What It Is To Know the Truth

Do you remember us mentioning, a couple of months ago, the question of President Trump's possible status as an unwitting servant of God? The folk at charismanews.com don't seem to have any doubt. I'm not going to repeat the whole article. Here's just some, to give you a flavour.

I hear the Lord say, "I have chosen you Mr. Trump, and you will be a leader to many, not just of your people, but of the world. You will not just be seen, Mr. Trump, but you will be heard, for I have released a sound in you, and that sound shall be heard around the world. It will ring true and loud, and be like a shock wave in many countries where tyranny has reigned, and they will not be able to keep it out," says the Lord.

"Hearts will rise to meet world problems based on the sound I've released," says the Lord. "Fear will be replaced with faith, doubt with optimism, for tomorrow will be greater than the former days," says the Lord. "My people will hear the sound, and they will believe it.

"America, America, I have called you in this hour," says the Lord. "To stand tall, to stand free, to stand independent and sovereign in the light of My glory. You will lead the world into a new day, My day, My vision, My heart," says the Lord.

"I have chosen Donald Trump to forerun a new model of national leader; yea, even a new form of world leader," says the Lord. "I have anointed him for this time, and his strength is not his own. I have assigned My angels to assist him in the breakthrough, to remove every stumbling block, to extract every demonic levy.

"And My kingdom will advance, My kingdom will wage war, for the battle is Mine," says the Lord!

Leaving aside any ideological points, consideration of which seems to be fairly meaningless, what strikes me is the repeated use of that phrase, 'says the Lord'. This is the terminology used by the prophets of the Old Testament to denote that they are making a solemn pronouncement in God's name, and its repetition in paragraph after paragraph hammers home the same point: we are supposed to draw a parallel between these pronouncements and Isaiah's or Micah's. And the use of 'yea', there's that, too.

Now, the Charismatic Christians I know are seldom so definitive. In fact the way the Spirit seems to 'speak' to them is exactly the same way he seems to speak to the rest of us - by our mulling over the Bible and worship, by vague impressions and images and, very, very occasionally, something more vivid and direct: the difference between them and other brands of Christian is their willingness to talk about it, and perhaps to be more trusting of intuitions and intimations. (As I've got older, I tend to agree with them a bit more.) But they haven't quite abandoned any critical faculty or, indeed, humility; they are reluctant to draw a direct and unmistakable line connecting what they think and what God thinks. I have never met anyone who gives their own utterances the status of Scripture by parroting its forms.

Is this really characteristic of some brands of Charismaticism? Perhaps I'm naive to be so thoroughly shocked that any Christian could use this kind of language. I'm only glad I merely read it on the Internet rather than heard it in person - had that been the case, I would have felt compelled to tear some item of clothing. One shouldn't blithely throw around the word 'blasphemy', but this seems to be an appropriate occasion to use it.