And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, (Eph 4:11 NKJ)

If Christ gave his Church the ministry gift needed to:

• . Equip the saints for ministry internal and external
• . Edifying of the body of Christ,
• . Build faith, knowledge, and maturity.

Now the prophets today should not think of themselves as an Isaiah or Jeremiah, that dispensation has gone. Today’s prophets do not bring the Word of God; they are subject to the Word. But where are they?

In the 40’s and 50’s the Church, in general, was silent, with the exception of people such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In general, the job was given to several writers that had a voice to societies ill’s, people such as Charles Wright Mills was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962., American-Canadian writer /activist Jane Jacobs, and David Riesman, sociologist, educator, and commentator on American society. These academics were not overtly Christian, but they stood against injustice. Within church circles, Billy Graham was making a name for himself as a voice for the gospel, yet for some reason saw no problem cozying up to evil. His conversation with President Richard Nixon, as they discuss the pending Watergate fiasco is evidence of that fact. In the 60’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. raised a prophetic voice for civil rights, against social injustice, and for peace. In true biblical fashion, society responded by killing the prophet.

Our intellectual class today is very anemic. They’ve withdrawn into the arcane world of academia. Corporate funding of research projects on the one hand, and fundamentalist religious constraints on the other have tied the hands and duck taped the academic mouthpiece. Of course, it’s very hard to financially sustain yourself as a so-called “public intellectual.”

The recent elections are proof that the Church has lost its voice. The writing was on the wall long before with G. W. Bush and the Iraq deception and Obama’s wiliness to bomb innocent civilians abroad and arrest and detain citizens at home without due process.

We need the prophets to speak before it is too late.