Would
it frighten or delight you to be a prophet? Why? (Serendipity
Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, p.306).
"O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent
to you....” (Luke 13:34 NIV)
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| Socrates receives hemlock |
The Trial of Socrates refers to the trial and the subsequent execution of the classical Athenian philosopher Socrates in 399 BC. Socrates was tried on the basis of two notoriously ambiguous charges: corrupting the youth and impiety (in Greek, asebeia) (source).
It
is clearly evident both from personal experience and from the
experiences of others that there exists tremendous pressures to
conform. When I was a young man in Miami, one summer I decided that I
could use a little extra spending money. I looked in the classified
section of the newspaper and answered one of the ads. It was an
ambiguous ad and promised great opportunity without being too
explicit. When I arrived on time at the designated place, there was a
room full of potential applicants and the group was soon addressed by
several ardent speakers in front. It turned out the task involved
was selling encyclopedias. I will never forget the tone of the
meeting. There was a tremendous effort to make everyone feel
obligated to join the team and actively sell encyclopedias throughout
the city using extreme pressure directed at potential customers,
really to the point of being unethical. Since then, I have seen
repeated in many forms pressures to conform operating on various
levels in diverse situations. Not infrequently it is found in a
business environment where the pressure to conform is immense. There
will be some idea,“movement” or trend that becomes predominant in
the organization. And to not conform to that force, whatever form it
takes, jeopardizes one's standing and place within the organization.
When
asked “Would it frighten or delight” me to be a prophet, I am
first confronted with the non-conformist aspects involved and the
great challenges presented by the tidal waves of coercive pressures
to conform, to go along to get along. As in the business environment,
in the larger social environment the costs of being a gadfly are real
(gadfly: one “who
upsets the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or
attempts to stimulate innovation by proving an irritant”
[Wiktionary]).
So,
whether it is Isaiah, Jesus, Socrates, or a whistleblower in a
company, filling the role of a prophet takes tremendous courage and
conviction.
It
fundamentally raises the question: whose team are you on? Are you on
the team of prophets, whistleblowers, and martyrs who join the cause
of simple truth, or have you joined the often awesome teams that
yield to the pressures of current enthusiasms however misguided?
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