article was speaking of the Rabbis preferring debate from text to prophetic inspiration is that at least working from text, people can double-check your arguments. Prophetic speech is purely emotional content. There are less checks against that power.
Still, very interesting article.
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