On the Separation of Powers and Prophecy

James Luther Adams (1901-1994), the distinguished Unitarian minister and theologian, wrote an essay on the "Theological Bases of Social Action" that provides a valuable insight into the nature of biblical prophecy:

The prophets were "political theologians" concerned with the destiny and the ethical significance of the state. They viewed the power of God (law) – as it operated through social and political institutions and in international relations – as an occasion for the expression of human freedom. . . .

The prophets could not have emerged had they not been able to appeal directly to the people. In this fact we may see implicit a principle of freedom that is indispensable for any Judeo-Christian theology of social action. The lines of political communication and activity were not held in monopoly by the monarchy. Unlike the "prophets" of surrounding countries, the Hebrew prophets were not an adjunct of the monarchy. . . . Within the social stratification of their society, they were able to be the spokesmen to and for the poor and oppressed. In their tradition there was a separation between charismatic and traditional authority, which left the way open for prophetic criticism. In other words, the freedom of the prophet presupposed a separation of powers that in a narrow way bears comparison to the modern ideal of freedom of the press. This separation of powers, which permitted the liberty of prophecy, was related to the fact that the covenant between God and the People was not through the monarch; the covenants between God and the People and between God and the royal house were parallel covenants, and both were subject to prophetic criticism. The divine kingship was limited by this separation of powers. The will of God could be discussed by the prophets without license from the government; it could even be expressed through the mouth of the prophet against the monarchy.

Adams' insights make it fairly easy to identify a major factor that led to the decline of the Southern Baptist Convention.  In 1990, when the architects of the SBC takeover movement fired the editors of Baptist Press and replaced them with "adjuncts" of their oligarchy, they extinguished the "separation of powers" that made it possible for prophets to "appeal directly to the people."  Baptists with a prophetic spirit left the Convention and began forming the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that same year.

Within the SBC an equivalent to a "free press" did not reappear until the advent of the blogosphere made it possible for a new generation of prophetic minded Southern Baptists like Wade Burleson to appeal directly to the people again.    Burleson's weblog, more than anything else, has been providing an exhortatory chronicle of the painfully slow demise of the authoritarian oligarchy that took over the Southern Baptist Convention.