I hope that social conservative Tory MP Rod Bruinooge hasn’t acquired a swelled head in the past few weeks, after a noted Canadian charismatic Christian declared in public that he was a prophet of the Lord.
Stacey Campbell, a Kelowna BC based Christian speaker and teacher who has a reputation for “prophetic” skill (that is being able to share messages and insights from God), was introducing and presenting a report from the “Canadian Prophetic Council” to the Canada Awakening conference (of charismatic and evangelical Christians) in Toronto sometime between July 22 and 24
[UPDATE: The audio file originally mentioned in this post has been replaced with a video file while you can view here. Times I cite in this post should be roughly the same in the video version.]
Campbell is decrying that Christians are not as involved in changing the world as they should be, which leads her to speculate that the Lord might be raising up new kinds of prophets who work in new ways to share what God is saying.
Starting at 3:31 of the audio file, Stacey Campbell says this:
“….there’s a massively prophetic generation [of Christians] arising, that will prophesy in different forms. They will be prophets and prophetesses like Faytene [Kryskow], like Rod Bruinooge, that will, you know be prophets for justice like the Old Testament prophets were. They will be prophets that like, you know, the Apostle Paul, in the body, out of the body, just revelation and visitations {of the Holy Spirit] and those kind. There’s gonna be all kinds of them. That’s what we wanna see. We want to see all of the things that are in the Bible and everything that Jesus did. The greater works than what Jesus himself did because that’s what He [Jesus] said and that’s what He [Jesus] wants….”
No pressure Mr. Bruinooge. You might be asked by the Lord to heal the sick and raise the dead. And I hope that the Tory whips can track you down when you are needed for a Commons vote and you are having an out-of-body-experience.
I kid here. Mr. Bruinooge has won a lot of respect amongst conservatives for representing the pro-life point of view and trying to bring forward “social conservative” friendly legislation.
Campbell is trying to compliment the MP here, but she is wrong minded.
The comment plays into the dismaying trend amongst Christians to equate what the right wing of the Conservative party advances with the Lord’s will. Rather, the politicians should be held accountable to the sort of politics that Christians discern that the Bible teaches, and not given a pass as a “prophet” automatically. (In the case of most of the conference attenders, Bruinooge would be critiqued from the right.)
Saying that Bruinooge is a “prophet” is misguided, to say the least, because it encourages Campbell’s listeners to think that what Bruinooge may do or say might be coming from “the Lord”. Rather Bruinooge’s actions should be carefully examined to see how “Biblical” they are. Whether you tend to have a progressive or conservative view of the Bible, or don’t believe in it at all, I think, or hope anyway, that Bruinooge would want his work to be carefully examined, so that viewers can judge how “moral” it is.
As I am born again, I would say that Campbell should let Bruinooge do his best, and not set him up for a fall by overstating his influence.
There is a verse in Proverbs which tells the reader not to sit at a high place at a table in case the host embarrasses you by asking you to sit elsewhere. Rather, the Bible says, you should sit at a lower place and be honoured by being asked to come sit closer to the host.
That’s better counsel for Mr. Bruinooge than what Campbell offered, I would suggest.