Engineers build things. Prophets take things already built
and say what's wrong with those things.
But here's where they differ. Engineers know that things
they build need upgrading, and so they suggest engineering changes. Prophets
point out how the engineering is failing, but they don't suggest using
engineering to correct the situation. They tell people how they should change
their behavior in order to allow the engineering to work better.
Here's an example. Abortion.
Most people see abortion as unfortunate, if not downright
evil. I shared this statement, verified by numerous surveys, with a Democratic
activist, and she reacted with hostility.
Democrats come close to saying that abortion is something to
be desired. They propose an engineering solution to the issue: set up the laws
so that abortions can be procured as easily as possible, even to the point
where the government should support getting them.
I think this strategy is too optimistic about engineering.
If "most people" see abortion as unfortunate, if not downright evil,
adopting a position where the politics actively support it is a gift to
Republicans. It allows them to demonize Democrats as baby killers.
"Prolife" defenders make a similar mistake. They
think that an engineering solution will make abortion less desirable. They make
abortion illegal and make anyone involved in procuring an abortion guilty of
crime. They are correct in believing that most people see abortion as
unfortunate, and maybe downright evil, but they have not taken seriously the
practical results of trying to criminalize it. Their position is a gift to
Democrats. It allows Democrats to demonize them as heartless fanatics.
Prophecy
Prophets are outside the system, and that means prophets
ignore the engineering.
We have become so conditioned to seek engineering solutions
to everything that we have tied ourselves up in laws and lawsuits. We see a
problem and immediately pass a law to fix it. If we have not yet passed such a
law, we can enforce our own version of the law by suing someone. We are
drowning in laws and lawsuits.
Parallels between Abortion and Slavery
Prolife theorists have argued that moral appeal had not been
enough to overturn the racist effects of slavery on our culture--it took
changing the laws, the structures. They
point to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which outlawed
segregated schools as an example.
But it has been seventy years since Brown, and racism
persists. We did make advances in parts of our country--many more people of
color are doing better today than they would have if Brown had never been
issued. But we have re-segregated ourselves by housing preferences, and there
are many areas where racist behaviors persist.
When I first read the prolife argument, it sounded
appealing, because I am a sociologist, and we look for systemic solutions to
systemic problems. But I reflected that there are huge differences between
abortion and slavery. Slavery was an institution that shaped half the country's
laws and institutions, with immense economic consequences. Abortion has an
economic component--prolife activists demonize abortion providers, but abortion
provision is a negligible part of our economy.
There is a reason why we became so optimistic about legal
engineering. We observed how defenders of slavery and its Jim Crow replacements
used laws to achieve bad ends. The engineering of slavery was so successful
that only reverse engineering could free us.
That lesson ignored the power of prophecy. Without prophets
like Dr. Martin Luther King, political opposition to the engineering of Jim
Crow could not have dismantled the evil engineering. What we now call the
"civil rights movement" was prophetic enough to change the
engineering.
Prolife activists have hoped that engineering the Roe v.
Wade decision would reduce the number of people seeking abortions, but that
does not seem to be happening. We need prophets who can acknowledge the tragedy
that abortion often creates but approach people facing the decision to abort
with gospel compassion rather than with threats of violent repression.
Another example: climate change
The world is facing an unprecedented challenge caused by
engineering gone wild. Our engineering is upsetting the balances of nature to
the point where natural disasters are becoming more and more disruptive to the
rest of our engineered world. As hurricanes, floods, and fires become more
destructive, insurance will become so expensive that most people will not be
able to afford it.
The Biden administration attempted engineering solutions to
deal with the problem: subsidize wind and solar production. But artificial
intelligence requires so much electrical power that its demands are swallowing
all the advances we are making in wind and solar. New gas-powered sources of
electric power are being constructed to meet the new demand. Auto manufacturers tell us that bigger and
heavier cars are the preference of car buyers these days. Heavier cars consume
more energy. We want fast food, and so multinational corporations cut down
rainforests to feed cattle to provide that fast food.
We need prophets who will have the courage to say to the
public: We have to stop expecting our every wish to be fulfilled by engineering
magic. To put it in more moralistic terms: if we let every entrepreneur
convince people that they need more and more of whatever the entrepreneurs is
offering, we will destroy our human environment.
The Christian tradition of "mortification" could
moderate these trends. Mortification means that you give up something you would
like because you hope for a greater good. You could say, "I really would
like my fast-food lunch, but for the sake of the greater good I will prepare my
lunch at home and use an old-fashioned lunch bucket." Only prophets can
motivate that kind of behavior.
