Elijah and the False Prophets
Knowing which spiritual group to hang out with, as Dr. Steve Harper says, can make a big difference in one's life and faith. ("Elijah and the false prophets," from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55091 [retrieved June 24, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanaward/6125560766/.
Special to United Methodist Insight \ June 20, 2025
Pondering Psalm 1 has given rise to this post.
As I come into the home stretch of life, I see more clearly than ever that the two crowds described in it are still in play today. I am thinking of this within the context of spiritual formation, and with the help of others who have helped me to see what I am writing about in this post. [1] Using different language than the psalmist, but with a kindred spirit, I believe there are two groups we must choose between in deciding who to hang out with.
The first one is “the blowing smoke” crowd. These are the ones peddling certainty and a “pure church” mentality steeped in narcissism and arrogance. This group is running rampant in the society and church through imperialism. White Not-Christian Nationalism is the group (with multiple expressions like the New Apostolic Reformation) that is off the rails like a runaway train doing great damage. But the “blowing smoke crowd” is also seen in additional expressions of evangelical Christianity and even in denominational Christianity. Wherever it exists, we can smell the smoke of their “our God’s better than your God” firebrand camps. They welcome all who agree with them and stigmatize the rest. Their “one stop shopping” attitude severs connections with other Christians, to say nothing of adherents in other religions, creating a bunkered community with an end-time theology that justifies domination to whatever extent is necessary.
harper ident 2024
The second one is the “we’re doing the best we can” crowd. They move with conviction and the humility that keeps them open, relational, and growing. They live a life of love (rooted in the two great commandments and the fruit of the Spirit) that incarnates Micah 6:8. They are confessional in tone, ready to say, “I am sorry. I was wrong” when they are. They are disciples in the root sense of learners who are ever-becoming in the context of infinite Mystery. They eschew an “arrival” mentality, choosing instead to say with Paul that they are pressing on (Philippians 3:12-14). They follow the cosmic Christ “who is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11) and who is making “all alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). In the spirit of St. Francis, they pray to be instruments of God’s peace.
These two groups do not strictly correspond to the two the psalmist likely had in mind. But they are contemporary expressions of them. We choose which one to hang out with today, as then. And as the psalmist noted, we typically begin our journey with the “ blowing smoke crowd” (we crave certainty) and only later seek to be replanted with the “doing the best we can crowd.” But as the psalmist goes on to say, it is in the second crowd where our lives bear the fruit God intends for us.
[1] There’s no way to list them all. But I would reference Tripp Fuller and Jim Palmer as two of the renegades who keep me thinking about this. I also benefit from Alan Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Miguel De La Torre, Lisa Sharon Harper, Thomas Oord, Michael Beck and Rob Hutchinson, to name a few. Others have certainly been Rachel Held Evans, Diana Butler-Bass, Barbara Brown Taylor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Jacqui Lewis, Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr, Red Letter Christians, and Walter Brueggemann.