In the Episcopal Church, today celebrates the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.
Cue non-Episcopal audience reaction: z-z-z-z-z-z....
Well, John the Baptist has significance, even today. His greatest claim to fame, as told in the four Christian canonical gospels, is that he baptized Jesus of Nazareth. His infancy narrative is told only in Luke, and it serves as a companion story to the Nativity of Jesus.
In all four gospels, John goes out of his way to proclaim that Jesus is the true prophet. Many biblical scholars think that John was, like Jesus, a charismatic preacher who attracted a following. In the years following the execution of John and Jesus, the surviving movements might have competed against each other, both thinking that their leader was The True Prophet.
It is possible that John did, in fact, defer to Jesus. There is also the possibility that his character is just written that way; the gospel writers wanted to sublimate John to the Man from Nazareth. Hence, we get John's not-worthy-to-untie-his-sandals comments. In other words, the gospel authors wanted to distinguish between A prophet and THE prophet.
How do we recognize authentic prophets? For that matter, how do we reconcile matters when authentic prophets rival each other?
Leaving this question open, I'll close by recommending a short story. Check out T.C. Boyle's "The Silence," a fictional send-up of New Age pretensions. Boyle shows what happens when Present Moment People on a desert retreat encounter morally-neutral representatives of the animal kingdom. I found the story in the Atlantic magazine 2010 Fiction issue. For your convenience, the on-line link is listed.
Choose your prophets carefully!
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/08/the-silence/8040/
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