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Be a Prophet!

David Cowles

Sep 26, 2023

“…As always in human history, it will be prophets like you who will herald change – like roosters summoning the dawn.”

You’ve read the Old Testament prophets. Did you ever think, “I wish God would call me?” Well, what’s to say he hasn’t? The role of the prophet is to speak Truth, especially when it’s unpopular…like now! Today, we are all called; literally everyone can be a prophet, but how?


Aletheia Today has identified 5 themes from our online publications and turned them into icebreakers - memes that reflect ideas, secular and religious, theological, philosophical, and cultural, that are by now familiar to regular readers of ATM and TWS. Subscribe here.


To help you jump start conversations, we’ve selected 3 useful everyday items and emblazoned each item with one of our 5 memes (below), all guaranteed to break through any ice, no matter how thick. Just pick one of our memes, match it to an item from our store, and you’ve already taken the first step on your journey of 1,000 miles. Good luck! Stay safe! 


Check out our memes:


Not God or Man, God and Man - The world used to be full of gods disguised as humans; today, it’s humans impersonating God. Yahweh (‘God’ in Judeo-Christian scripture) is wholly God (Creator) and wholly Human (Savior, Redeemer, Messiah)! 


In Genesis, “God created the heavens and the earth,” the Cosmos, the material world, ‘the whole shootin’ match’. Then through Mary, Mater Dei, God became an element within that whole. Incarnation turns the Cosmos inside out. The whole becomes the part. That’s solidarity! Shop AT!


Think Dangerously - The art of thinking is threatened, but don’t blame today’s AI. Most thinking is done using language, the original AI, the fossil record of other people’s thoughts. Ironically, we refer to today’s AI as Large Language Models (LLMs) – a tip of the cap to the sub-structural role of language in all AI. Was the library at Alexandria the world’s first fully functional LLM? 


But there’s a problem. Only 3% of what we think is original; the rest just echoes past ideas. Somebody thought them up once, but it wasn’t you…or me. So why the compulsion to repeat these stale memes, endlessly, ad nauseum? Be a revolutionary, have original ideas, think dangerously!  Shop AT!



Smash Idols – “You shall put no gods before me.” Idolatry is the root of all sin, putting something ahead of God. It could be a Golden Calf, a Tesla Model X, or a bottle of booze. There’s nothing wrong with gold, cars, or spirits – until they become idols…and then we have to smash them (figuratively speaking of course)! Sorry about your windshield. Shop AT!


Exodus 3: 14 - “I am who am.” Moses challenged God: ‘Ok, I’ll lead your revolution against Pharaoh…but first, tell me who you are!’ So, Yahweh utters these four words: “I am who am.” The gods of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Hollywood are beings among beings; Yahweh is Being itself!  Shop AT!


Judges 21: 25 - “In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” After the Exodus, God ruled Israel directly for 250 years; it wasn’t hard. First, there’s Torah, 613 dos and don'ts for daily living. Then there’s conscience – everyone’s direct pipeline to the mind of God. Finally, there are judges, charismatic leaders who step up as needed in every culture to do the work of God. 


Samuel, Israel’s last faithful judge, warned the people against throwing over theocracy for monarchy: “He (the king) will take your sons and assign them to his chariots (conscription)…he will make them do his plowing and harvesting (civil service) and produce his weapons of war (military industrial complex)…He will use your daughters as perfumers, cooks, and bakers (exploitation). He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves (eminent domain) and give them to his servants (bureaucrats). He will take…your best oxen and donkeys and use them to do his work (nationalization). He will also tithe your flocks (taxation…). As for you, you will become his slaves (…without representation).” (I Samuel 8: 11b – 18) 


In a single stroke, the people of Israel ceased to do "what was right in their own eyes" and began doing what was expedient in the eyes of another…with predictably disastrous results. Indeed, the entire millennium from Samuel to Jesus can be seen as one long effort to mitigate or reverse the disastrous decision made at Ramah. So tell me now, “Who needs a king?” Shop AT!


Judeo-Christianity is revolutionary in every sense of the word: philosophical, cultural, political. It challenges virtually every tenet of our materialist, conformist, authoritarian culture. The Judeo-Christian perspective offers welcome, if challenging, relief from the mind-numbing hum of modern civilization.  


Perhaps Tracy Chapman said it best in Drive (The Cars): “You can’t go on, thinking nothing’s wrong…” Plenty’s wrong! Regional wars, terrorism, the threat of nuclear holocaust, racism, sexism, poverty, climate change, mass extinction, bioengineered pandemics…shall I go on…or do you get the point? 


These problems have been millennia in the making, and they won’t be solved overnight. But as always in human history, it will be prophets like you who will herald change – like roosters summoning the dawn: Moses, Lao-Tse, Isaiah, Buddha, John the Baptist, Galileo…you’re in good company! Shop AT!


 

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