Photo by Josh Sorenson
A woman once told me that I am a prophet.
It’s a long story. But I was 17 in a small, very Mennonite town, and this woman told me that God had told her that I am a prophet. This was when I was most Christian, and while I wasn’t sure whether to take this woman seriously, I was both terrified and … flattered? It made me feel special. But it was also a mindbleep.
I went to my church’s youth pastor, a guy who raised concerns among adults in the congregation because he had long hair and played bass — this was 1990 in rural Kansas — and laid out my story. What was I supposed to believe? And I think the subtext of what I was asking was: Is it possible I am a prophet?
I don’t remember precisely what my youth pastor told me, but it started out something like: “Well, Joel, a lot of folks think you’ve got a lot going for you…”
As it turns out, I wasn’t a prophet. You’ve probably figured that out.
But I’ve been thinking about that moment, after reading this Washington Post story, that features Lance Wallnau, a man who in 2015 announced that Donald Trump was “annointed” by God:
All over the country this year, figures like Wallnau, hailing from the right wing of prophetic and charismatic Christianity, have been appearing with candidates as part of a growing U.S. religious phenomenon that emphasizes faith healing, the idea that divine signs and wonders are everywhere, and spiritual warfare.
“For two millennia of church history, people have been claiming to be prophets,” said Matthew Sutton, a Washington State University historian of American religion who has focused on apocalyptic and charismatic Christians. “But it’s a new tactic in the United States for it to be part of waging culture war.”
I’m just guessing, but I suspect Wallnau — who is now a big Doug Mastriano fan — isn’t really a prophet.
If you’re reading this, you probably don’t either.
But we’re not the people who need to be convinced, are we? So how do we nudge followers of people like Wallnau toward a little bit of skepticism?
The Mennonites I grew up among didn’t really put a lot of stock in prophecy or in speaking in tongues, or in extraordinary, supernatural events taking place in current times. All that was for biblical times. But there was one charismatic congregation in my town — part of the Vineyard church — that very much believed in that stuff. It was a small community: Everybody knew everybody, and some of the Vineyard kids even came to my Wednesday night youth group. So my youth pastor and other people in my church had to have an answer for some of their distinctly non-Mennonite questions.
And one of those questions, as I recall, was something like this: How do you know if a self-proclaimed prophet is real?
The answer — I’m working from a decades-old memory — was this:
Does he speak the truth?1
Seems simple, doesn’t it? But then you look around and realize that a lot of us have trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not.
Which takes me back to the woman who told me I’m a prophet.2 She was, in a way, trying to play the role of a prophet in my life -- a messenger from God, meant to shape my choices and actions. But also: She was broken and sad. Her marriage looked awful. Her young son had died years before. And it became apparent that she saw me as something of a replacement for him.
She wanted something from me.
Which brings us back to Wallnau.
Two million people combined on platforms including Rumble, Facebook and Audible — where he hosts a podcast, “The Lance Wallnau Show” — now follow him for his mix of theories about shadowy schemes by “the elites”; advice on digital currencies; and what he says are words, warnings and prophecies from God.
“It’s market demand,” Wallnau said. “Confidence in institutions is at an all-time low. In our community, there is such a need for knowing; the psychological need for certainty is a human craving, for consistency. You have to have a meaning for something, or it scares you.”
I dunno. Maybe be skeptical of a person who claims to be a prophet who speaks of their mission in terms of “market demand.” And maybe be skeptical of self-proclaimed prophets who devote a substantial portion of their public life to pimping cryptocurrency. And most of all, beware of somebody who is supposed to tell you the truth — and tells you everything you already want to hear.
They’re probably somebody who wants something from you.
It was always going to be a “he.” And the actual answer was more involved than that, with lots of references to scripture, but that was my takeaway.
Just by way of explanation: I carried out her groceries, and was friendly with her daughter in high school. If you carried out groceries in my small town, you kind of knew most everybody in town.